Using Disposable Emails for a Demo

We have a demo environment in Auctibles, the dynamic prices and sales events platform.

Demo Compared to Production

The demo environment has:

1. Emulated shipping that takes 10 minutes in each direction.
2. Emulated payment - you click the Pay Now button to pay, and the payment is immediately executed.

Remove Friction in the Demo

Asking people to enter their email for signup will be a central friction point in the demo. To test the demo's functionality, our customer must create several users in our demo environment.

Users for testing:

1. One seller user
2. Multiple buyer users
3. Optionally team member users - as a seller can operate a team

The effort to create multiple emails might cause our customers to drop.

Disposable Emails

Several providers supply temporary disposable emails that you can use for a few days. So, we decided to allow our customers to use disposable emails in the demo environment.

So now our signup page has a button to show the customer how to get a disposable email:

This opens a modal with the list of disposable email providers:

Why Not Allow Disposable Emails in the Production

At the risk of explaining the obvious, a seller or buyer must use the platform for several days to complete the purchase. The seller has to create a sales event, which will be held days before the event.

After the event, the buyer has to pay and receive the item via delivery. Subsequently, according to consumer protection laws, the buyer is allowed to return the item within 14 days.

These disposable emails are usable only for a few days, so they cannot be practically used in production.

Cyber Risks

Disposable emails create a cyber risk. It is easy for malicious actors to create disposable emails.

This is why E-Commerce and SAAS websites often prevent users from using disposable emails.