Guides for ecommerce competitor research
Winning productsHow to find winning products
A repeatable method for finding products that already sell, using store data, ad libraries and best-seller signals, plus the checks that stop you chasing a trend that has already peaked.
Product research
Finding winning products, best sellers and validating them before you spend.
Best sellersHow to find a store's best sellers
Four ways to find the products a store sells most, from the best-selling sort on Shopify collections to product feeds, reviews and ads, and how to read each signal without fooling yourself.
Winning productsProduct validation checklist before you test ads
Before you spend on ads, run a product through a short checklist covering demand, competition, margin, offer and creative. It catches most bad bets for the cost of an afternoon.
Competitor stores
Researching any store, one-product stores and what they sell.
One-product storesHow to find one-product stores
One-product stores show you, in the clearest way possible, what a single product can sell. Here is how to find them by hand and with filters, and how to judge which ones are worth studying.
Competitor researchHow to research a competitor's Shopify store
Everything you can learn about a competitor's Shopify store from public pages: theme, apps, pixels, catalogue, best sellers, ads, traffic and estimated sales, and how to read it all.
Ad research
Reading ad libraries, ad longevity and reach across Meta and TikTok.
AdsHow to read ad longevity and reach
How long an ad has run and how many people it reached are the two most useful numbers in any ad library. Here is what they really tell you, where they mislead, and how to read them together.
AdsHow to use an ad library for product research
Public ad libraries show what stores are paying to promote right now. Here is a repeatable method for turning Meta, TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat ads into a shortlist of products worth testing.
Sales and traffic
Estimating store sales, tracking orders and sizing a niche by country.
Niche researchHow to research a niche across countries
A niche that is crowded in one country can be wide open in another. Here is a step by step method for comparing stores, traffic, ads, prices and shipping across markets before you expand.
Sales estimatesHow to estimate any store's sales
A transparent method for estimating an online store's monthly orders and revenue from public data, with a worked example and the main reasons an estimate can be off.
Sales trackingHow to track competitor sales daily
A practical method for watching what a competitor sells each day, by hand with catalogue snapshots or automatically with a sales tracker, and how to read the results without overreacting.
Themes and apps
Which themes, apps and tools top stores run, and how to choose yours.
ThemesHow to pick a Shopify theme by looking at top stores
The fastest way to choose a theme is to see which ones work for stores like yours. Here is how to find out what theme any store uses and how to compare the ones top stores in your niche run.
Shopify appsWhich Shopify apps top stores use, and how to find out
Successful stores lean on the same handful of app categories. Here is what each category does, how to spot an app in a store's page source, and how to turn that into a short list for your own store.
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