Evaluate ecom products with Claude

What you'll make

A structured evaluation of 3–5 potential products to test on Shopify, with demand signals, margin estimates and risk flags for each — done before you spend a cent on ads or inventory.

What you need

• A Claude account
• A list of 3–5 products you're considering (or a category you want to explore)
• Real numbers where you have them: supplier cost, shipping cost, selling price
• 30 minutes

Steps

1. Give Claude the products and ask it to evaluate demand:

I'm considering selling these products on a Shopify store: [list products with brief descriptions]. For each one, tell me:
1. What demand signals exist (search trends, seasonal patterns, audience size)
2. Who the typical buyer is
3. Whether this is a one-time purchase or repeat purchase
4. One reason it might fail

Don't give me exact sales numbers — reason from what you know about buyer behaviour and ecom trends.

2. For each product that looks promising, ask Claude to estimate margins:

For [product name], my supplier cost is [cost], estimated shipping is [shipping], and I'd sell it for [price]. Payment processing is about 3% + 30p per transaction. Calculate:
1. Gross margin per order in absolute money and as a percentage
2. How much ad spend per order I can afford at break-even
3. Whether this margin is healthy enough to survive a few rounds of ad testing

If I haven't given you a number for something, say so — don't guess.

3. Ask Claude to flag the risks you might be missing:

For each product I'm considering, list the top 3 risks I might not be thinking about. Consider: supplier reliability, shipping times, return rates, ad policy restrictions (especially on Facebook and TikTok), competition from Amazon, and seasonality.

4. Make your decision. Pick one product to test first — ideally the one with the healthiest margin, the fewest red flags, and demand that isn't purely seasonal.

Check your result

• You have a margin calculation for each product with real numbers, not guesses
• You know the ad spend per order you can afford at break-even
• You've identified at least one risk per product that you hadn't thought of before
• You've picked one product to test first and can explain why

If every product has thin margins (under 20% after ad spend), don't ask Claude to "find better products" — it can't see live supplier prices. Go back to your supplier, negotiate or find a different product with a higher selling price or lower cost.