Online business and marketing insights from what's working out there, researched and handed to you every Thursday.
đź›’ Your future customers are asking ChatGPT
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Most of us were told the same thing at the start. Don’t go too niche, you’ll cut down your market. Sell to more people and you’ll get more sales. Sounds logical. But real life is starting to look different, maybe a lot. Shopify surveyed 18,000 shoppers across nine countries for its holiday report, and 65% said they’re likely to use AI for at least one shopping task this season. That’s not Google, not scrolling Amazon for an hour. They just describe what they need to ChatGPT or whatever they use, and let it go find things. And the stores it finds are not always the big ones. There’s a brand called Cottonique that makes clothing for people with sensitive skin. Their sales coming from AI went up 276% in one year. Thing is, people with eczema don’t search for “hypoallergenic clothing.” They type stuff like “shirts that don’t make my skin itch.” Old search wasn’t great at that kind of thing, at least from what I’ve seen. AI is a lot better at it, and it sends those people straight to the brand that solves that exact problem. So the small, specific store that sold to “too few people” is now the easy one to recommend. The store that sells everything to everyone? Unless it’s already a big name, it’s probably going to have a harder time standing out. Thing is, AI can only repeat what you already said about yourself. If your product page just says “high quality, great price,” that’s all it has to work with. Which is nothing, really. I’m not saying rebuild your whole store this weekend. Not 100 percent sure how fast this moves either, and Shopify obviously wants it to sound big (it’s their blog, after all). But if you’re still deciding what to sell or who it’s for, this is a pretty good reason to pick one person and one problem and go deep on it. Write it down the way your customer would say it. Not the way a marketer would. Talk soon, Minosh One more thing: if you’re on Shopify or thinking about it, Agentic Storefronts is what puts your products inside ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI tools, so say someone types “a gift for my dad who says he doesn’t need anything,” your store can actually be one of the answers. Affiliate link above. Costs you nothing extra, helps keep this newsletter free. |
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Online business and marketing insights from what's working out there, researched and handed to you every Thursday.
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