Shopify Set-Up Guide #2: Good Entrepreneurs Copy. Great Entrepreneurs Steal.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba410035bfd55858dc7c2_Product.png)
- Week #1: Business Model
- Week #2: Target Audience & Products (you're here now)
- Week #3: DTC Branding
- Week #4: Import Products & Social Proof
- Week #5: Store Design
- Week #6: Best Shopify Apps
I still don’t have a product to sell. But I will change this today.
Last time I noticed that there seems to be a demand for “customizable” products.
Digging a bit deeper I also noticed that there seems to be a demand for lifestyle water bottles.
On Exploding Topics I found this:
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba427cd6e5ebea2f8c1ff_YS9I4LbJK7-KFolpiR0plK4cSQFTb-aK1qMIIMoQ7697YZ4X9IDzblQBpbpZujduXNHi8ezFi89vPzSr6Npbl7JfzjcaCEH4wVcJgoS6yKEJhJgrU_bmI3GwcB0o-Pz9K-fK3_y7.png)
I also found a brand called “Kinto”. They are described as a “Japanese lifestyle brand specializing in home and kitchen accessories.”
Could be anything. So I googled it.
But I used a small trick here.
I entered the search term “Kinto” in Google, but I didn’t press enter. I wanted to see Google’s autocomplete suggestions because they show me what other people are searching for.
And to my surprise, this appeared:
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba427d0a5d947d83be9ab_cfVF9ILXdJAnY4JeU_P0XLHej00XErg3g5m_oC0-8h7SKYvDe-HxzKWsuRm-JUtse6xCEx04_HwUCqXeXU8AV1Tha9xo95kcHEaEgrX1McXsiK4tK7OHXW5utHmvU7YGxpXe-9q_.png)
Many of these terms are directly related to bottles/mugs.
So I visited both online stores.
Luckily, they run on Shopify. This gives me the opportunity to add: /collections/all?sort_by=best-selling to their urls and it will show me their best-selling products.
Just as expected, their best-selling products are bottles.
Am I onto something here? Let’s see…
Before I can actually answer this question, I need to ask myself a different question:
Why are people using these products?
Hydrojug seems to have found their target audience in young women who love to stay fit and healthy. How can I tell? Well, I checked out the tagged images on their Instagram account.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba42f8b210259e46ae134_UVdxoN_vKYHv3mL3YiOWn48NWnC_GADiCjvojfbn04nyGV7YcFvDcmTCBl831GtfOz6fW2N4jtBDA-eVVk_wJLlBwBBZMpSlFbXLQ3m5onhZp43331TBMaBcpUEc4MoGwD0sTLSC.png)
Kinto’s target audience is not so easy to detect. Lots of different types of people love their products.
But one thing combines them all. They have a sense of simplistic aesthetic.
This makes one thing very clear to me: the product is only a small part of everything. It’s the niche and target audience that makes the real difference.
So, audience first.
Which lead me to an idea:
Why not sell products to the same audience as Hydrojug does? Hydrojug invested a lot of research into this and it seems to work.
But I don’t want to compete with them. Their product is great and they have very loyal customers.
What I can do is to find a complementary or matching product to theirs. And then, later in the marketing, all I need to do is to target Hydrojug’s audience.
I have no idea if this actually works out but it’s worth a shot.
To get an idea if this can actually work out, I asked some of Hydrojug’s customers via Instagram what made them buy their product:
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba42ee5cd3b41c1112092_e7PeduNLmnN8xyBg10l-hbfmcwCWzBXWLLyPhvqkmbFOf8WFd6hTqvm_Sx34LXUUtn0Ipvq3pYl7Fr9ulxnkmJGLptcfICzmjMNSr0lHShvkf9iYVypCJ1xJpCUGEufNi12O1glu.png)
To me, the most interesting things from her message are “the strap to carry, it makes it easy” and “they also have metal ones”.
The strap is obvious. It’s a clear benefit. But what’s so special about the metal one?
So I asked her…
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba4321494d740ba4c78af_tFJm1coIOmczaEtPjwgcsHKIE1yRj3rOvmJkls7oVl8pKMTJp6ll1PCRYWPgskgHJW3nWe8lfz3RxV-DQPKyrG1TrUQXTmmPcMZ7EWU5ssE-NmCUsbkj5mQsGiDYbbKyRmC41NU2.png)
Now that makes sense.
Honestly, I struggled to proceed from here.
So I looked at what I have here…
A lifestyle water bottle that is mostly used by young women who love going to the gym. The product also comes with a strap because it’s heavy if it’s filled with water. And because it’s used in the gym - where it gets hot - it keeps the water cool for a very long time.
Lifestyle product + clear target audience + clear benefits = great product.
This will be the framework for my product.
I still felt a bit “lost” and didn’t know where to go from here. So I went over to Ecomhunt again and browsed through tons of products.
The only product that I felt could meet the standards from my framework was a crossbody phone lanyard.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5ffc7412b3a51afe672e9657/61fba4348b210266246ae8a3_c0LDTFQk25l2226TYwcr-PFKyULR8Us179AEg_AG8AdcsukFUrc8cA-_0SKhHqaaJK_f_7NxqjiGhtsLi_WaVKb1fsAwS3CWors7wdza6xRxS_8nooDTo42Y15fE4iMXeK1IVAYH.png)
Problem here: I felt it’s a bit saturated.
On the other hand… unless it’s a real invention, nothing is really new and everything can be considered to be saturated.
Since I want to focus on the target audience and not necessarily on the product itself, I decided to start with this product.
I can still make changes along the journey (if required).
To sum it up for today’s store building journey:
I will sell crossbody phone lanyards to young women who love to be in the gym.
I'm excited to see how this will turn out in the end.