Hook: Picking the right products is the single biggest lever for an ecommerce business—more than design, more than fancy frameworks. For technical founders and indie hackers, that means combining product-market intuition with fast, data-driven experiments and performant storefronts that convert.
Why product selection matters for builders
A great product reduces friction across the whole stack: fewer returns, better LTV, easier marketing, and predictable inventory flows. As a developer or founder you can’t rely on “nice UX” alone—your product choice needs to align with customer demand, margins, and the systems you build to scale.
If you want a quick reference on categories and examples, see the practical guide at https://prateeksha.com/blog/best-products-to-sell-on-shopify or visit the main site at https://prateeksha.com for services and case studies.
What sells well in 2024 (high-level categories)
These product groups are repeatedly showing traction and make sense for tech-led stores:
- Health & wellness: massage guns, resistance bands, supplements with clear positioning.
- Home & remote-work gear: ergonomic stands, webcam lights, standing desk converters.
- Eco-friendly swaps: reusable kitchen items, compostable products, bamboo goods.
- Pet tech & accessories: smart feeders, wearable trackers, personalized items.
- Digital & SaaS-adjacent products: ebooks, templates, online courses, subscription content.
- Print-on-demand & custom goods: niche designs with tight marketing funnels.
Each of these can work in different business models: inventory-based, dropshipping, print-on-demand (POD), or purely digital.
A pragmatic validation loop for engineers
Technical founders should validate before building a full storefront. Use a short loop that maps to the way you build software:
- Hypothesis: define target customer and the value proposition in one sentence.
- Lightweight experiment: landing page + pre-order or email capture (use simple serverless hosting or a static site).
- Traffic test: run small paid campaigns or organic tests on TikTok/Reddit to measure CTR and conversion.
- Iterate: if conversion > benchmark (e.g., 2–4%), scale; otherwise, pivot.
Implementing this is quick with serverless forms, simple Stripe checkout, and a tracking pixel. You’ll want to instrument everything: UTM tags, event tracking, and conversion funnels.
Implementation tips for technical teams
Make product selection practical by building systems that reduce friction and maximize insight:
- Use Shopify Storefront API or Hydrogen for a headless, fast storefront that you control for experiments.
- Model product attributes with metafields early (size, color, sustainability tags) to make filtering/search performant.
- Server-render or use SSR caching for product pages to improve SEO and initial paint times.
- Optimize images and serve via a CDN (WebP with responsive sizes).
- Add webhooks for inventory and order events so backend services can react in real time.
- Implement A/B testing for product pages (price, hero copy, images) and measure with real revenue attribution.
These are practical ways to keep the product flexible while building a robust, maintainable stack.
Pricing, margins, and logistics (short checklist)
Developers often neglect the economics. Before you commit:
- Calculate landed cost = product cost + shipping + Shopify fees + ad spend.
- Target at least 30–50% gross margin for physical goods; digital can be 70%+.
- Account for shipping times and returns—slow deliveries kill conversions and retention.
- For dropshipping, vet suppliers for reliability and sample products before listing.
Automate margin checks into your product import workflow: tag products that fall below target margins so they don’t go live.
Launch & scale: technical best practices
When you start selling, focus on speed and repeatability:
- Treat product launches like feature releases: feature flag the new SKUs and roll them out.
- Use analytics to identify best-selling SKUs and automate email flows for upsells.
- Implement a subscription option or replenishment reminders for consumables to increase LTV.
- Cache product recommendations and pre-compute frequently-used queries to reduce latency.
If you want inspiration for UI patterns, SEO strategies, and conversion-focused templates, read the articles at https://prateeksha.com/blog and check the dedicated product guide at https://prateeksha.com/blog/best-products-to-sell-on-shopify.
Conclusion: combine product intuition with engineering rigor
Picking the right product is a mix of market sense and rapid technical iteration. As a developer or founder, your advantage is the ability to test, measure, and automate—so use it. Start with a narrow hypothesis, instrument every step, and optimize both the product and the systems around it. Build fast, validate faster, and scale what the data rewards.
Top comments (0)