The Shop You Keep Meaning to Start

Why small shops stall

Here's what usually happens. Someone has an idea and makes a few products.

The jobs, written down

Let's do what any business does and write the jobs down. For a small online shop, they fall into five groups:

• Research: finding products worth selling, spotting trends, checking competitors.
• Making or sourcing: making the products yourself, or finding a supplier who does.
• Listing: setting up the store, writing product pages, taking photos, setting prices.
• Selling: telling people about the shop, reaching out to buyers and stockists.

What a bot does

A Grok Bot is an AI helper you give a job to. You describe the job in plain words, connect it to the apps it needs, like your email or your store, and it does the work and reports back.

The habit that keeps it safe

Every book in this series comes back to one rule, and this one's no different.

Meet the example shop

To keep things concrete, we'll follow one made-up shop through the book. It's not anyone real.

A word on platforms

I'll mention a few real platforms in this book, like Shopify for stores and Alibaba for suppliers. They're examples, not recommendations.

What this book won't do

It won't promise income. It won't give you a list of products guaranteed to sell.

How the book is laid out

We'll go roughly in the order a shop comes together.

A worked example: a week at Shelf Life, before the bots

Here's a typical week at Shelf Life before any bots. It's made up, but it's close to what a lot of small shop owners describe.

A prompt to start your list

Answer the questions honestly. The skipped jobs are often the best place to start.

What a bot team costs in time

People sometimes ask whether setting up bots is worth the effort. Here's the honest answer.

A worked example: the first month, week by week

Here's how Shelf Life's first month with bots went, as a realistic pace.

Questions people ask

Do I need a big shop for this to be worth it? No.