Product selection criteria: margin, shipability, repeat
A product idea can feel exciting and still be a business that never makes money. The difference is whether it scores on a few hard criteria before you commit.
Run every candidate through a scoring checklist, contribution margin, shipping economics, repeat-purchase potential, seasonality, and competition. Pick with numbers, not vibes.
Fastest path: one prompt, end to end
🤖 AI prompt — paste into ChatGPT / Claude
You are a product-selection analyst. Score only with numbers I provide or that you can source. Do not guess prices, weights, or demand.
Candidate products: [list 3-5 ideas]
What I can find per candidate: est. cost, likely retail price, weight/size, is it consumable/refillable
Do this:
1. Score each candidate 1-5 on: contribution margin potential (retail minus unit cost minus fees), shipping economics (small/light = good, big/heavy/fragile = bad), repeat-purchase potential (consumable or one-and-done), seasonality (year-round vs spike), competition intensity.
2. Show your math for margin and flag any figure you had to estimate, then ask me to confirm it.
3. Rank the candidates and explain the top pick's trade-offs.
4. Warn me about any candidate that scores high on excitement but low on margin or shippability.
If you can't get a real cost, weight, or price, leave it blank and ask me, do not invent it.
Output: scored table (5 criteria) + ranking + the top pick's trade-offs + a caution.
Or do it in 5 steps
- Score contribution margin first. Retail price minus unit cost minus platform/payment fees. If there's no healthy margin per unit, no amount of volume fixes it, this is the criterion that kills more good-looking ideas than any other.
- Check shipping economics. Small, light, durable ships cheaply and survives transit; big, heavy, or fragile eats your margin in freight and breakage. A great product that costs $18 to ship is often a worse business than a boring one that costs $3.
- Favor repeat-purchase potential. Consumables and refillables (coffee, supplements, skincare) let one won customer buy for years; one-and-done items (a mattress) mean you're always paying to acquire again. Repeat potential is what makes the CAC math work later.
- Sanity-check seasonality and competition. Year-round demand beats a December spike you can't smooth; and a niche with a few beatable players beats one owned by a giant. Score both so you're not blindsided after you've committed.
- Pair it with your product strategy. These criteria filter candidates; how you choose a direction in the first place lives in the pick-a-product note, read them together, this is the scorecard, that's the strategy.
Worked example (labeled): three candidates, scored 1-5.
Artisan candles: margin 4, shipping 2 (fragile, heavy wax), repeat 4, seasonality 3, competition 2. Specialty coffee: margin 3, shipping 4, repeat 5, seasonality 5, competition 3. A designer mirror: margin 5, shipping 1 (huge, breakable), repeat 1.
The mirror's fat margin is a trap, freight, breakage, and zero repeat sink it. Coffee's boring-looking scores make it the real business.
Score before you commit, and let margin and repeat outvote excitement; the exciting product that can't ship or reorder is a hobby, not a business.