Saturated market - how to differentiate?
Hi all,
long time lurker but first time posting. I have been thinking about what project to get started with and I hope to get some opinions/feedback on a different path when it comes to releasing Shopify apps but this should be valid for any saturated market place out there (think WP plugins, etc).
Shopify app store has more than 1,200 apps listed and the way I see it there are two main types of apps:
- apps focusing on a very specific area but none the less useful - think FOMO (https://www.indiehackers.com/product/fomo)
- mature apps that have been extended to work with Shopify and to address ecommerce specific needs - think Klaviyio (www.klaviyo.com)
Once you start installing these apps on your Shopify store it gets:
- expensive (you can easily pay $300-$500 per month as you need to install multiple apps)
- because you installed multiple apps - some you can manage through Shopify Admin while others you need to log in separately. It becomes very complex to manage.
- All the data that might be useful to be combined is stored in different silos and if you want to do any serious data analysis it becomes complex again.
- As many of the tools are multi-purpose (work on SaaS as well as ecommerce) you quickly realize you're using maybe 20% of the app functionality as the rest is not required for ecommerce.
I'm considering to build 20% of functionality from multiple apps and create a toolkit so by installing/signing up for one app you get the basic functionalities that solve most of your problems. Advantages are:
- this will be less expensive
- easier to manage
- we can use the data to provide insights
What are your thoughts on this approach?
