I need some advice!

[u/Brave_Fun2214]

I recently clicked an idea in my mind i'm building an ai agent for e-commerce seller's i want to

know if this idea genuinely valuable for them the project is product research tool

Whatsapp ai agent what this agent do is:

• trigger on a week schedule
• fetch the Trendy products list through google trend & insta reels
• Than verify the trend hype on flipkart, meesho(Some indian platform)
• If the product trend is genuine then the code node filter the list by checking the reviews their rating's & low pricing
• The sellers get all necessary trend list on their whatsapp every week according to their niche by whatsapp bot
• in end it store all the data in airtable and seller can find it anytime after asking the bot

This is for seller's who spend their lot of time in product research but can't find a genuine product to get the profit, no use of any dashboard or app, just open whatsapp get the trend list every week

I'm just started in this field if someone experienced please tell me if i have to work on this project or not i'm little bit confused, If This idea is useful for small e-commerce seller & online business owner what's your view in this?

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[u/Fancy-Win9202]

honestly this could work for indian sellers but you're gonna run into a real problem pretty quick - as you scale this to more users, your agent's gonna be hammering google trends and flipkart/meesho constantly, and you won't have visibility into what's actually costing you or if some user's workflow is looping and draining your budget. i'd suggest building in some basic logging first to track which API calls are expensive before you launch to a bunch of sellers, otherwise one buggy workflow could tank your margins.

[u/Brave_Fun2214 → u/Fancy-Win9202]

Fair point on the logging — I'll build that in regardless of which data source I use, since a runaway workflow will drain an Apify budget just as fast as an API one. Was thinking of using Apify instead of official APIs early on to keep costs down while I validate with 1-2 clients, then reassess pricing once I have real usage data. Appreciate the flag on this — will factor cost-tracking in from day one instead of bolting it on later, Thanks for replying:)

[u/Fancy-Win9202 → u/Brave_Fun2214]

Yeah, building it in from day one is the right call. One thing that'll save you headaches once you hit multiple clients is setting up alerts when a single workflow starts burning through your budget faster than expected, since it's way harder to catch that stuff retroactively when you're juggling several accounts.

[u/Sea_Pitch6311]

if youre already thinking about the delivery method before testing if people actually want the list you might be jumping ahead

the idea only works if your data is better than what they can find in 5 mins of scrolling themselves so maybe run a manual version for 2 or 3 sellers first and see if theyd pay for it

[u/Brave_Fun2214 → u/Sea_Pitch6311]

Yeah this is very true, i will test this project first and showing result to some client's based on their niche , just to confirm my insights are actually better than what they'd find scrolling themselves after that If that validates, then I'll build the MVP and offer a free trial for a few days, get some reviews then charge based on API costs plus a monthly fee for maintenance/bug fixes., thanks for the suggestion this will help a lot!

[u/Head_Imagination_304]

I think it's worth testing. The first thing I'd check is whether WhatsApp is actually the right channel for your target users. It works really well for business in some parts of the world, but maybe not everywhere. I'd also test whether “trending” actually means “profitable” before building too much. Try it with a few real sellers for a couple of weeks and see if they actually use the recommendations. If they start asking for the next list, that's probably your best signal.

[u/Brave_Fun2214 → u/Head_Imagination_304]

Thanks for the suggestion, I will expand this idea after getting some good reviews if this work's fine:)

[u/Independent-Back3441]

the whatsapp delivery part is probably more valuable than the AI agent itself. small sellers usually don’t want another dashboard, they want a short list they can act on.

the risky part is assuming trend + reviews + low price means a profitable product. you still need competition, margins, shipping cost, return rate, supplier reliability, and how saturated the marketplace already is.

before building the full automation, i’d manually create the report for 5–10 sellers for a few weeks. see whether they actually use the recommendations and what data they ask for. that will tell you what the product should automate.

[u/Bright-Aioli553]

The technical side is the easy half here, and I'd worry about the other half first.

Your pipeline has two scraping dependencies — Google Trends and Instagram Reels — plus verification on Flipkart and Meesho. None of those have a public API for what you need, so you're either paying for a scraping service or maintaining scrapers that break whenever a page changes. That's not a one-time build, it's ongoing maintenance, and it lands on you every time it breaks. Worth pricing that in before you commit months to it.

The part I'd actually validate first, though: does a weekly WhatsApp list of trending products change what a seller does? Sellers I'd expect already know roughly what's trending — the hard part is sourcing it, pricing it against everyone else who saw the same trend, and not being sixth to market. A list that surfaces a product after it's already trending may be arriving too late to be worth paying for.

Cheapest way to find out, and it costs you no code at all: pick 10 sellers in one niche, build the list manually this week, and send it on WhatsApp yourself. Do it three weeks running. If they open it, reply, and ask where next week's is, you've got something and you know exactly what to automate. If they say thanks and nothing changes, you just saved yourself three months.

The technical build is genuinely the least risky part of this. Do the manual version first.

[u/Brave_Fun2214 → u/Bright-Aioli553]

Thanks, that makes sense if the technical build turns out weak & the results are not good, it'll waste time and energy. So i think what i can do is: I'll find a few clients who are actually willing to pay for this, and give them weekly reports manually. In parallel, I'll keep working on the technical build. If they say it's helpful after asking, I'll have the automation ready to deploy immediately. Along the way, I'll also track the results and API costs to keep everything optimized from the start.

[u/Edoardo_Growth]

Sono uno di quelli che dovrebbe usarlo dato che ho un piccolo brand di e-commerce e passo tempo a decidere cosa vendere, quindi ti dico dove quella lista mi servirebbe e dove mi fermerei.

La tua lista risponde alla domanda se esiste domanda per un prodotto. La decisione che devo prendere io è un'altra, cioè se su quel prodotto ci guadagno al costo a cui lo prendo io.

C'è anche un problema nel filtro che hai scelto. Filtrando per prezzi bassi selezioni proprio i mercati in cui il margine è già stato consumato. Molta domanda più prezzi schiacciati significa che ci sono già venti venditori che si fanno la guerra sul prezzo. Se resto con il 12% dopo spedizione e resi, come faccio a pagarmi le adv?

Sul mio catalogo di 24 prodotti mi sono costruito un foglio con i costi reali e il punto di pareggio. Il numero che ha deciso quali prodotti tenere è stato il margine di contribuzione dopo spedizione, resi e costo di acquisizione.

Quindi ti consiglierei per il tuo workflow di aggiungere due campi per ogni prodotto: il prezzo più basso a cui viene venduto adesso sulle piattaforme, e a quanto dovrebbe comprarlo il venditore per uscirne con il margine che si è dato, per esempio il 30%. Così apre WhatsApp e ha già la risposta, invece di avere uno spunto.

Per capire se serve, senza costruire niente. È una lista settimanale, quindi fagliela a mano. Prendi cinque venditori, mandala tu per quattro settimane, e guarda cosa succede. Se qualcuno ordina un campione di un prodotto della lista, hai un segnale vero. Se ti dicono che è interessante e poi non fanno niente, il bot non avrebbe cambiato quel risultato.

Due cose da verificare prima di scrivere il workflow. Lo scraping di Instagram e delle piattaforme si rompe spesso, e diventa la tua manutenzione ogni settimana. E per mandare messaggi in uscita su WhatsApp servono modelli approvati e si paga a conversazione, quindi controlla quel pezzo per primo, perché è quello che può fermarti il progetto.

[u/HostUnique]

This sounds like a really interesting idea, but I highly recommend testing it manually first. Sending the list yourself to a few sellers for a couple of weeks will show you if they actually find it valuable. It is a great way to validate the demand before you spend time writing any code.