The core pain your Shopify store solves for customers

I've been going through my market research for my app so I can work on the copywriting and plan out my Q3 and Q4 features.

One part is boiling down how the app helps into a single core pain. It's the main problem that it solves for merchants.

Your store should also have a core pain it solves.

Why does it exist? How does it benefit your customers? Or the harsher one, why should your customers care?

Your core pain might be:

1. I can't find high-quality tea where the growers are paid a living wage.
2. My collectible horse toys are getting harder to find and some are no longer manufactured.
3. I want to avoid snacking on unhealthy junk.
4. Or my app's core pain: I don't know who my most loyal customers are or how to keep them.

Notice how they are written in your customer's voice. Lots of "I/My" words just like if you were talking with a customer.

The core pain might hint at what you might sell, but don't be too narrow-focused. Each core pain can be solved in a near-infinite number of ways.

Using unhealthy junk example, you might help customers solve the problem by:

• sell healthy snacks.
• sell a cookbook that includes how to make healthy snacks.
• write articles on snacking from a psychological view.
• offer a pantry de-cluttering service.

Even the tea example hints at a store selling tea but if you think broadly, you can see a variety of different products and services:

• Tours in tea-growing regions and introductions to tea growers to purchase directly.
• Industry statistics on tea growing, farmers, and markets.
• Directory and contact information of tea growers.
• Two-way market connecting tea growers with customers directly.
• Co-op of other tea consumers who buy in bulk at a fair price and divide the tea among themselves.
• and of course, selling actual high-quality tea.

Having a clear core pain means a lot of business options open up for you. Even if you sell the thing they are looking for (e.g. healthy snacks, tea) you can take all of the other ideas and they become marketing strategies.

Then if you ever need to change what your business sells, like if a supplier cuts you off from product, you already have a ton of ideas to shift your business to. Since those all help solve the same core problem, many customers will still be interested in the new thing and you won't have to start from the beginning.

Start by thinking about what the core pain your business solves for customers. It might be complex, it might be broad, it might require some hard thinking. But the value from getting that foundation started can pay-off.

Eric Davis