AI is changing how small online sellers decide what to make

TL;DR

Small e-commerce sellers are turning to AI to identify which products their customers most want. The article follows Mike McClary, whose outdoor brand stopped selling the Guardian LTE Flashlight in 2017, yet customers continued requesting it years later. The story illustrates how AI-powered demand analysis can help small sellers make smarter product decisions based on data rather than intuition alone.

• •Small sellers now use AI to predict product demand from customer signals and feedback
• •Real example: discontinued product continued getting customer requests—data analysis could have revealed this pattern
• •Broader shift from intuition-driven to data-driven product strategy in small e-commerce

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.