A Shopify merchant selling handmade pottery ships 500 orders per month. Her shipping rules are complex: free shipping over $75, flat $8 rate for small items, calculated rates for heavy pieces, and no shipping to Hawaii for ceramics (breakage risk). She changes a rule to offer free shipping over $50 for a holiday promotion. The next day, a customer in Alaska orders a $51 item. Shipping costs $45. She just lost $37 on that order because she didn't think through the edge case.
Shopify's shipping settings are powerful but dangerous. Merchants configure carrier-calculated rates, flat rates, free shipping thresholds, weight-based rules, and location exclusions — then have no way to test how they interact before going live. The only way to test is to create fake orders, which is tedious and doesn't cover edge cases. One misconfigured rule can cost hundreds or thousands in unexpected shipping subsidies.
ShipStation, Shippo, and Easyship focus on label printing and rate shopping, not shipping rule configuration. Shopify's native tools let you set rules but not simulate them. The opportunity is a shipping rule simulator at $19-39/mo for Shopify merchants: import your current shipping configuration, simulate orders with different products, weights, locations, and cart values, identify edge cases that lose money, and get alerts before costly rules go live. Think 'unit testing for shipping rules.' Target merchants shipping 100+ orders/month where one bad rule can cost more than a year of the tool.
💰 Revenue Blueprint
Three-tier value ladder to monetize from day one
Import shipping rules, 100 test simulations/mo, edge case detection, basic alerts
Unlimited simulations, historical order analysis, profit impact calculator, rule suggestions
Multi-store, A/B test shipping strategies, competitor rate comparison, API access
📊 Market Evidence
The Market Gap
ShipStation/Shippo focus on fulfillment, not rule testing. No tool simulates Shopify shipping rules to find edge cases before they cost money. Clear ROI: one caught edge case pays for years of subscription.
🏆 Competitor Landscape
How existing players stack up in this market
| Competitor | Pricing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ShipStation | $9.99-159.99/mo | Multi-carrier shipping platform |
| Shippo | Free (pay-per-label) / $10+/mo | Shipping API and platform |
| Easyship | Free / $29+/mo | Global shipping rates |
| ShippingEasy | $5-159/mo | Shipping + marketing automation |
| Pirate Ship | Free (pay per label) | USPS/UPS discounts, no monthly fee |
Multi-carrier shipping platform
Shipping API and platform
Global shipping rates
Shipping + marketing automation
USPS/UPS discounts, no monthly fee
🛠️ Recommended Tech Stack
Suggested tools and technologies to build this idea
Score Breakdown
Good market signals with room for growth
Market (20%) + Revenue (20%) + Trend (15%) + Competition (15%) + Build (15%) + Pricing (15%)
🚀 Start Building
Copy a prompt into your favorite AI coding tool and start building this idea right now.
Build a SaaS product called "Shopify Shipping Rule Simulator". ## Product Overview Test shipping rules and identify mispriced combinations ## Problem Test shipping rules and identify mispriced combinations ## Solution Build Shopify Shipping Rule Simulator ## Target Audience indie hackers, small businesses, and solopreneurs ## Tech Stack - Next.js 15 (App Router) with TypeScript - Tailwind CSS v4 for styling - Supabase for auth, database, and storage - Vercel for deployment - shadcn/ui for UI components - Framer Motion for animations ## MVP Features to Build 1. Landing page with clear value proposition 2. User authentication (sign up, sign in, forgot password) 3. Core product functionality based on the solution above 4. Dashboard for users to manage their data 5. Pricing page with at least 2 tiers (free + paid) 6. Basic settings/profile page ## Known Competitors ShipStation, Shippo, Easyship, ShippingEasy, Pirate Ship ## Key Risks to Address Standard market entry risks ## Deployment 1. Set up Supabase project and configure environment variables 2. Deploy to Vercel with `npx vercel --prod` 3. Set up custom domain 4. Configure Supabase RLS policies for security ## Instructions Start by creating the project structure, then build the landing page first. Use server components where possible. Make it mobile-responsive from the start. Focus on getting the core value loop working before adding polish.