The sources and findings we hold on the market, the store categories we serve and the buyers; no market size has a source yet, so every size stays "to find out" and the call this settles is what we count first.
Today
Market size
Ring
Definition
Where to count it
Size
Source
Online stores
Any store selling online
Platform published merchant figures
To find out
brand-directions/book/content/b.js:500
Own brand, own store
Sells its own products from its own site
A store technology lookup such as BuiltWith or Store Leads
To find out
brand-directions/book/content/b.js:500
Founder led, small, with reviews and ads
Our ideal store
Review app installs and the Meta Ad Library
To find out
brand-directions/book/content/b.js:500
Design partners
Real brands working with us now
Our own list
5
memory brew-live-stores
No market number has been gathered; a number without a named source is not used brand-directions/book/content/b.js:500
No claim about how many shoppers use AI to find products has a source yet brand-directions/book/content/b.js:543
Categories we have read, from the five partners
All five sell in India memory brew-live-stores.
Partner
Category
Store shape
What it taught the reader
Source
Arata
Hair care
Own brand on Shopify; the only one with accounts connected
Read only connections on a live client
handbook sales-and-partnerships/arata.md
Nutrova
Supplements
Own brand
A similar rival name is never counted as the brand
handbook sales-and-partnerships/nutrova.md
Mana Projects
Real estate
Sells homes by enquiry, no cart
A store with no checkout
memory feed-for-all-brands
Puma India
Sportswear
One market's store of a global brand, on Salesforce Commerce, reviews off
Curated retailer: 74% other brands, 68 of 140 products are Littmann stethoscopes
A retailer is read as a store, not a label
brew/docs/audit-2026-10-24-design-partners.md:28
Our test brand Cozy sells in the US in USD but was set to India once, so all 65 of its Plays were written for India memory brew-audit-2026-10-15
Buyers and what they use now
No partner has been asked what they use or pay for marketing help brand-directions/book/content/b.js:348
The old book lists six ways stores get marketing done today, written as reasoning, not research: doing it yourself, an agency, a freelancer, a marketing hire, a chat assistant, design and ad apps brand-directions/book/content/b.js:340-348
Secondary research we hold
Read on 25 Oct for product design, not for market size brand-directions/_research/sources.md:1.
Source
Finding
Source
Octalysis, Yu-kai Chou
Eight drives; people most often leave between phases, not in the middle of one
brand-directions/_research/sources.md:5-25
Duolingo, on Lenny's Newsletter, 28 Feb 2023
A borrowed game mechanic with no tie to the core loop was neutral
brand-directions/_research/sources.md:29-31
Same
Retention of current users had five times the impact of the next metric and became the north star
brand-directions/_research/sources.md:32
Same
Leagues raised learning time 17 percent; notifications were protected from extra volume
brand-directions/_research/sources.md:33-35
Tools we have for counting
Tool
Cost
Note
Source
Local Meta Ad Library scraper
Free
No spend or impressions data
memory fb-ad-library-mcp
treg
Paid per call
Data only; check the balance live; never repeat a call for data we have
memory treg-usage-rules
Tomorrow
Item
Version
Tag
Notes
Count own brand stores in India
v1
New
Store technology lookup, filtered to India and own brand
How many of those run Meta ads
v1
New
Meta Ad Library, active advertisers by category
How many show reviews on site
v1
New
Review app installs and a sample of store pages
How many have one to ten people
v1
New
Team size from company pages, sampled
What partners spend on marketing help now
v1
New
First call with each partner
How many agencies serve them
v1
New
Company search and agency directories
What one read costs us
v1
New
Our own logs, per brand
The same counts for the next country
v2
New
After India
What each finding would change, from the old book brand-directions/book/content/b.js:523:
Finding
What it would change
Few stores show reviews
The read leans less on reviews; the ideal store changes
Most run no ads
Ad picks drop in rank for the first ring
Agencies serve most small stores
The brand switcher moves earlier
A read costs more than a store would pay
Pricing and the capped read change
How we do it
For each answer record the number and its unit, the source by name, the date read, the filter used and who checked it.
Use free sources first: the local Ad Library scraper, public store pages and platform figures.
Ask Param before any paid lookup or treg call.
Put a checked size in Market only when it has a named source and a checker.
Compare jobs, never run down a named product; competitor detail lives in Competitive intelligence.
Numbers
Metric
Definition
Where measured
Status
Rings sized
Rings with a sourced size
This page
1 of 4: design partners
Sizing questions answered
Of the eight in Tomorrow
This page
0 of 8
Categories read
Distinct partner categories the reader handles
This page
5
Open
Is India first? Proposal: yes for counting; size India first and keep global open.
Do we pay for a store technology lookup? Proposal: not yet; try free platform figures and a hand sample of 100 stores first.
Who checks each number? Proposal: whoever did not gather it, Param, Sai or Arvind.
Do large brands like Puma India count in our ring? Proposal: keep them as partners to learn from, size only founder led stores.
