Build Me a Target List of 100 Brands Worth Pitching

‍

The Prompt

‍

‍

Three Techniques Doing the Heavy Lifting

Say who you are and what you sell. Listing the four service lines is why every prospect comes back matched to a specific service instead of a generic "needs help."

Ask for the criteria before the work. The last line is the most useful sentence in the prompt. You get the thresholds first, adjust them, and only then does it go pull 100 brands. Without it you find out the screen was wrong after the output exists.

Ask for two tiers. Five worked in full plus 100 in a table gives you something to act on Monday and something to work through for a quarter.
‍

What You Get Back

A screened list of 100 brands in a $3M to $20M revenue band with trailing declines from 3% to 40%, across four categories, plus the top five worked all the way to a written first email.

The screen states its own thresholds up front: revenue band, decline range, a minimum catalog of 10 products and 100 reviews to exclude noise, and a manual exclusion of brands owned by major CPG or luxury parents. That last filter is what makes the list usable, since a brand inside a large parent is not an agency's buyer.
‍

What Makes the Top Five Worth Reading

Each one names the specific fixable gap with a number attached. Competitors bidding a brand's own name to more than 4x the generic category rate while the brand spends 1.7% of revenue on ads against a 3 to 6% norm. A brand sitting at 3.98 stars, below the threshold where conversion falls off, spending 0.30% of revenue on ads. A brand with 4.78 stars across 125,791 reviews spending $3,142 a year on advertising, which is proven conversion with no traffic engine attached.

That last framing is the interesting one. It is not a rescue pitch, it is pure upside, and it reads completely differently in a first email.
‍

The Integrity Move

The report checks declines against prior-year monthly comps to rule out seasonality, and where those comps were not available it says so and marks the trend unconfirmed rather than quietly counting it. One gift-heavy brand went from $4.50M in December to $182K in June, which looks catastrophic and is mostly a calendar. The entry stands on its ad gap instead. Worth copying that habit, because a prospect will absolutely know their own seasonality.

‍

‍

Data It Touches

Brand search across the revenue band, market share and subcategory trend, product research on catalog and review depth, ad spy for spend and CPC, search term volumes.
‍

Go Deeper
‍

• Re-run the screen with the revenue band at [RANGE] and tell me what changes
  ‍
• Rank all 100 by how fast the primary gap could be fixed
  ‍
• Pull the full teardown on the top three before I reach out
  ‍
• Which of these have contested buy boxes, and who is on the listings
  ‍

Where It Gets Soft

Revenue, ad spend, and CPC are estimates, so a brand near a threshold may not belong in the band at all. Widen the range rather than trusting the edges.

A trailing decline is not automatically a problem to sell against. It can be seasonality, a deliberate SKU exit, a channel shift, or a parent-company decision, and the brand knows which. Check prior-year comps before treating any decline as a finding, and say so when you cannot.

Category norms like a 3 to 6% ad spend benchmark are reasonable rules of thumb rather than measured figures from this dataset. Present them as context, not as the brand's own number.

‍

Pitch a Prospective Client With Their Own Data

How an agency wins a new client: show up to the first meeting already holding a diagnosis of their business.
‍

The Prompt

‍

‍

Then a second step that most people skip: attach the agency's brand style guide as a template and run the report through Claude Design to produce the finished presentation.

That second step is the difference between a document and a deliverable. The analysis is the same either way. Feeding it a style guide is what makes it land as something you built for them rather than something you generated.

‍

What You Get Back

A seven-section pitch deck on Amazon UK. £2.89M trailing twelve, #1 in retractable ballpoint pens, and revenue down 17.1% month over month. Strong brand, stalled momentum, which is the opening an agency wants.

The finding that sells the meeting is distribution. Zebra runs a storefront but does not control its own listings: one seller holds 63.2% of brand revenue, the top two hold about 85%, and roughly 48 more sit in the tail. That concentration plus long tail is the signature of grey-market resale, and it points straight at a MAP enforcement and seller consolidation programme. It is a problem the brand can feel and an agency can fix.

The second finding is demand drifting away from the brand name. The generic term now out-searches the branded one, with 15 brands competing on the generic against 10 on the branded. Dupes are intercepting demand the brand built. Meanwhile "ballpoint pen" runs 9,568 searches a month across 29 fragmented brands with no dominant owner, which is an obvious paid opening given the #1 position in retractables.

The deck is also honest about what is noise. One category shows a large share swing off a single ASIN, and the report says so rather than counting it as momentum.
‍

‍

Data It Touches

Brand search, subcategory market share and rankings, seller and offer data, search term volumes and trends, product research.
‍

Go Deeper
‍

• Which of these opportunities pays back fastest in the first 90 days
  ‍
• Map every seller on the brand's listings and rank them by revenue and offer count
  ‍
• Show me the branded versus generic search split over 24 months
  ‍
• Build the same analysis for [SECOND PROSPECT] before next week
  ‍

Where It Gets Soft

Seller data shows offer patterns, not authorisation status. A concentrated top plus a long tail is consistent with grey-market resale, but it is a hypothesis to raise with the brand, not a finding to assert. Keep that framing in a pitch. Revenue and share are modelled estimates rather than confirmed Amazon sales, and this one runs on the UK marketplace, so figures are thinner than US equivalents. Single-ASIN categories swing hard month to month and should be read as noise until a second month agrees.
‍

Turn a Revenue Decline Into a Cold Email That Gets a Reply

Most entries here are single prompts. This one is a repeatable workflow our outbound team runs daily, packaged as two Claude skills that pull live SmartScout data before writing anything.

What It Does

‍

Give it a name, a title, and a company. It searches SmartScout for the strongest divergent signal on that brand, then writes the email around that signal instead of around a pitch.

Divergent is the operative word. A prospect's own top-line revenue is not a hook, because they already know it. What they usually have not seen is the tension: one line declining while the category grows, a competitor climbing in the same subcategory, ad spend rising without sales following, seller count creeping up, a MAP break, a rank shift.

The angle then gets matched to what the title actually owns. An ecommerce director hears about share loss and reseller exposure. A growth lead hears about ad efficiency. An analytics lead hears about visibility gaps in their own reporting. Same underlying data, different framing.

There are two skills. One handles the cold open with no history to work from. The other handles a prospect who went quiet, and its rule is that the follow-up has to arrive with something the first email did not have. Repeating the ask louder does not count.
‍

What Comes Out

‍

‍
No greeting windup, no platform paragraph, no feature list. The observation opens the email, one line explains why it matters to that seat, and the ask names two specific times.
‍

Why It Works

The subcategory split is the whole trick. Rolled up to one brand total, two declines like these disappear inside a number that looks flat. Split by line, they are a $45,000 hole in a single month, which is specific enough that a stranger reads past the first sentence.

The skills also enforce a writing standard: no colons anywhere including the subject, five words maximum on the subject line, no template jargon, and a banned-phrase list for constructions that read as machine-written no matter what data sits behind them. The bar is that it should read like it was typed between two calls.
‍

Results

Six of our top targets have booked calls off this workflow, together representing roughly $481M/yr in Amazon revenue.
‍

Where It Gets Soft

Revenue and unit figures are estimates, so quote the direction and the rough magnitude rather than presenting a number to the dollar as fact. Parent company names often return nothing, so search the consumer-facing brand instead. And when no divergent signal exists, the honest move is a plain line about what the data covers. A forced hook reads worse than no hook.

Should We Buy This Brand, and What Would We Do With It?

‍

‍

Two details worth copying. The second line tells it to ignore a specific metric, which works and is the fastest way to keep an analysis off a number you do not trust. And asking for a verdict plus "what would change the answer" is what turns a data dump into something an investment committee can act on.

‍

What You Get Back

A full underwriting report with a conditional lean-buy verdict up front. The decisive finding is that a $10.6M brand is really one listing wearing a brand's clothing: the 64oz fish oil ASIN is roughly 60% of revenue and the top two are 91%, across only nine total ASINs. The brand is down 11% year over year while its subcategory grows 12%, so it is donating share to Native Pet and Nutramax. What you would actually be buying is a review moat and buy-box control, sole seller on every ASIN with about 37,000 reviews at 4.5 stars.

The search-term work is the part that changes the deal. The brand's number one term, salmon oil for dogs, is down 26% year over year, while its hero SKU rides fish oil for dogs, up 12%. Consumer language is shifting underneath the catalog.

‍

Using SmartScout and Amazon data, pressure-test Vital Pet Life as an acquisition
target and give me a go / no-go view plus the value-creation plan if we buy.
Don't use the Amazon in stock rate metric at all during this analysis

First, establish the baseline:
  • Trailing-12-mo and monthly revenue, unit velocity, MoM & 12-mo growth.
  • The 2–3 subcategories where revenue concentrates, and top competing
    brands in each by revenue (with their share and momentum).
  • Pull the top ~75 ASINs and quantify revenue concentration (top-5 and
    top-10 ASIN share of tracked revenue).

Then assess the four things an acquirer underwrites:
  1. REVENUE QUALITY & DURABILITY
     - Is growth broad-based or dependent on 1–2 hero ASINs / one subcategory?
     - Search-demand trend for the brand's core terms (growing, flat, fading?).
     - Seasonality, and any recent step-changes (launches, one-time spikes).
  2. MOAT & DEFENSIBILITY
     - Review moat (count, rating, velocity) vs. top competitors.
     - Rank & buy-box stability; is the brand the sole/primary seller?
     - Share trend vs. competitors — gaining or bleeding.
  3. RISK / RED FLAGS (the reasons to walk)
     - ASIN or subcategory concentration; single-point-of-failure SKUs.
     - Buy-box suppression, hijackers, 3P sellers, out-of-stock exposure.
     - Declining review velocity, rating erosion, price/margin compression,
       rising competitive intensity, or a shrinking category.
  4. VALUE-CREATION LEVERS (upside if we own it)
     Organize under Content, Pricing, Advertising, and Catalog/Expansion:
     - Content: variation consolidation, A+/listing gaps, suppressed listings,
       weak titles, storefront.
     - Pricing: price-band gaps, trade-up ladders, buy-box/margin recovery,
       under- vs. over-priced vs. category and vs. own catalog.
     - Advertising: ad-spend share vs. market share, branded-term whitespace,
       under-indexed high-volume terms.
     - Catalog/Expansion: adjacent subcategories, new price bands, fast-growing
       segments the brand is underweight in, international.
     Size each lever's plausibility and rough impact where the data allows.

Deliver:
  • A one-paragraph VERDICT up top: acquire / pass / conditional, with the
    2–3 factors driving it and what would change the answer.
  • An executive summary of the 3–4 most decisive findings.
  • Sections for Revenue Quality, Moat, Risks, and Value-Creation Levers.
  • A simple "underwriting scorecard" (Quality / Moat / Risk / Upside, each
    High-Med-Low) and the levers ranked by impact-vs-effort.
No length limit — build it out as a full report or deck, not one slide.
Include supporting visuals for the key findings. Flag that all figures are
SmartScout estimates and month-to-month swings can be promo-driven.

‍

Data It Touches

Brand search, market share and subcategory competitive sets, product research at the ASIN level, search term history, ad spy.
‍

Go Deeper
‍

• Rank the value-creation levers by impact against effort in year one
  ‍
• Show me the review velocity trend against the top three competitors
  ‍
• What is the cat-line adjacency worth if we launch into it
  ‍
• Run the same pressure test on [SECOND CANDIDATE] so I can compare
  ‍

Where It Gets Soft

Revenue, unit, share, and search figures are estimates. Month-to-month swings are often promo or deal driven and should not be read as trend on their own. The prompt asked for the top 75 ASINs and the brand only lists nine, which the analysis handled fine, but it is a reminder that a template written for a big catalog needs a sanity check on a small one.

Find Acquisition Candidates in Pet Supplements

‍

‍

What You Get Back

A full screen of roughly 2,300 brands across the dog, cat, and horse supplement nodes, narrowed to the 25 sitting inside the revenue band and the 13 that clear the thesis. Ranked table, a growth-versus-concentration scatter, competitive intensity bars, three prioritized targets with deal angles and red flags, plus a watch list and screened-out list with reasons.

‍

‍

Data It Touches

Brand search, market share and subcategory profiles, product research at the ASIN level for the priority names.
‍

Go Deeper
‍

• Pressure test [TOP CANDIDATE] on revenue quality, durability, and value-creation levers
  ‍
• Which of these depend on a single hero product, and how exposed is each one
  ‍
• Show me revenue seasonality over 24 months for the top three
  ‍
• Re-run the screen in [ADJACENT CATEGORY] with the same thesis
  ‍

Where It Gets Soft

Revenue figures are estimates, so widen your band rather than filtering a real target out at the edges. Top-ASIN concentration is the number to diligence hardest, since it drives the whole risk picture and needs confirming against Seller or Vendor Central before an LOI. Growth rates above roughly 100% usually trace to a single recent SKU launch rather than broad momentum.

‍

‍

SmartScout now works inside the AI assistants your team already uses. One server URL gives Claude, ChatGPT, or Microsoft Copilot access to 20 SmartScout analytics tools, and setup takes a few minutes with nothing to install.

Once connected, you can ask in plain English to search products, brands, sellers, and keywords, pull sales history and organic ranks, check ad spy data, or get a full brand, product, seller, or subcategory profile in one request.

Pick Your Platform

‍

‍

Before You Start

You need two things for any platform.
‍

• A paid plan on your AI platform. Custom connectors are not available on free plans. See the table above for each platform.
  ‍
• Your SmartScout login and API key. You will need your SmartScout email and password, plus your API key. Find the key in your SmartScout account or ask your sales representative.
  ‍

There is nothing to install. No Docker, downloads, or config files. The SmartScout server is hosted for you at:
‍

https://www.smartscout.com/amazon-data-mcp

Your queries run on your own SmartScout account. Your API key sits behind a private session token and is never shown to the AI assistant or stored on the server.
‍

Connect SmartScout to Claude on the Web

This works in any modern browser, including Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Arc.
‍

Step 1: Sign in to Claude

Go to claude.ai and sign in on any laptop, desktop, or tablet.
‍

Step 2: Open Connectors and click Customize

Click your profile picture in the bottom-left corner, then go to Settings > Connectors. At the top of the page, find the small Customize link, usually next to "Browse connectors" or in the top-right corner. Click it to show the option for adding a custom connector.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an admin may need to turn on custom connectors first.
‍

Step 3: Add the SmartScout URL

Click Add custom connector and paste https://mcp.smartscout.com/. Leave Client ID and Client Secret blank, then click Save.
‍

Step 4: Sign in and enter your API key

Claude opens a new tab with the SmartScout authorization page. Sign in with your SmartScout email and password, then paste your API key and click Connect.

If the tab does not open, your browser is blocking pop-ups. Allow pop-ups for claude.ai and try again.
‍

Step 5: Allow tool permissions

The first time Claude uses a SmartScout tool, you will see a prompt such as "Claude wants to use SearchBrands from SmartScout." Choose one option:
‍

• Allow once runs this call only.
  ‍
• Allow for this chat runs freely until you close the conversation.
  ‍
• Always allow runs without asking in every future chat. This is the best choice for tools you trust.
  ‍

If you clicked Deny by mistake, change it in Settings > Connectors > SmartScout > Permissions.
‍

Step 6: Start a new chat

The SmartScout tools now appear in the tools menu. Try this prompt:

Use SmartScout to show me top brands in coffee makers

The connection syncs to your Claude account, so SmartScout is ready on any browser, tablet, or phone where you sign in.
‍

Connect SmartScout to Claude Desktop

Step 1: Open Connectors

In Claude Desktop, go to Settings > Connectors and click Add custom connector. If you do not see the button, your workspace admin needs to turn on custom connectors (Team and Enterprise plans).
‍

Step 2: Paste the SmartScout URL

Enter https://mcp.smartscout.com/ as the Remote MCP server URL. Leave Client ID and Client Secret blank, then click Save. Claude Desktop opens a browser window to authorize.
‍

Step 3: Sign in and enter your API key

On the SmartScout authorization page, sign in with your SmartScout email and password. Then paste your API key and click Connect.
‍

Step 4: Start a new chat

The SmartScout tools appear in the tools tray. Try this prompt:

Use SmartScout to show me the top brands in the coffee maker subcategory
‍

Connect SmartScout to ChatGPT

Setup uses Developer mode, which is only available on the ChatGPT website, not the mobile apps.
‍

Step 1: Turn on Developer mode

On the ChatGPT website, go to Settings > Apps & Connectors > Advanced settings and switch on Developer mode. If you do not see Advanced settings, your plan or workspace admin needs to allow it.
‍

Step 2: Create the SmartScout app

Back in Settings > Apps & Connectors, click Create. Name the app SmartScout and paste https://mcp.smartscout.com/ as the MCP server URL.

For the app icon, upload the SmartScout logo. It is under ChatGPT's 10 KB limit. If you skip this, ChatGPT shows a generic letter instead.

Leave authentication set to OAuth (the default) and click Create. ChatGPT opens a browser step to authorize.
‍

Step 3: Sign in and enter your API key

On the SmartScout authorization page, sign in with your SmartScout email and password. Then paste your API key and click Connect.
‍

Step 4: Start a new chat

Open a new chat, add SmartScout from the + (apps) menu, and ask:

Use SmartScout to show me the top brands in the coffee maker subcategory.

Note for Plus and Pro users: Individual plans allow read-only custom connectors. Every SmartScout tool is read-only, so all 20 work as expected.
‍

Connect SmartScout to Microsoft Copilot

Copilot setup has two parts. Your IT admin adds SmartScout to your organization once, which takes about 5 minutes. After that, everyone in the approved groups can use it in Word, Outlook, Excel, Teams, or the browser with no setup.
‍

For your IT admin: one-time setup

Step 1: Open Copilot Studio. Sign in at copilotstudio.microsoft.com with your Microsoft 365 admin account. You need a Copilot Studio license, which most Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions include.

‍Step 2: Add SmartScout as a tool. Pick an agent or create a new one called "SmartScout Insights." Open the Tools tab, click Add a tool > Model Context Protocol, and paste https://mcp.smartscout.com/. Upload the SmartScout logo under the agent's Details so users see it instead of a generic placeholder.

‍Step 3: Set authentication and sign in. When Copilot Studio asks how to connect, choose:
‍

1. Authentication: OAuth 2.0
   ‍
2. Client registration: Dynamic (with discovery). Copilot Studio reads SmartScout's OAuth settings itself, so there is no client ID or secret to enter.
   ‍

A browser tab opens to the SmartScout authorization page. Sign in with a SmartScout email and password, paste your organization's API key, and click Connect.
‍

Step 4: Publish to your organization. Click Publish, then under Channels, turn on Microsoft 365 Copilot. Choose which users or groups can access it. Everyone in those groups now sees SmartScout as an agent inside Copilot.
‍

For everyone: how to use it
‍

1. Open Copilot from any Microsoft 365 app (Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams) or at copilot.microsoft.com.
   ‍
2. In the agent picker, choose SmartScout Insights or whatever name your admin gave it.
   ‍
3. Ask a business question, such as:
   ‍

What are the top 5 fastest-growing brands in dog toys this quarter?

Copilot picks the right SmartScout tool, runs it, and answers in plain English with charts and links.

Web or desktop? Both give the same tools and answers. Use copilot.microsoft.com for quick research on any device, including Mac, Windows, Chromebook, or tablet. Use Copilot inside Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to drop results straight into a document or email and reference open files in your prompt.
‍

For developers: VS Code with GitHub Copilot

You can also connect SmartScout directly to Copilot Chat in VS Code 1.93 or later with GitHub Copilot installed.

Open the command palette, run MCP: Add Server, pick HTTP, and paste the SmartScout URL. Or add this to .vscode/mcp.json:
‍

{
 "servers": {
   "smartscout": {
     "type": "http",
     "url": "https://mcp.smartscout.com/"
   }
 }
}

Open Copilot Chat in Agent mode and the SmartScout tools appear in the picker. Sign-in uses the same SmartScout authorization flow.
‍

How To Know It Worked

On any platform, you are set up when:
‍

• SmartScout shows as Connected in your connector or app settings. In Copilot, it appears in your agent picker.
  ‍
• SmartScout tools appear in the tools menu, tools tray, or + apps menu of a new chat.
  ‍
• Asking "check SmartScout server status" returns {"status":"ok"}.
  ‍
• A real business question returns SmartScout data, not a generic answer.
  ‍

Troubleshooting
‍

‍

Need an API key?

Contact your SmartScout sales representative, or schedule a demo.

‍

New SmartScout data shows RYZE, a mushroom coffee blend, now brings in more revenue than Nescafe or Starbucks in Amazon's Instant Coffee category. The caffeine alternatives made without coffee are growing at a fraction of that pace, and several of the best-known names are shrinking.
‍

A Mushroom Brand Now Leads the Instant Aisle

RYZE blends mushroom powders with a smaller dose of coffee and sells it as a gentler way to start the day. On Amazon it is now the top brand in Instant Coffee, with 18.7 percent of category revenue, or $3,374,391 a month.

Nescafe is second at 13.2 percent and $2,376,174. Starbucks is third at 11.4 percent and $2,052,561. Taster's Choice, Mount Hagen and Folgers follow, each with less than 6 percent.

RYZE gets there with far fewer units. It moves 68,025 units a month in the category, against 192,592 for Nescafe. Its average listing price is $67.21, roughly double Nescafe's $32.50 and Starbucks' $38.20. It needs nine listings to do it. Nescafe has 159.

Across all 22 of its products, RYZE brings in $4,191,101 a month, or $75,938,416 a year. That is up 43.2 percent from a year ago, and every sale goes through a single seller.

A product marketed as a way off coffee is now the best-selling coffee in its aisle.
‍

Fewer Searches, More Sales

The growth is happening while interest, measured by search, is falling. Searches for "ryze mushroom coffee" fell 21.3 percent over the past year, from 439,680 a month to 346,056. Searches for the generic term "mushroom coffee" fell 22.2 percent, to 195,516.

The rest of the category followed. Searches for Cuppa mushroom coffee fell 22.9 percent. Four Sigmatic fell 19.1 percent. Everyday Dose fell 76.4 percent, to 12,880 a month. Laird was the one brand search that grew, up 20.1 percent.

Revenue moved the other way. RYZE is up 43.2 percent. Everyday Dose, despite the collapse in searches for its name, grew revenue 12 percent, to $20,463,289 a year.

One reading of the gap is that mushroom coffee has stopped being new. Shoppers who already drink it do not search for it. They reorder.

The curiosity phase is ending. The habit phase pays better.
‍

Coffee Itself Is Still Growing

The idea that Americans are quitting coffee does not show up in Amazon's numbers. The Coffee category brings in $3,100,079,393 a year, up 12 percent from a year ago. Amazon sells about 70 percent of it directly.

Every major format grew, and the most convenient ones grew fastest. Iced coffee and cold brew rose 45 percent, to $61,542,398 a year. Instant coffee rose 38 percent, to $217,184,442. Whole beans rose 22 percent and ground coffee 20 percent, to $382,940,139 and $430,872,515. Ready-to-drink bottled coffee rose 13 percent.

What goes in the cup is growing too. Coffee creamers are up 36 percent, to $89,506,211 a year. Plant-based creamers are up 31 percent.

The tell is the hardware. Coffee makers are down 3 percent, to $806,265,513 a year, and coffee machines are down 10 percent. Shoppers are spending more on coffee and less on the equipment that brews it the traditional way.

Revenue includes price changes, so some of that 12 percent is higher prices, not more cups. Even so, no format of coffee itself is shrinking.
‍

The Further From Coffee, the Slower the Growth

Ranking caffeine alternatives on Amazon by year-over-year revenue growth produces a clean gradient. The closer a product stays to coffee, the faster it grows.

Where coffee is still in the cup, growth is strongest: RYZE up 43.2 percent, the Instant Coffee category it leads up 38 percent.

Where coffee is replaced by a supplement or a tea, growth slows to single digits: mushroom supplements up 6 percent, to $308,098,398 a year, and matcha up 5 percent, to $123,185,356.

Where coffee is replaced entirely, growth nearly stops. Coffee Substitutes, the caffeine-free roasted blends made from chicory, grains and herbs, grew 3 percent, to $30,999,728 a year. Amazon shoppers spend about 100 dollars on coffee for every dollar they spend on substitutes. Searches for "coffee alternative" fell 19.6 percent.

The brand results split the same way. Guayaki grew 15.8 percent, Laird Superfood 13.7 percent and Everyday Dose 12 percent. Four Sigmatic, one of the first mushroom coffee brands, fell 12.3 percent, to $22,751,545 a year. Teeccino, the best-known herbal coffee, fell 12.3 percent. Jade Leaf Matcha fell 13.6 percent, to $22,564,216.

The market is rewarding products that keep the coffee and change the rest.
‍

The Alternatives That Changed Shape

Guayaki is the exception that proves the pattern. Its growth came from changing what it sells.

Searches for loose yerba mate fell 33.0 percent, from 131,079 a month to 87,876. Searches for yerba mate tea fell 27.9 percent. Searches for yerba mate energy drinks rose 148.0 percent, from 14,787 to 36,678. Amazon now lists Guayaki, which sells under the Yerba Madre storefront, in Energy Drinks rather than tea. It brings in $1,380,997 a month.

Matcha shows a different kind of change. Category revenue grew 5 percent, but the best-known brand shrank. Jade Leaf fell 13.6 percent while the category grew, as sales spread across 989 brands and third-party sellers took 94 percent of revenue.

The ritual gear is fading faster than the tea. Searches for matcha whisk sets fell 59.5 percent, and revenue in Matcha Whisks fell 25 percent. Searches for ceremonial grade matcha powder fell 23.1 percent.

Yerba mate grew by turning into a canned energy drink. Matcha grew by splintering into hundreds of small brands. Neither grew by acting like a replacement for coffee.
‍

What Americans Are Actually Replacing

On Amazon, Americans are still buying coffee. What they are leaving behind is the version that needs a machine, a grinder and time. The fastest-growing formats dissolve, pour or come in a can: instant up 38 percent, iced coffee and cold brew up 45 percent, yerba mate energy drink searches up 148 percent.

RYZE fits that pattern. It is a scoop of powder sold as a gentler start to the day, and it still contains coffee. The products that asked shoppers to give coffee up entirely, such as caffeine-free substitutes, are barely growing, and the best-known of them is shrinking.

The alternative that won kept the coffee.

‍