Six gates, in order: may you legally sell it at all → is demand real and rising → can you win the page → does a unit earn enough → which keyword opens the door → can you afford the order. Gates 0 and 5 need no files; the rest take the Helium 10 exports. A yellow or red gate never blocks you — it tells you what you are accepting if you continue.
Your files never leave your browser. Everything is computed on your device; nothing is uploaded or stored.
0 Kill questions
1 Seasonality & direction
2 Competition (Xray)
3 Unit economics
4 Keywords & launch cost
5 Order size & cash
Gate 0 — Kill questions not run
No files, about 30 seconds. The nine compliance exclusions from the workbook (Sheet 4, Block A) plus one brand question. Answer these before you spend a Helium 10 search credit — they kill a niche faster than any data can.
Product properties
A NO here is a property of the product itself. No amount of paperwork changes it — the answer is a different product.
Seller duties
A NO here is a task with a cost and a deadline, not a dead niche. These apply to every consumer product you will ever sell, so they cannot tell one niche from another.
Brand
Not in the workbook — it decides whether this is a product or the start of a brand.
Gate 1 — Seasonality & direction not run
Cerebro → Analyze Keywords → chart icon next to Search Volume → period “All time” → download. Kills more bad niches per minute than any other check.
Drop the search-volume export or click to choose
.csv or .xlsx · one date column + one column per keyword · best with 36 months, minimum 24
Gate 2 — Competition & page economics not run
Xray on the search results page → export CSV. The tool deduplicates sponsored repeats, drops off-niche ads, and runs the selection gates on what is left.
Drop the Xray export or click to choose
.csv or .xlsx from Helium 10 Xray (search results view, Amazon.de)
Gate 3 — Unit economics not run
German deemed-supplier math: VAT never reaches you, referral fee is charged on the VAT-inclusive price, duty on the CIF base. Type your numbers — everything recalculates live.
Order totals — quick math. The real order plan (optimal size, monthly cash) is Gate 5.
VAT 19% fixed (DE standard rate). Import VAT is a cash-flow item, not a unit cost — plan it in the workbook, Sheet 8. The price-for-35/30, max-EXW-30 and after-reserve tiles are information (workbook Sheet 3 rows 34–38): the 35/30 bands and the verdict are unchanged by them, and the profit-tax reserve is a yearly tax on profit, not a per-unit cost.
Gate 4 — Keywords & launch cost not run
Cerebro results table → Export → CSV. Which keywords have real buyers (not just searches), which are fads, and what pushing to page 1 actually costs.
Drop the Cerebro keyword export or click to choose
.csv or .xlsx — the keyword table export (with Keyword Sales, Search Volume, CPR, Title Density)
Landed cost auto-fills from Gate 3 until you type your own. Push cost = CPR units × (landed + discount) + 8 days of launch ads — an order of magnitude, not an invoice.
Gate 5 — Order size & cash not run
Workbook Sheets 6 + 8. How many units to buy when demand is unknowable, and whether the money survives the gap between paying the supplier and being paid by Amazon. No file — it runs on Gates 1, 3 and 4.
First order size
Newsvendor model: balances the margin lost on a stockout against the cost of a unit left over.
Dashed = a workbook default, not your number. Replace them with supplier reality before you trust the order size. P10/P90 auto-fill from Gate 4 until you type your own.
12-month cash plan
Money leaves in lumps and comes back as a drip. Only one number matters: the lowest point.
Month by month
Dossier — compare niches empty
Workbook Sheet 5 as software. Save a finished funnel run under a niche name and compare up to 10 of them side by side. The score ranks research time — the go/no-go is still Gates 0–4, never this number.
Saved on this device only. The dossier lives in this browser's local storage. Nothing is uploaded; clearing your browser data clears it.
Everything except the cash need is taken from the gates above as they stand right now. A niche saved before you ran a gate keeps that column blank, and a blank input leaves the score blank — same rule as Sheet 5.