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> We spent time posting in forums helping people find items they were looking for,

Did you run any analytics on how much overlap there was across Shopify sites on "similar items" (Alibaba resellers/dropshippers)?

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we didn't, no, but we spent a lot of time sifting through our catalog, and there was a _tremendous_ amount of crap in there. We manually curated and purged shops that were obviously just dropshipping or looked like out-right scams.

Can't you sample ten random product then ask a llm to rate the shop on a scale from drop shipped to artisanal as a first approximation?

I doubt it would be that easy, but, ya, using some form of automation is necessary. We devised a few rudimentary way to filter out the chaff, and it did quite well to remove the garbage. Still some would slip through, so it still required vigilance to remove them when you happen to see them.

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