# POD Price Guard: customer interview checklist

Use this as a 20–25 minute conversation with print-on-demand sellers. The goal is to learn how they handle changing costs and whether a small margin-tracking product would earn a place in their workflow. Ask about what they already do before showing the prototype.

## Who to interview

- Printify merchants who have active products and have made at least one sale.
- Include a mix of newer and more experienced sellers, and sellers with different catalog sizes.
- Ask how they sell today (independent storefront, marketplace, or both) and how many product variants they actively maintain.

## Interview prompts

### Current workflow

1. Walk me through how you set a product price today.
2. Which costs do you include: production, shipping, marketplace/payment fees, discounts, or anything else?
3. Where do you keep those numbers? How often do you check them?
4. Tell me about the last time a product cost changed. How did you find out, and what did you do?
5. Have you discovered a product was less profitable than expected? What happened?
6. How do you currently decide whether a product is worth keeping or repricing?

### Prototype walkthrough

Show the dashboard after the workflow questions. Say: “This demo uses manually entered estimates. It is not connected to Printify or a sales channel.”

1. What do you think the contribution number means?
2. Is the margin floor useful to you? How would you choose it?
3. What would you do after seeing one of these products marked at risk?
4. What information is missing or unclear?
5. How would you want to update a product: one at a time, by spreadsheet, or another way?
6. Which parts would you expect to update automatically, if any? What would you need to trust that connection?

### Demand and pricing

1. What would need to be true for you to use this at least once a week?
2. What would make you stop using it?
3. At $5.99 per month, how likely are you to try it? What makes you say that?
4. At $9.99 per month, how likely are you to keep it? What value would you need to see?
5. Would you pay to solve this today? If yes, what do you use or pay for now?
6. May I follow up when there is a working version with your preferred sales channel?

Avoid leading with “Would you use this?” Ask for recent examples, workarounds, and current spending first. Treat compliments as weaker evidence than repeated behavior, a requested follow-up, or a real willingness to pay.

## Capture after each interview

| Field | Notes |
| --- | --- |
| Seller type and channel(s) | |
| Active products / variants | |
| Current price and cost workflow | |
| Most recent cost surprise | |
| Current workaround and time spent | |
| Most useful dashboard detail | |
| Confusing or missing detail | |
| Desired integration and why | |
| Reaction at $5.99 / $9.99 | |
| Strongest evidence of demand | |
| Follow-up permission and date | |

## Suggested first validation batch

Interview 8–12 qualified sellers. After each interview, record exact examples and wording. Compare how often cost changes caused a real problem, how often sellers check costs, the spreadsheet or tool they use today, and what price they accepted without prompting. Keep integration requests separate from evidence that the manual workflow is already valuable.

Before building automatic monitoring, confirm a specific channel matters to enough interviewees, verify that the needed API access and terms are available, and estimate the ongoing support and hosting cost. Do not promise a connection until it has been approved, implemented, and tested.