Amazon UK's top 16 ground coffees, decomposed into their DNA. This page contains everything: the market data, the method, the instrument, and the results as they arrive.
1
Capture
2
Decompose
3
Instrument
4
Validate
5
Reveal
Step 1 · Capture
The market signal hiding in plain sight
Amazon's Best Sellers Rank is a live market share readout. Updated hourly. Based on sales velocity. Free. Everyone reads it as a leaderboard. It's a structural map — you just need the right key.
Italian heritageAmazon own-labelCraft / organic / British← larger bubble = more reviews
Price doesn't predict rank. illy (#1 at £6.28) and Lavazza Rossa (#2 at £51.87) sit at opposite price extremes yet rank adjacently. The by Amazon cluster (amber) clusters low-left: cheap and high-ranked. Craft/organic (green) spreads across all price points. The market rewards something other than price — the study will isolate what.
Amazon tells you what's winning. It cannot tell you why. It cannot tell you for whom. And it cannot tell you what should exist but doesn't.— The gap this study fills
Step 2 · Decompose
Crack each product into four decisions
Every product is a bundle of implicit choices. When someone picks a ground coffee, they answer four questions simultaneously — whether they know it or not. We extracted those questions from the product data itself.
Market Dominance by Element% of the Amazon top 16 carrying each element · Grouped by silo · Sorted by dominance
Read top-to-bottom within each silo to see the dominance hierarchy. The top element in each group is the market's default choice. The bottom is the frontier — the place where an underserved segment might be hiding. Medium roast (A1) at 56% vs. Light roast (A4) at 6%. Yet the #4 product on Amazon is a light roast.
The 4×4 Element MatrixThese are the exact texts respondents see in the study
A · Roast Profile
A1
Smooth and balanced, a medium roast for everyday drinking
A2
Dark roasted for an intense, bold, full-bodied coffee experience
A3
A rich, medium-dark roast with depth and character
A4
Light roasted to bring out bright, delicate, nuanced flavours
B · Bean Story
B1
Made from 100% Arabica beans for a refined, complex flavour
B2
A carefully crafted blend of Arabica and Robusta beans for depth and body
B3
Single-origin beans from a specific growing region, fully traceable
B4
Certified organic — grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers
C · Trust Signal
C1
Classic Italian coffee tradition, roasted by a historic Italian brand
C2
Rainforest Alliance certified and responsibly sourced
C3
Organic, mycotoxin-free, and tested for purity — coffee that's good for you
C4
Crafted by an independent British brand with character and personality
D · Value Frame
D1
Great value for daily coffee — designed to keep costs low without sacrificing taste
D2
From a well-known, trusted brand — a reliable choice you can count on
D3
Premium quality from a specialist roaster — worth paying more for exceptional coffee
D4
Ready-to-use coffee bags — the easiest way to brew quality coffee at home
Product × Element DNAEach row = 1 Amazon product · Filled dot = product carries that element · Dot colour = silo
Read the columns to see concentration. Read the rows to see each product's DNA. The B2 column (Arabica/Robusta blend) is the most crowded. The B4 column (organic) has only two dots — yet both products are in the top 12. Column patterns reveal what the market over-supplies. Row patterns reveal what each product actually is.
Step 3 · The Instrument
Everything a respondent sees
This is not a summary of the study. This is the study. The orientation, the question, the scale, and three example vignettes showing how the 16 elements combine into the descriptions respondents evaluate.
Respondent Orientation
Thank you for taking part. We're going to show you 24 short descriptions of ground coffee. Each combines different features — roast level, bean type, brand character, and value proposition.
None of these are real products. They are combinations of features we'd like you to react to. Some will feel very appealing. Others won't. There are no right or wrong answers — we want your gut reaction.
For each description, you'll answer one question by choosing one of five options.
24
descriptions to evaluate
~4
features per description
1
question per screen
~6
minutes total
The Question · Asked 24 Times
"If you saw this ground coffee on the shelf, how likely would you be to put it in your basket?"
The 5-Point ScaleEach point = a mutually exclusive moment in the purchase decision
1
No — I'd walk past it
2
Probably not — nothing pulls me in
3
Maybe — I'd pick it up and read the back
4
Probably — it's going in unless something better is next to it
5
Definitely — this is exactly what I'm looking for
Not attitude. Behaviour. 1 = rejection. 2 = passive skip. 3 = consideration. 4 = conditional purchase. 5 = committed purchase. Each point maps to a distinct moment in the physical purchase funnel — they can't overlap.
The scale isn't measuring how much people like something. It's measuring how far down the purchase funnel a combination of features pulls them. There's a difference between "that's nice" and "that's in my basket."— Why 5 points, not 9
Three vignettes: what respondents see
Vignette A · mirrors illy Classico (#1 on Amazon)
Smooth and balanced, a medium roast for everyday drinkingA1
Made from 100% Arabica beans for a refined, complex flavourB1
Classic Italian coffee tradition, roasted by a historic Italian brandC1
Premium quality from a specialist roaster — worth paying more for exceptional coffeeD3
Vignette B · mirrors EXHALE Organic (#8 on Amazon)
Smooth and balanced, a medium roast for everyday drinkingA1
Certified organic — grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisersB4
Organic, mycotoxin-free, and tested for purity — coffee that's good for youC3
Premium quality from a specialist roaster — worth paying more for exceptional coffeeD3
⚡ Vignette C · a product that doesn't exist yet
Dark roasted for an intense, bold, full-bodied coffee experienceA2
Single-origin beans from a specific growing region, fully traceableB3
Crafted by an independent British brand with character and personalityC4
Great value for daily coffee — designed to keep costs low without sacrificing tasteD1
Vignette C combines dark roast, single-origin, British indie, and budget pricing. No product in the Amazon top 16 offers this. If a measurable segment scores it 4 or 5, that is not a hypothesis. That is a product brief.
Step 4 · Live
Can AI predict what real people will feel — before you field?
256 simulated respondent profiles, each defined by four behavioural dimensions that map directly to Meta Ads Manager targeting parameters. If the synthetic data correlates with real responses, every insight is immediately actionable — no translation layer between research and media plan.
When the study fields with real respondents, this page updates with real data. The correlation chart. The segment map. The utility scores. The product concept that should exist but doesn't. If it works, you'll see it work. If it doesn't, you'll see that too.
Want to run this for your category? Same method, your products, real data. Leave your coordinates →
What you've just seen
This is how we work. Structured experiments that reveal what actually matters — before you commit capital.
If you're launching a product, entering a category, or trying to understand why your current range isn't growing — we can run this for your business. Same rigour. Your data. Real answers.