An empty shelf is a warning

Someone in Doha decides to start selling online, and begins by hunting for a gap. After a week of searching she finds one. Nobody in the country is selling embroidered covers for television remote controls.

She takes this as good news. It almost never is.

Plenty of things have no competition, and the reason is nearly always the same. Nobody wants them. An empty shelf is less often an opening than a message from shoppers who already walked past.

The markets worth entering are crowded, and the crowd is the evidence. When a dozen shops sell children's shoes, that tells you parents have a real problem every few months and will pay to solve it. The other sellers are not standing between her and the market. They are the proof there is one.

So the search for empty space is the wrong search. The useful question is not where nobody else is, but what the people already buying are still unhappy about. Shoes that split by the end of term. Sizes that run small. Returns that take a month to come back.

That is where a newcomer has a real chance. Not by finding a problem nobody has, but by answering a common one better than everyone already trying.