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⚠️ Disclaimer: Community Node Required
This workflow uses the Apify community node. Please ensure it is installed in your n8n instance before importing this workflow.
This workflow automates the product development lifecycle for Print-on-Demand (POD) businesses by turning NASA's public domain images into actionable merchandise candidates. It combines AI-driven design, competitive market research, and profit calculation into a single automated pipeline.
Who is it for
Print-on-Demand Entrepreneurs: Automate the sourcing and validation of new designs.
E-commerce Managers: Streamline the "Idea to Product" workflow.
Content Creators: Generate space-themed merchandise assets automatically.
What it does
Sourcing: Fetches the daily image from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) API.
Design & Visualization: Uses OpenAI to generate SEO keywords and Cloudinary to create a visual T-shirt mockup.
Market Intelligence: Scrapes Etsy (via Apify) to analyze current market prices for similar products.
Profit Analysis: Calculates potential profit margins based on your production costs and competitor data.
AI Consultation: OpenAI analyzes the data to provide a "Go/No-Go" marketing recommendation.
Human Approval: Sends a formatted proposal to Slack. You can approve or reject the product directly from the chat.
Asset Management: If approved, the high-resolution image is saved to Google Drive, and product details are logged in Notion.
How to set up
Install Community Node: Go to Settings > Community Nodes in n8n and install n8n-nodes-apify.
Configure Credentials: Ensure you have connected credentials for NASA, OpenAI, Cloudinary, Apify, Slack, Google Drive, and Notion.
Set Variables: Open the node named "Workflow Configuration". Here you must define:
cloudinaryCloudName & cloudinaryApiKey
productionCost (Your cost to print a shirt)
minProfitThreshold (Minimum profit required to consider a product "viable")
Update IDs:
Slack Node: Select your target channel.
Google Drive Node: Select the destination folder.
Notion Node: Select your product database.
Requirements
NASA API Key: (Free)
Cloudinary Account: For image transformation and mockups.
Apify Account: Required to run the dtrungtin/etsy-scraper actor.
OpenAI API: For keyword generation and marketing advice.
Slack, Google Drive, Notion: For the approval loop and storage.