Finding ways to differentiate myself from mature brands

[YoungBroward]

Over the past year, I have been flipping used wheels and tires (for a niche vehicle) on facebook marketplace. I've made several thousand dollars and want to take it to the next level and sell new sets.

Here is my plan:
I found a supplier that makes a wheel design, that is very close to one of the top selling design in my niche. This will save me money because I don't have to purchase a mold.
X amount of sets (their minimum order quantity) will be about 6k after sea shipping. This gives me a 3-4k profit potential.
I plan to sell them on a website.

Here are things I did to test my market:
I posted on this niche facebook group (78,000 members, not sure how many are active and how many actually saw my post) asking if I was to make a design mixed of these two top selling wheels for an affordable price if they be interested. I also posted on a forum the same thing ( the forum is basically dead).
I had 17 people straight up tell me they are interested, 1 person sent me a DM saying they would want 5-10 sets if I made them at the price I said I would. The other 5 said they would be interested after they saw the final design and the quality. The last 2 said it's messed up of me to rip off someones design.

Here is the problem:
There are two wheel companies in my niche that are established and have a good following. Think of them as how people see "name brands". They are both constantly sold out even though they sell at a very high price.
My design is very similar to theirs, almost too close, which makes me think I'll be getting some hate because I "copied them and am trying to rip off their design".

Here is another problem:
In this facebook group, I said I would sell them for X price, but after adding up all the costs it will definitely be more than that (still significantly cheaper than the mature brands).
I think most people said they were interested only because of the unrealistic price I said I would sell them for .


Now my main question:
How can I differentiate myself in a market that already has mature brands, when the product itself is not much different?

 

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[jpn]

Now my main question:
How can I differentiate myself in a market that already has mature brands, when the product itself is not much different?

Perhaps you should reconsider trying to launch a me-too product without a clear differentiation. If you want to push ahead, did you read unscripted ? There are a few chapters on value skew there. That should give you some excellent direction.