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    AI · Sustainability · E-commerce

    TerraCart

    An AI-powered shopping assistant designed to help people discover more sustainable alternatives while shopping online.

    AIBrowser Extension

    Timeline

    When this piece of work started and where it stands today.

    1. Started

      1 Nov 2025

    2. Status

      Developing — in progress

    Problem

    Shopping sustainably online is mostly guesswork. Product pages optimise for conversion, claims are unverifiable, and comparing a greener alternative means opening five tabs mid-checkout. TerraCart puts the analysis where the decision happens — on the product page — and offers a concrete alternative instead of a lecture.

    What I built

    • E-commerce product analysis
    • Sustainable alternatives
    • AI research
    • Shopping checklist
    • Browser extension experience

    Built by Andrew

    Tech stack

    • Extension

      Browser extensionProduct page parsingContent scripts

    • AI layer

      Product understandingClaim researchAlternative matching

    • Interface

      Inline panelComparison viewShopping checklist

    • Data

      Product cacheCategory heuristicsSaved items

    Challenges & how I solved them

    • Reading messy product pages

      Every retailer structures pages differently. Parsing combines structured data where it exists with content-based extraction as fallback, so the panel still works on pages without clean markup.

    • Not inventing sustainability claims

      The easy failure mode is a confident number with nothing behind it. Analysis separates verifiable attributes from unverified marketing claims and says so explicitly when evidence is thin.

    • Alternatives that are actually comparable

      A greener product at four times the price is not a real option. Matching filters on function and price band first, then ranks on sustainability signals.

    Results so far

    Status
    In developmentAnalysis and alternatives in progress.
    Surface
    Browser extensionWorks inline on product pages.
    Principle
    Evidence over scoresUnverified claims labelled as such.

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