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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

    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

    Inside the product

    The main screens and what each one does.

    • Material read
      Packaging
      Origin signals
      Claim check

      Product analysis

      The extension reads the product being viewed and breaks down what is actually known about materials, packaging and origin versus what is only marketing language.

    • Similar items
      Why it's better
      Price delta
      Availability

      Better alternatives

      Instead of a score with no action attached, it surfaces comparable products that are genuinely more sustainable and similar in price and function.

    • Saved items
      Compare view
      Notes
      Decision log

      Shopping checklist

      A running list keeps intended purchases together so decisions can be reviewed before checkout rather than one impulse at a time.

    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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