Work · ShopStation
ShopStation
Pricing intelligence for independent grocers, competing with what the chains take for granted.
What it was
Independent supermarkets compete against chains with sophisticated pricing data and market intelligence. ShopStation aggregated pricing across retailers — a comparison tool for shoppers on one side, and on the other, the data a small shop would need to price strategically instead of by feel.
What I built
- PostgreSQL schema handling multi-retailer pricing data at ~50k records
- Two interfaces off one dataset: consumer price comparison and a retailer dashboard
- Twelve retailer interviews to test whether any of it was wanted
- A full design system in Figma — wireframes, flows, interactive prototypes
What I learned
The technical work was the straightforward part. The hard part was understanding how independent retailers actually make pricing decisions — which happens in the shop, under time pressure, with inventory and regulars and a competitor down the road all pulling in different directions. The best features came out of watching that. None of them came from my assumptions.
The bigger lesson was about the market rather than the product. You can build the right tool for people who have no time, no budget and no habit of buying software, and still not have a business. I stopped rather than keep paying to find that out again.