Shopper

Inspiration

Honestly, it started with a beanie. I just wanted one for ₦2,500. I opened Jumia, and I was drowning. Thousands of results, shoes, wigs, blenders, everything except the one thing I actually wanted. I just closed the app. I was tired. And I kept thinking, why is buying something so simple this stressful in Nigeria? I just wanted to tell someone, "find me a beanie for ₦2,500," and have them handle the rest. So I built Shopper AI to be that person.

## What it does

Shopper AI is simple. You tell it what you want in normal words, like you're texting a friend. It goes and does the hard work for you. It checks if it's in your budget, if the seller is legit, and if the deal smells like a scam. Then it shows you just three good options. All under your budget. All verified. You pick one, you pay with PayPal, and you're done. No wahala. No fear that you've been scammed.

How we built it*

We kept it simple on purpose, Using Render PayPal and tavily along with a query Engine

Challenges we ran into*

The biggest challenge was noise. Marketplaces throw everything at you. We had to be ruthless about cutting anything over budget. Then there was trust. Anyone can have 5 stars. We had to figure out what actually makes a seller trustworthy. And honestly, our first version was too smart for its own good. It showed too much data, too many charts. We realized people don't want to feel like they're doing homework. They just want to hear, "this one is safe." So we stripped it all back. There were some technical difficulties of course, internet but I'm happy to say we came on Top Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm proud we actually finished the whole journey. From "I want a beanie" to a PayPal-protected checkout in seconds. That feels good. I'm also proud that the AI doesn't just list things, it explains itself. It tells you why it picked something. And I'm proud we made it feel Nigerian. Naira pricing. Lagos market. Real sellers. It's not a copy of some US app, it's built for us.

What we learned

I learned that people don't need more choices, they need better choices they can trust. I learned that AI is most useful when it helps you decide, not just when it searches. And I learned that in shopping, trust matters more than price. If you don't trust it, you won't buy it, even if it's cheap. I also learned that a demo needs a story. One beanie tells people more about this product than ten features ever could.

What's next for Shopper I want Shopper to grow, hosting, more powerful search engines, real PayPal integration not sandbox