WorthIt

Inspiration

Winter is filled with joy and Christmas celebrations, but it also triggers a surge in holiday shopping. With the cold weather outside and the convenience of online shopping, a few clicks can sometimes lead to choices we may regret. With the rise of micro-trends fuelled by social media platforms like TikTok, it has never been easier to fall into the trap of impulsive spending and overconsumption.

We found that 90% of the best selling days for e-commerce were in the fourth quarter of the year, including Cyber Monday and Boxing Day [source]. And according to the National Retail Federation, nearly 50% of online retailers indicated a return rate of up to 20% [source]. In 2020, shipping returns alone resulted in 16 million metric tons of carbon emissions. A major proportion of these emissions were from returning holiday gifts [source].

So, how often do we really know what we're buying? Are we just chasing brand names? Do we have enough information about the quality of the things we buy and their impact on the environment?

What it does

WorthIt is a Chrome extension that empowers online shoppers to make more conscious choices during the hectic holiday season. When navigating a product page on an online retailer, WorthIt provides the user with a summarized evaluation of pros and cons based on existing reviews, its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) score reflecting the company's commitment to sustainability, and a Worth-It Meter that gauges the product's overall standing to help indecisive shoppers make a final decision.

The user can also customize the tone of their shopping assistant! WorthIt can be tailored to sound just like a motherly figure, a factual robot, or the casual voice of a friend. ❤️

How we built it

We used Google Chrome Extension JavaScript/HTML/CSS frontend with a Python Flask backend. We used the localStorage API to interface between our frontend and our backend. Our chrome extension is embedded in your webpage, making it the perfect shopping companion.

While browsing, we use Rainforest API, an Amazon scraping tool to retrieve product data that can be used to make an informed decision. To bring our shopping assistant to life, we used OpenAI. Through prompt engineering, we fine-tuned 3 different GPT 3.5 models to offer a unique shopping experience to our users.

Challenges we ran into

We had trouble connecting our Chrome Extension frontend to certain APIs and learning how to use JavaScript injections to personalize and create embedded Chrome extensions in a webpage. Time management was also a big challenge, within the group. Between all the interesting events that were organized throughout the weekend and the hard tasks that we had to overcome, allocating our time wisely did not come easy.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are so so proud of all the work we've done and of our pitch! We are especially proud of our Figma prototype which truly encompasses what WorthIt is capable of! Within a single weekend, we worked smoothly as a team, followed a thorough design/iteration/idea generation process, and brought a wonderful idea to life!

What we learned

We personally use Chrome extensions on a daily, they're so seamlessly integrated into our browsers that we sometimes forget that they're running in the background. We learned how to build a Chrome extension from the ground up and some of our members implemented tools and languages (ex. JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Flask, OpenAI) they had never used until the day of the hackathon. Our team also explored prompt engineering for the very first time and fine-tuned their own LLM models.

What's next for WorthIt

Looking ahead, we aim to expand WorthIt’s features to provide even greater value to the online shopper. In our next release, we plan to enable a two-way interaction between the user and their WorthIt assistant, to ask more specific questions and receive personalized recommendations. We also hope to eventually establish partnerships with sustainable brands to provide shoppers with solid alternatives that are vetted for their eco-friendly practices and ethical values.

WorthIt isn't just an extension - it's a movement towards conscious consumerism. Let’s reshape the way we shop online, one shopping cart at a time.