The problem
Grocery prices move constantly and differ store to store, but nobody actually checks three supermarkets for every item on their list — so most shoppers just pick one store out of habit and overpay on whichever half of the list happens to be cheaper elsewhere. Solving that properly means someone (or something) has to track all three, continuously.
What was built
Cheepaz runs an automated collection pipeline that pulls current pricing across Coles, Woolworths and IGA on a running schedule, normalized into one catalog spanning 16 categories and hundreds of brands. On top of that sits a cost-optimization layer: given a shopping list, work out the cheapest total — from a single store, or split intelligently across all three — and surface it as a straightforward list builder, not a spreadsheet.
Why this is the hard part
Collecting three price feeds is the easy 20%. The actual problem is matching — the same product, named, packaged and categorized slightly differently by three separate retailers, has to be recognized as one thing before any cost comparison means anything. Get that matching wrong and the whole comparison becomes noise. It's the same discipline as any Systems Integration engagement: making disparate systems agree on what a single "thing" actually is before you can automate anything useful on top of it.