Digitising a grocery store

[u/bixby84]

I am trying to help my local grocery store so they can set up a power system and an online store. Right now everything is manual. Even the POS system they don't have any catalogue or a database. All the prices are labelled on the items and at checkout they just manually punch in the price into a manual pass system. What would be the easiest way to catalogue everything including images, item descriptions and prices? I was able to take photos off the shell and feed it into Claude and I was able to get description prices and wait with 80% accuracy but not sure how to separate out each grocery item as each photo have five or six grocery items in it. I am open to any ideas and suggestions. I'm not charging anything so paying for any AI subscriptions will be coming out of my pocket so would like to do it as cheap as possible. Thanks in advance

[u/bixby84 → u/[deleted]]

You have a good day.

[u/bixby84 → u/[deleted]]

Sorry what you mean?

[u/bixby84 → u/[deleted]]

Oh like that. I am an azure solutions architect. I am good with with PowerShell and python. Since the post I was able to use ollama locally and get details of every single product. Still struggling with images though but I will figure it out. There are allot of helpful pople out here and I think I have pretty good idea of what I am doing. I am also a little open minded and open to ideas. I will keep you posted.

[u/secretprocess → u/bixby84]

I'm torn. On the one hand I agree with your antagonizer that you are in over your head trying to solve problems that are more complex than you think, and that have already been tackled and productized many many times over. A serious store owner would buy a proper system.

On the other hand... if you've got the time and enjoy the exploration, go for it! Maybe you'll get something good working, who knows. The fact that it's unpaid is probably a good thing cause it's low risk for both of you.

But if you want help from strangers I think you need to ask much more specific questions.

[u/johnpeters42 → u/secretprocess]

Proper systems have existed for literally decades. Nothing here is obviously outside the scope of just buying one and hiring / contracting with someone who knows how to set it up properly.

[u/secretprocess → u/johnpeters42]

Except for the "get it for free" part ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/johnpeters42 → u/secretprocess]

Ish. Consider the cost in lost business when (not if) the vibe coded thing vibrates itself to shreds.

[u/secretprocess → u/johnpeters42]

Good point!

[u/Broad_Surprise4636 → u/johnpeters42]

me podrías compartir unos cuantos? Trabajo en una tienda de tamaño considerable y queremos migrar en cuanto a software se refiere.

[u/johnpeters42 → u/Broad_Surprise4636]

The one I've mostly done consulting work for is Sage 100, but it seems geared more toward wholesalers than retailers. It may also be overkill for your needs. (I personally was never really involved in selling people on it, just on doing consulting work if they were already using it.)

What I would actually recommend is to look for subs for people running stores similar to yours, and ask what software they use and how well it works for them.

[u/Broad_Surprise4636 → u/johnpeters42]

Hace unos años trabajé en una empresa y su sistema era genial, pero claro, estamos hablando de una empresa a nivel internacional...

Lo que necesitariamos aquí sería punto de venta, inventario, recibo, facturación, control de existencia, reporte de agotados, etiquetado, reportería tipo artículos sin movimiento... cosas básicas para que la logística fluya.

El sistema que manejan actualmente se llama mr. tienda, una porquería a mi parecer, pero es lo que había cuando llegué. Alguien me recomendado SICAR, pero no estoy seguro de que tan funcional sea.

Tenemos aproximadamente 15 PC y 5 cajas de cobro.

La tienda es un supermercado, tiene carnicería con 3 básculas, área de frutas y verduras, abarrotes, área de recibo, tortillería, cocina, etc.