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Toku's main screen, a dashboard where you can keep track of your shopping
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Plan your next shop by creating your shopping list (bottom) and by finding a store that offers the best deal (top)
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Compare with alternatives to make an informed choice of where to shop
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When you shop, get a receipt and scan - this will give you feedback on your shop, and help others get better deals by updating our database!
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We have a hard working backend to make this all possible
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Feedback on your shop - maybe consider other stores next time to save even more!
Inspiration
With the cost-of-living crisis accelerating and hitting especially those who are on a lower income harder than ever, we wanted to stand with them by providing means to save on daily grocery shopping with minimal efforts.
What it does
Toku is a crowdsourced app to help minimise spends on groceries. It starts with creating a grocery shopping list. Toku will then find the best deals in your vicinity and online delivery services, allowing you to avoid overpaying for your daily groceries.
After you shop, you can scan your receipt with Toku, and we'll keep a tally of how much you're saving through the app, and tell you where you can save further. At the same time, scanned receipts are fed back into our database on grocery prices as they fluctuate, so that we always have the freshest data on deals at every store.
Toku's name is derived from the Japanese word "得", which means to get a lot of value from the money you spent, i.e. to benefit from a good deal. We thought that this was a perfect name for an app to help people get the best deal on their every day shop.
How we built it
Toku was built with a Flask backend, perfect for all of our experience in Python, and a Svelte frontend, allowing us to iterate super quickly. The app itself was then deployed with Azure App Services.
Challenges we ran into
With one member working remotely due to the pandemic, finding the best way to collaborate was not easy. We decided to set-up a video call full-time so that we could chat to each other as soon as we face an issue, however minor.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
One of us is a PhD student specialising in NLP, another is a Master’s student in Spatial Analytics, and the final one is an Undergraduate student in Physics. We are proud to have come up with a topic, role split, and effective collaboration that was challenging and meaningful yet manageable for all of us!
What we learned
Our project makes use of multiple existing functionalities such as Veryfi (receipt reader), Flask, and Svelte. This has helped us develop an exciting prototype effectively in a short period-of time, which taught us the importance of always updating ourselves as new frameworks are made available.
What's next for Toku
The true strength of Toku will come into effect when many people start using this app and help us update the database to the latest prices, so that the users can help each other save money. We are excited to deploy this app to the public next, forming this supportive community with the power of Toku!
On a more concrete note, we'd also like to also plug in with more APIs. For example, using APIs from delivery companies such as Ocado, people could order things straight from the app itself once they've made their shopping list. By integrating with a Maps API, we could let users navigate to the grocery store of their choosing smoothly from within Toku. Integrating with virtual receipts in the future will give users an even more seamless way to use Toku.
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