SurePrice

Physical retail stores, supermarkets, and pop-up vendors in Nigeria struggle with price management. With frequent currency fluctuations and inflation, updating paper shelf tags is labor-intensive, error-prone, and leads to discrepancies where the price on the shelf doesn't match the price at the checkout counter. This frustrates shoppers and creates friction for store owners.

Shoppers already carry smartphones with native camera QR scanners. Instead of relying on expensive electronic shelf labels or constantly printing paper tags, a physical QR code placed on the shelf can serve as a permanent portal to real-time price data. Store owners update prices once in the cloud, and customers scan to see current pricing instantly without downloading an app.

I designed SurePrice as a multi-tenant platform. The architecture needed to balance two distinct user experiences: a fast, sub-second scanning portal for shoppers on mobile networks, and a comprehensive management dashboard for store owners. It had to support store-modular pricing across different physical locations, role-based access control (RBAC), and a batch print studio for generating physical QR tags.

I built SurePrice v2 using Next.js 16, React 19, and Supabase. The platform includes an instant scan resolver (`/q/[code]`) that loads in milliseconds, a batch print studio that formats QR codes into printable shelf tags, A6 tent cards, and sticker sheets, and store-level catalog management. It also features a 7-day scan freshness tracker that flags prices that haven't been updated recently to prevent stale data.

Supabase with PostgreSQL and Row-Level Security (RLS) provided the multi-tenant isolation required for separate stores. For QR generation and scanning, I used `qrcode` and `html5-qrcode` with nano IDs for compact, collision-resistant URLs. Tailwind CSS with dynamic themes allowed creating distinct visual styles for the shopper-facing interface versus the administrative dashboard.

Optimizing the shopper scan experience for low-bandwidth mobile connections was critical. Every kilobyte mattered. I had to strip down the scan-resolution page to its absolute essentials, minimizing JavaScript payload and eliminating unnecessary dependencies. Designing the batch print studio to output pixel-perfect, printer-friendly CSS for physical shelf tags across standard paper sizes (A4 grids, sticker sheets) also required extensive trial and error.

SurePrice v2 is currently in its pilot phase with pre-provisioned merchant test stores. The system proves that physical-to-digital retail bridges can be built simply and cost-effectively, solving real operational friction for brick-and-mortar merchants.

In hindsight, I would have integrated barcode scanner compatibility alongside QR codes earlier in the development process to make initial inventory ingestion faster for stores that already use standard UPC/EAN barcodes. Future iterations will focus on automated inventory sync with popular point-of-sale systems.