Why I Built CartLens: An AI Receipt Scanner for Local Price Comparison

Online shopping has trained us to expect price transparency. Before buying a laptop, pair of headphones, or household item online, we can open several tabs, compare sellers, review price history, and decide whether a deal is actually good. In a physical store, that visibility largely disappears. We see one shelf price, at one location, at one moment—and usually make a decision without knowing what nearby shoppers paid for the same product. That gap is why I built CartLens: an AI receipt scanner for local price comparison that helps shoppers answer a deceptively simple question: Did I overpay? CartLens scans receipts and price tags, identifies products and prices, compares them with nearby observations, and helps shoppers find less expensive local options. The larger goal is not merely to digitize receipts. It is to turn everyday purchases into useful, privacy-conscious shopping intelligence. The internet solved online price comparison—not physical retail Price-tracking tool