Use cases · An online shop
Watching competitors
An online shop names its products and its competitors. Every week the assistant checks what each one charges, and shows what changed.
The situation
Kestrel sells camping gear online, and five other shops sell many of the same tents, packs and sleeping bags. Their prices move every week. Checking them by hand takes Ines, who does the buying, most of a Monday, and the hard part is not reading a price. It is knowing that two pages describe the same product when the shops name it differently.
Handing it over
You: Every week, check what these five shops charge for the 40 products we both sell. Here’s our product list.
Assistant: Before I run all five: here are the first ten matches from each shop, beside the page each came from. Have I picked the right price?
You: Use the price with delivery, not without.
Assistant: Changed for every shop. Running all five now; I’ll open the comparison when it’s done.
A sample first, because a wrong field found after five hundred pages costs another five hundred visits. Found in the first ten, it costs one sentence.
Ines decides what counts as the same
Week 42
37 of 40 products matched on all five shops. Two prices changed since last week, and three matches need your eye.
| Product | Kestrel | Trailhead | Summit Co | Pine & Peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine 2 tent | €329 | €299 ↓8% | €335 | €329 |
| Ridge 45 L pack | €149 | €149 | €155 | €139 ↓7% |
| Down quilt 0° | €219 | €225 | €219 | Same? |
To confirm
- Down quilt 0° · Pine & PeakSame product?
Same name, but 50 g heavier. Possibly last year’s model.
She confirms two matches and rejects the quilt. Her answers are kept, so next week’s check doesn’t ask again. When one shop started showing a challenge page instead of prices, her assistant stopped there and asked her: wait a day, slow down, or leave that shop out? That call was hers.
A week later
A week later, a new chat
You: Did anyone change their prices?
Assistant: One did. Summit Co brought the Alpine 2 tent down to €299 on Monday, level with Trailhead. Everything else held. Your page shows the history.
Every price is kept with the date it was seen, so “what changed” is a question with an answer, and so is “what did they charge before the summer sale”.
The whole shop reads it
Ines buys, and Tom, who owns the shop, sets prices. Both open the same page. If a check was interrupted halfway through, because a laptop closed or a shop pushed back, the next one carries on from where it stopped, and nothing collected is lost.
More stories
- Candidate search Hands over a job description, reviews the shortlist, and their feedback steers the next round.
- A software team Every assistant knows what is waiting for its person. People decide what gets built, how it is split, and when it is done.
- What to post about The assistant keeps track of the topics in their area and what they have posted on, and drafts on what is worth posting today. They approve, edit or discard.
- Relationships at scale Says who counts. The assistant finds the people, writes each a personal note, and keeps track of every conversation. Nothing is sent without them.
- Looking for a job Says once what they want. The assistant finds and screens openings, drafts what each one asks for, and applies to the ones they approve.
- Every page, reviewed Sets the goal and the rules once. The assistant goes over every page, records what it found and fixed, and brings back only what needs them.