Shopping for groceries can be a chore. Recently I tried using Clawdbot to do a Checkers Sixty60 order for me, and the experience very interesting.

What is Clawdbot?

Clawdbot is a personal AI assistant. It is an open source project that you install and run on your own hardware (or a VPS). It uses any of the AI service providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google etc. At first it doesn’t seem that useful but when you start to connect it to services that you use it gets interesting!

It’s very different from ChatGPT or Claude which you can use online or on your phone. Clawdbot connects to WhatsApp or other messaging services so you can use it from anywhere. But the big difference is that you control what access it has to your digital life. You can give it access to your email, files, calendars etc. And because it runs you harware you control, you can set up the authentication etc. as you like.

Clawdbot can also initiate conversations. For example if an important email is received or to remind you about things.

The first draft of this article was created by Polly (my instance of Clawdbot) from my phone:

Let’s create a blog article about how we do Checkers shopping together. Clone my blog repo from Gitlab and push a draft to a new branch.

That’s what I said and Polly did the rest and sent me a link to the branch when it was done.

Polly as in Polly put the kettle on

This is Polly. She can do a lot of things but she can’t put the kettle on.

Why use Clawdbot for shopping?

It is suprising how much time and mental energy goes into shopping. Your list might just be ‘bread, milk, eggs’ but there is a lot of context baked into that list. It doesn’t say anything about brands, quantity or type of the products you want.

When you start shopping you search for ‘bread’ and the select something that matches your preferences. You might also compare prices or select something with better rewards (e.g. Discovery Vitality). Or you might consider a sale or bundle deal. You will also likely select a backup in case the item is out of stock.

All this takes a lot of time and effort. You also have to deal with the shopping app interface and it’s quirks or slowness. This time adds up and results in a lot of cognitive overhead.

What if you had a personal shopper who knew your preferences and could do the actuall act of selecting products for you?

That’s where Clawdbot comes in.

How it works (high level)

Clawdbot can interact with a web browser and since Checkers allows you to shop via their online store, Clawdbot can too. All it needs is an authenticated browser session. You have to do this step manually but after that it can do the rest.

I did have to teach it about Sixty60 vs Hyper, backups, sales and bundles, how to handle slowness on the site etc. These detailes are saved in a skill which Clawdbot can reference any time I want to some shopping. If you want to see what’s in the skill and event use it yourself, I’ve published the skill to Clawdhub which is a repository of skills for Clawdbot (or any agent that supports skills).

Downsides

Having an AI agent do your shopping is great and can save you time and remove the drudgery from grocery shopping but it’s not free. Depending on the AI model you are using Clawdbot is quite expensive to run.

Privacy & security

  • Clawdbot uses your existing Checkers account and payment method. Only proceed if you’re comfortable with that.
  • Review the basket and delivery window before final confirmation.

Here’s an example shopping session

Me: Please add bread and milk to my Checkers shopping basket

Polly: I’ll help you add bread and milk to your Checkers basket. Let me load the shopping skill and get started.

I can see you’re logged in with a basket already (R103.73 with items across two deliveries). Let me check your regulars first to add bread and milk efficiently since these are commonly ordered items.

Perfect! I can see the “My Shop” page. Let me click on “Shop Your Regulars” to find bread and milk since these are common items you’ve likely ordered before.

Excellent! I found your regulars with 263 products. I can see several bread and low fat milk options. Let me add them to your basket:

For low fat milk:

  • Darling 2% Medium Fat Milk 2L — R29.99 ✓

For bread, I can see:

  • SASKO More Slices Brown Bread 700g — R16.99 ✓
  • SASKO Premium Slices Brown Bread 700g — R17.99 ✓

Let me add the milk and the cheaper SASKO bread:

✓ Successfully added both items to your Sixty60 basket:

Added:

  • Darling 2% Medium Fat Milk 2L — R29.99 (low fat milk)
  • SASKO More Slices Brown Bread 700g — R16.99 (cheaper option)

Total for these items: R46.98

Both items are available for Sixty60 delivery and have been added to the top section of your basket (the Sixty60 section, not Hyper). Would you like me to add anything else to your order?

Me: Please add another 2 bottles of milk (should be 3 in total). Also salted butter

Polly: I’ll add 2 more bottles of milk and find salted butter for you.

Now let me find salted butter in your regulars. Let me scroll down to look for it.

Perfect! I can see salted butter in your regulars. I found Crystal Valley Salted Butter Brick 500g for R79.99, which is the cheapest salted butter option. Let me add it.