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Have Claude write a small program that reads weekly supplier inventory and pricing spreadsheets and updates your systems

who Jason Ford of The New Wheel, an electric bicycle shop in San Francisco, on LinkedIn

The problem

Every week suppliers send spreadsheets with the latest product inventory and pricing. He says these sheets "contain rows upon rows of data that used to require a human to comb through and then update our internal systems."

What happened

He says "The time we've gotten back is insane" but gives no hours figure. He says the shop's current pace of automations "would have cost $100k in annual developer salary" and is instead done "with a couple hours and a $20 Claude monthly subscription." The $100k is his estimate of what hiring a developer would have cost, not a measured saving. Owner-told.

Quoted in the source: Jason Ford, The New Wheel. Source: LinkedIn: Jason Ford on using AI to write code at the bike shop he runs (2024-12-14) · Added 2026-10-20.

How to set it up yourself

1. What The New Wheel does: Jason Ford had Claude write a mini-program that reads the weekly supplier spreadsheets of inventory and pricing and updates the shop's internal systems. The AI writes the code; it never makes the updates itself.
2. Save one week's supplier sheet and a small export of the matching items from your own system. Give Claude the column layouts and a few sample rows (no customer data) with the prompt below, and ask for a small script.
3. Run the script on copies of the files only. Have it produce a list of proposed changes (old value, new value) instead of changing anything.
4. Have a person check a sample of changed rows against the supplier sheet, including new items, missing items and big price jumps. Only when the sample is right, back up your data and use the script on the real system. Spot-check a sample after every weekly run.

Copy-paste prompt

Write a small {LANGUAGE, e.g. Python} script for {SHOP NAME}. Input 1: the weekly supplier spreadsheet, columns {SUPPLIER COLUMNS}. Input 2: our item export, columns {OUR COLUMNS}. Match rows on {MATCH KEY, e.g. supplier SKU}. Output a change list (SKU, field, old value, new value) for {FIELDS TO UPDATE}, plus separate lists of unmatched rows and rows with blank or non-number prices. Don't change any file in place. Never guess a match or fill a missing value; mark it [MISSING] and leave it out of the change list. Explain how to run it and how to test it on a copy first.

Tools used

Some tool links may be affiliate links. Disclosure

Checked prices: Claude: from $17/mo billed annually ($20 monthly) (verified 2026-10-18)

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