Gina’s Gelato is a young, small but growing, owner-operated gelateria and dessert shop (brick & mortar, single location) now entering its fourth year of business. Our current inventory tracking relies on handwritten tallies, leading to frequent errors, difficulty tracking sales trends, and the inability to reliably launch an e-commerce store.

We are seeking students who are interested in building a practical, easy-to-use, real-time inventory management system. This system will lay the critical groundwork for a future e-commerce site, integrating directly with our existing Square POS (sandbox API provided for secure testing).

If your course allows, educators may optionally expand the scope to include the e-commerce build itself—using Square’s sandbox tools to create a basic but functional online storefront. This would allow students to see their work come to life in a real-world setting, supporting both the inventory system and its live integration into a customer-facing sales channel.

The framework of this project is two-fold:

• Primary Focus: Building a robust inventory management system that will allow us to keep track of inventory trends over time (day/week/month/year, YOY, etc.) of various product categories and variations (e.g. Category: Gelato, variations: chocolate, coffee, etc.; Category: Cookies, variations: chocolate chip, hazelnut biscotti, mocha, etc.)
• Secondary Focus: Ensuring the system is built with the perspective of integrating with a future e-commerce platform. Students may provide a basic working prototype or proof-of-concept demonstrating inventory synchronization capability via the Square POS Sandbox environment. Detailed documentation or instructions for future integration should be included.

Business Context & Impact:

This project directly helps our small but growing business by solving key operational challenges:

• Real-time Inventory Tracking: Eliminates manual errors; allows precise analysis of historical data (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, year-over-year comparisons) to forecast ingredient ordering, manage costs, and minimize waste.
• Foundation for E-commerce Growth:Without a real-time integrated system, launching an online store is impractical. Inventory moves rapidly during busy periods, making manual updating impossible without negatively affecting customer experience.

The practical solutions students deliver will directly support our ability to grow revenue; expand our market reach; support more job creation; and improve customer experience both in-store and online.

Student Mentorship & Resources:

We are dedicated to supporting student success:

• Direct mentorship provided by Gina, the business owner and operator, offering insights and guidance throughout the project.
• Regular feedback and availability for consultation as needed.
• Access provided to Square’s Sandbox API environment for secure development and testing.
• Provision of any necessary hardware/software resources, such as barcode scanners or database hosting (within reasonable budget constraints).
• Real-world sales and inventory data to help students test, validate, and refine their solutions.

Why This Project is Unique:

This opportunity offers students meaningful, hands-on experience developing a practical, immediately impactful solution for a growing small business. Rather than a theoretical exercise, students will directly contribute to a tangible, real-world outcome that will help shape the next stage of growth for Gina’s Gelato. They will also build valuable experience in developing scalable, user-focused solutions aligned with specific operational challenges and small-business realities.

Next Steps for Interested Educators & Students:

Please review the clarified scope above carefully. If this aligns with your course objectives and student capabilities, we’d be delighted to discuss further. We welcome any questions or suggestions to ensure mutual clarity and successful outcomes.

Thank you for your consideration—we're excited about the possibility of collaborating!

1. A fully functional, turnkey Inventory Management System:

• Design and implement a user-friendly inventory tracking solution that servers can easily operate (barcode scanners, tablets, or equally simple methods).
• Automatically adjust inventory counts in real time when products are sold or pulled from storage.
• Enable detailed historical tracking (sales trends, inventory movement, popularity of specific products by day, week, month, year) to help identify flavour trends, improve forecasting, and reduce ingredient waste.
• Provide an easy-to-update interface for Gina (the business owner) or other admins (as the business grows) to quickly add or adjust inventory as new gelato/sorbetto flavours and baked goods are produced.
• Ensure the system is scalable, allowing items, categories, and data fields to be added or removed as the business grows.
• Implement permission-based roles: e.g. Super Admin role (e.g. Gina): Full access, including user management.; Admin role (designated managers): All functions of the team role (below) plus: Can add/edit/remove products and categories, input production batches, and adjust inventory records, add servers but cannot edit their own role or that of other admins; Team role (our servers and future kitchen assistants): Can scan items out of inventory, view current stock, and reverse accidental actions — but cannot edit products or system structure or add additional people to the system not edit their role.

2. E-commerce Integration Planning (Square POS Sandbox): A full e-commerce site build is not required during this project; however, the inventory system should be designed and documented with integration capability in mind. The aim is to ensure the inventory system supports live inventory syncing to reflect real-time availability for future online customers.

• Using the Square POS Sandbox Environment, demonstrate a basic, functional prototype or proof-of-concept showing how the inventory system will interact and update a future Square-powered e-commerce store automatically in real-time.
• If time and scope permit, students may also build the first version of the e-commerce site to demonstrate full integration. This is not required, but would provide valuable applied experience and a more comprehensive solution if feasible within the course.
• Provide a written implementation plan outlining how the inventory system could be connected to a Square-integrated e-commerce store, including key assumptions, technical dependencies, and required integration steps.
• Deliver a GitHub repository (in addition to the working model/interface, which will be used in-store) with all project code, configuration files, and supporting assets to ensure a seamless handoff to a future developer or student team working on the second phase of the project: launching an e-commerce store that syncs directly with the inventory system and Square POS.
• Include clear documentation for:

1. Setup and deployment instructions
2. System architecture and integration logic
3. Technical notes for developers
4. Recommendations for tools, frameworks, or services to support the e-commerce build

Note for educators: If your course timeline permits, students are welcome to build the initial version of the e-commerce storefront using Square’s Sandbox tools. While a full e-commerce build is not required, it is a natural and valuable extension of the inventory system. Delivering a working storefront that is near launch-ready—with only minor adjustments needed (e.g. colours, copy, or product labels)—would allow the full scope of this project to be completed within a single term.

This approach offers students a more immersive, end-to-end experience and the unique opportunity to see their work go live and used by real customers—an exciting, high-impact outcome for learners applying their skills to real-world business needs.