Independent spot-check

Status: passed on 2026-08-31. A second agent checked the complete frame and outcome key sets, recomputed the published arithmetic and file hashes, and inspected seven current store websites. The reviewer was given the packet and asked to find disagreements before publication.

Complete-file checks

The reviewer loaded sampling-frame.csv, platform-survey-2026-08-31.json, and import-outcomes-2026-08-31.json independently. Both result files contained 205 unique keys and matched the frame exactly, with no missing or extra keys. The frame contained 88 Illinois and 117 Pennsylvania stores. Recomputed importer totals were:

Outcome	Stores
No supported platform detected	91
Fetch failed	69
Accepted (ok)	40
Quality rejected	3
Denylisted	2

Of the 40 accepted stores, 26 returned at least one product and 14 returned none. The importer returned 138 products under the five-per-store cap. The reviewer also recomputed the SHA-256 hash and byte count of every file listed in source-manifest.json; every value matched.

The exact arithmetic and manifest checks can be repeated with python verify.py from this folder.

Website checks

These checks describe what the sites returned on 2026-08-31. Websites can change after the dated survey, so a later difference would not alter the stored result.

Frame key	Published outcome	Independent check
cityblue_technologies_us_82	Historical markup score 26; current WooCommerce import accepted 5 products	https://www.citybluetechnologies.com/wp-json/wc/store/v1/products?per_page=1 returned JSON containing a real retail product rather than template content.
chalet_nursery_us_44	Shopify import accepted 5 products	https://www.chaletnursery.com/products.json returned HTTP 200 JSON containing a real retail product.
mcguire_western_lumber_co_us_10	Squarespace detected; accepted with zero products	https://www.lumberchicago.com/ returned HTTP 200 HTML identifying Squarespace. No product endpoint returned a product.
fasel_sons_garden_center_us_61	Wix detected; 5 demonstration products rejected	https://www.faselandsons.com/ returned HTTP 200 HTML identifying Wix. The stored quality reason says all five names used Wix's default product-template text.
north_end_computers_us_43	Denylisted as robots-blocked	https://northendcomputers.com/robots.txt returned User-agent: * and Disallow: /.
andersonville_hardware_store_us_83	Fetch failed	https://andersonvillehardware.com/ timed out after 15 seconds without a response.
batteries_unlimited_us_65	WooCommerce detected; product fetch failed	https://batteriesunlimitedstore.com/wp-json/wc/store/v1/products?per_page=1 returned HTTP 404, consistent with the stored result that neither supported WooCommerce route was reachable.

The original 205-row markup ledger was not preserved, so the reviewer could verify the historical markup-positive CityBlue row but could not independently select and prove a historical markup-negative row. That missing source is disclosed in the study and prevents stronger claims about the exact identity of all three historical positives. It does not affect the complete 2026 survey and controlled importer results included in this packet.