Hello Small Business Community!
I’m in the process of developing an app designed to strengthen the connection between local businesses and customers by providing real-time inventory information. Before proceeding further, I’d love to get your input on this concept.
For Businesses:
- Real-Time Inventory Exposure: Your inventory will be visible to local shoppers in real-time, increasing the likelihood of sales.
- Drive Foot Traffic: By showing customers exactly what you have in stock, the app aims to increase in-store visits.
- Local Community Engagement: Be part of a platform that promotes local shopping and community support.
- User-Friendly Interface: Easy to update your inventory, even if you’re not tech-savvy.
- Marketing Opportunities: Enhanced visibility in the local community without the need for extensive marketing efforts.
- Insights and Analytics: Gain insights into customer preferences and shopping trends in your area.
For Individuals:
- Save Time and Effort: No more wasted trips! Know exactly which store has what you need before you go.
- Support Local Businesses: Easily find and buy what you need locally, supporting your community’s businesses.
- Personalized Shopping Experience: Get recommendations and notifications about items of your interest.
- Community Connection: Be part of a platform that enriches your local shopping experience and community ties.
Seeking Your Feedback:
- Would you use this app? Why or why not?
- What features would you like to see in such an app?
- What concerns or suggestions do you have about this concept?
Your insights are invaluable to making this app truly beneficial for small businesses and local shoppers. Looking forward to your thoughts and feedback!
I modeled out a very basic level of what you have. Instead of the app it was once a day text alerts letting people know what items were remaining at the shop. They could purchase at a discounted rate before store closed. Eliminates waste and brings in a little sales push at EOD
Interesting. I would definitely want to know what people are looking for nearby or in my shop, so to increase my cash flow
I’m not sure I understand how this is easier or better than current solutions? As a customer when I want something from a local store, I use their website. These days, there really aren’t any stores that don’t already have a website. As a store owner, what value do you provide me? You’re now listing me next to other buying options. It’s a labor intensive endeavor for me to manage my shop on your app. Are you paying for marketing? Are you charging me?
I’m sorry but I can’t see any real problem this solves for either side.
That varies. Most local stores in my town do not have a website. And those with websites do not include inventory. Except for the chains.
I feel like we get this kind of thing pitched to us several times a year. If you havent yet, check out Pointy.
The hardest part is going to be keeping active inventory numbers from small businesses.
Most small business owners are not going to go through the headache of letting your app know when they have changes in inventory, especially if you expect them to do it for free (DoorDash will often pay hesitant small business to sign up to be on its service, for example).
If you’re planning to use APIs to connect your backend DB to every small business POS system, your backend team better be determined. Are they going to go to each business individually to troubleshoot when things aren’t working? What if a business is using an obscure POS system that charges ridiculous fees for every API call; are you paying for that?
Have you built an app for a business before? How successful has it been?
I don’t doubt the idea, I just know that as someone that does app development as a hobby you’re looking at something rather expensive to maintain properly over the long run, and I’m not seeing a clear path to monetize it that will subsidize it.
Hello, thanks for your response. About the headache to update the inventory, you are right. I have thought about connecting to POS systems, but I am trying my best to keep cost to the minimal as I know this could be high -cost maintenance. Whilst I have not built apps for business in particular, I have had experience with others. I am planning to make this app follow a freemium strategy
This would be interesting to me but I’m curious of the cost to me. And if I could see somehow if it’s actually leading to sales so I know if it’s worth the cost.
I don’t see the appeal on the consumer side of things. “I went to the store and they didn’t have the specific thing that I wanted” is not really a common problem IMO, because most “I already know what I want” shopping has moved online.
Most in-person shopping these days (among people who use apps) is situations where people don’t know exactly what they want, so they go somewhere to browse and physically try on clothes, for example. An app like this isn’t really helpful for something like that, because all the app would answer is “does this place have a good variety of the things that I want to look at?”, which usually you can already guess just by knowing what store you’re going to (I’ve never gone shopping for boots and then somehow ended up at a store that only sells 1 kind of boot).
The way I see it, this product would basically be testing “if people who were otherwise going to make an online order knew they could pick that item up locally, would they pick it up instead?”, and I don’t think the answer to that is yes most of the time