Cloud-based distributed order management solutions provider Shopatron has expanded the capabilities of local product search on mobile with its new Finderbot app, unveiled at IRCE 2015.
Once a consumer’s location is established while visiting a brand’s product pages, nearby stores with the product are identified based on available store inventory feeds. If no local results turn up, users click “find it for me” and Finderbot makes real-time stock requests via robo-call to retailers that don’t have inventory feeds, aggregates the responses and displays them.
A text message containing a link to localized search results is pushed out in real time as stores respond to Finderbot’s inventory requests.
“All major retailers provide customers with local product search and same-day in store pickup,” said Ed Stevens, founder and CEO of Shopatron. “Yet not a single brand manufacturer offers the same thing, because aggregating local inventory data from 1,000 retailers can’t be timed perfectly. I can get this data from 20% of my retailers on the day I launch a local product search feature, but not having it for 100% of them means a bad customer experience.”
Stevens said Finderbot matches data sources into a single mobile search experience so with 20 seconds of effort consumers can find any product anywhere for that brand within 5-10 minutes, whether or not there are live inventory feeds.
Finderbot has been in the planning stages for two years, and took a year to develop in house, Stevens said. Several brands are using it now, and live customer examples will be available in Q3.
“This will save millions of minutes in search time for customers,” he said. “The convenience factor is a surefire way for brands to sell more.”