Sunday, January 29, 2012

Things They Should Invent: WhereCanIBuy.com

Last summer I bought a full-length mattress wedge. I ended up buying it online (from overstock.com) because I couldn't figure out where to get one in real life. I searched for it in real life by going to the websites of every store I could think of that sells mattresses and seeing if they had any mattress wedges listed on their site. None of them did. I did a bit of fruitless googling, then ended up just searching sites that sell general merchandise. I'm happy with the product I got, but I seriously doubt that there is nowhere to buy a mattress wedge in Toronto. There has to be an easier way.

They should invent a single comprehensive website where you enter your postal code and the item you want to buy, and it finds stores in your area where you can buy it. You can search either by general type of item ("mattress wedge") or by your specifications ("four-cup coffee maker with timer") or by a particular brand and type("Touche Éclat #2"). It would also be interesting to list the prices and whether the item in question is in stock. To make this as easy as possible on merchants, the website's database should be compatible with the most common inventory management systems, so they can all batch upload their inventory for us to find.

This would not only be convenient for customers, but would also be good for smaller, more local businesses. If we haven't the slightest idea where to buy something, we tend to gravitate towards large department or discount stores, or relevant chain stores. (When I was talking about mattress wedges, you were probably thinking The Bay, Sears, Sleep Country, Walmart.) But what if some little storefront nearby has the product in question, but you've never noticed it before because it's in the opposite direction of your commute? A single central directory would direct customers to the store that's best positioned to serve them, not just the best-known. Win-win.

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