5 replies to this topic

[fabregas911]

Ok, I m a non-tech guy but I was curious about how this site worked. I m not sure where exactly to post this either so I apologize in advance if this is not the best spot.


Anyways, I wanted to find out, how is Milo: Local Shopping able to get real time inventory n pricing data from offline retailers?
I know they are able to gather the data from retailers Point of sale systems, but I wanted to know what do they do which allows it to be compatible with the POS systems?


Is this like really advanced stuff? And how much work is it to set up something like milo (both time and money)??


Any replies that can help answer my questions would be great! Thanks a lot!

[WingedPanther]

If you look at the stores they list, they all have websites that give details about locations. There's no magic, just a lot of website-scraping.

[fabregas911]

Yeah i noticed that too, but their whole site is supposed to be about getting info from the POS systems! And now they say on their site too that they work with "quickbooks" POS system! So surely there is something too it! And besides Ebay is not gonna spend $75 mil on a site that just scraps data.

I think they started off as just a scraper but havve now developed something that gets data from POS system! Do you know how that would work though?

[WingedPanther]

Think about it this way: For a fee, or at least an NDA, don't you think Target could provide access to its inventory data to Milo? If you approached a bunch of stores and said, "I'd like to help you reach a larger audience for your products" and you thought you had pretty good prices, would it be worth joining to you? If Milo did all the work for creating the application to extract the data from your inventory system, would that be worthwhile?

The reality is there are a LOT of ways you could do this, if you have a good business relationship with the companies you feature.

It's also worth noting how many stores are NOT represented. For example, none of my local grocery stores are listed, even thought Milo lists groceries. Not very helpful. Look at this and compare it with your local stores: Milo Retailer List It doesn't list Staples, Wal-Mart, or many of the stores I shop at regularly. Most of what it lists is of no interest to me, and the products I buy are likely to be much cheaper at the unlisted stores.

[fabregas911]

Thanks for the reply! But, what I wanted to know when I posted this question is: how hard is it to create that "application" that gets the data? And how much do u think that would cost to have it developed?

[WingedPanther]

That depends entirely on how the data is stored, where it is stored, how "live" it needs to be, etc, etc, etc.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different inventory control systems. Many of the larger corporations will have custom written ones.