
Show HN: Localmint - Quickly find local store opening hours - oisin
http://www.localmint.com/
======
DontBeADick
Gave it a try on a chain of sporting goods store with several locations in my
area.

Google: Correct hours

Yelp: Correct hours

Localmint: No stores found

Looks like you've got a long road ahead if you want any chance of making this
work. I personally don't see any need for such a website since Yelp and Google
have pretty much got it covered.

~~~
bhouston
Competing with Google's built-in search results with a separate application is
highly challenging and I wouldn't recommend it unless you can add tremendous
value and even then I think it is a tough sell for the large majority of
users.

~~~
mbesto
Also, Yelp has this pretty much cornered. (4sq as well maybe?)

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dubcanada
That is a very targeted market.

And I'm not sure what you are using, but nothing is turning up for me. For
example...

[http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=tim+hortons&l=toronto%2...](http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=tim+hortons&l=toronto%2C+on)

[http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=starbucks&l=toronto%2C+...](http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=starbucks&l=toronto%2C+on)

[http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=starbucks&l=new+york+ci...](http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=starbucks&l=new+york+city)

[http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=winners&l=new+york+city](http://www.localmint.com/ie/search?q=winners&l=new+york+city)

Now there is def Tim Hortons and Star Bucks in Toronto. There is at least 4000
of them.

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irishbabu
I can found starbucks,
[http://www.localmint.com/us/search?q=starbucks&l=new+york](http://www.localmint.com/us/search?q=starbucks&l=new+york)

~~~
dubcanada
Hrm it seems to be working for me now. It wasn't before.

Must just be slow or something.

~~~
cpayne624
They've just gotta do better at normalizing the location. 'new york' vs 'new
york city'

------
oisin
We have built Localmint to help consumers avoid the tedious task of browsing
store locators, which typically offer terrible user experience, especially on
smartphones. Would love to hear any feedback you have. Oisin Ryan - Co-Founder

~~~
buckbova
Tedious? Open google maps, search on phrase, and note closest search results.

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thecodemonkey
This is awesome! I built something similar as a side project a few years ago
[1]. Our approach is a little bit different since we're focusing on crawling
updated opening hours weekly (when available), so our data will never be
stale.

It's currently very popular in Denmark, but we have a US version as well.

We have been looking into opening up our dataset for anyone to use, shoot me
an email if this is something you would be interested in: me@codemonkey.io

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whats-open-nearby-find-
hours...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whats-open-nearby-find-
hours/id492301344?mt=8)

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chuinard
I would go to Yelp for this info (usually the store hours). The site looks
good but just throwing that out there, I don't think you have any info that
Yelp doesn't.

~~~
oisin
Hi Chuinard, we have made the Localmint website and apps as simple and clean
as possible. We see having less info than Yelp as a positive. Thanks for
commenting!

~~~
Lambdanaut
Less information doesn't necessarily correlate with simplicity. Now that
you've got a clean product, figure out a way to segment the market so that
there's more reason to use localmint. Maybe adding more information (in a
clean way) is the answer.

As I see it, to use your site there's still the extra steps of

    
    
        1. Having to remember the "localmint.com" name and
        2. Having to type it in the browser every time I need to look up store hours.
    

When I open a new tab I'm already at a Google search engine. Why not just use
it instead? You'll need to build a compelling enough reason to visit
localmint, because right now it's not the easiest solution.

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LarryMade2
Looks and works great! Here are a couple things:

Have some sort of indication of what's currently open or not. Many folks would
look for whats "available now" if they are on mobile... .

When you select a category it doesn't give you an option to search an area -
especially when you are already looking in an area.

I've been developing something similar for a small area doplaces.com

~~~
oisin
Hi Larry, we have considered the "open now" feature and it is in the pipeline.
Really keeping it simple to start with. Search by area option should always be
available? Doplaces looks great. Best of luck!

~~~
LarryMade2
Say you are looking at grcery stores in SF and pop open categories and select
bookstores, instead of seeing bookstores in SF you see a list of all the
bookstores... Categories in area view I think would work better as a filter.
or at least have a way to pop back to your last map view with that category
from the businesses page.

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philipod
Comment on the app. nice interface, works well in Dublin, nice quick reference
if you are unsure of the name of chemist or shop. Good for emergencies when
you need the nearest open chemist. Could do with more suburban shops. Probably
useful for students or visitors to a new city, is it multi lingual?

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Meltdown
Unlikely to visit very often if it's just opening times...what I want is to be
able to give feedback!

Two things that annoy me about SuperValu, Deansgrange...over-charging (I only
bought one punnet of blueberries Mr SuperValu, not TWO!)...and constant out-
of-stocks of products I want to buy.

There... I feel better after that.

~~~
deejaybog
Meltdown, you should get on our early adopters list, you'll be able to give
feedback to any local business. See www.tipnik.com

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rangav
Hello,

I am one of the co-founder of Localmint. Localmint site helps users to find
local store opening hours fast and convenient way from any device.

We love to take feedback from the community on how we can improve our service.

Thanks Ranga Vadhineni

~~~
bhousel
Are you trying to build a business off this service, or will it just be an
open dataset that anybody can use for whatever they want (along the same idea
as openstreetmap)?

I'm just asking because I've toyed with the idea of building the latter, and I
strongly believe it's something that will exist eventually, whether I build it
or someone else does.

~~~
rangav
We are trying to build business on this idea, So we have no plans to open data
for others.

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bhouston
If I ask Google it usually works. They seem to have added some support for
this, probably via their Google Maps for Businesses or something like that. So
it is a challenging market to enter.

~~~
bithive123
Siri also answers these kinds of questions.

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whymsicalburito
I've found google maps to be very reliable for store hours around southern
California. Google maps has become my go-to app for business location, phone
number, and hours

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beachstartup
i live in santa monica / los angeles.

these searches failed to produce any results:

'burgers', 'ramen', 'sushi', 'citibank', 'chicken', 'bar'

so like... if i can't find a burger at a weird hour when i'm craving one, or
the hours of my local bank, i'm not really sure what i would use this for.
japanese restaurants always have infuriatingly weird hours and they don't show
up here either.

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kolencherry
Interesting application. Is there a way to recommend merchants/stores to add?
(e.g. there are no entries for HEB, a grocery store, in Austin)

~~~
oisin
HEB is on our list kolencherry. You can use the
[http://www.localmint.com/home/addbusiness](http://www.localmint.com/home/addbusiness)
link to add individual stores, or just contact us on info@localmint.com and we
will add the chain.

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grimtrigger
Pretty cool. How are you getting the data?

~~~
oisin
Hi grimtrigger, some retailers submit and manage their own data, but mostly we
get it from their websites.

