
Show HN: InStock – like Waze, but for grocery availability - kmdupree
https://whatsinstock.app/
======
_bxg1
Of course it requires a critical mass of people reporting before it becomes
widely useful, and thinking cynically, I could see people "InStock-bombing"
their local store - saying it's out of everything - in hopes of driving people
away and keeping it for themselves.

But if you've solved both of those problems and/or found them not to be
problems, I think this could be really helpful

Edit: Also, I just tried to search for it on the App Store by "InStock" (what
it's called on the website), and it didn't come up. Then I searched for "whats
in stock" and I _think_ the one that came up (named "WhatsInStock") is this
one, based on the screenshots. I think greater consistency would probably
result in greater discoverability and trust.

Edit 2: I just opened it up and the nearby stores it found didn't include HEB,
which is the most common grocer in my region (Texas), nor Whole Foods nor
H-Mart. And while there isn't one close by, if it doesn't have HEB it probably
doesn't have Central Market either. Just fyi.

~~~
kmdupree
I hear you on the cynacism. We'll just have to see what happens.

Regarding the app store name, thanks for that feedback. We couldn't use
InStock unfortunately since it was already taken, but we'll definitely think
about this.

Regarding the store search results, we are using an api for this and this is
quickly floating to the top of our backlog as something to work on for the
next release. Thanks for the feedback on this as well, as it helps us
prioritize the things that really matter to people. :)

~~~
_bxg1
> We couldn't use InStock unfortunately since it was already taken

Understandable; one solution would be to adopt the App Store name as the new
"real name" and put it on your website, etc.

> Thanks for the feedback on this as well, as it helps us prioritize the
> things that really matter to people. :)

Sure thing! Best of luck.

------
gyanchawdhary
This is kind of similar to Milo.com which was acquired by eBay in 2010. It was
a real-time inventory monitoring/tracking service for local shopping - Shops
had to install a plugin for their QuickBooks application, which would
automatically update store inventory to Milo. It had a search engine front end
which allowed users to find items nearby --
[https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/confirmed-ebay-acquires-
mi...](https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/confirmed-ebay-acquires-milo-
for-75-million-investors-make-a-killing/) and
[https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/milo-fetch-allows-local-
re...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/milo-fetch-allows-local-retailers-to-
upload-their-inventory-to-ebay/)

OP should def contact the founder of Milo (whose now a VC) for ideas on
scaling, monetization, features etc

------
mmm_grayons
Would you be able to offer a web version? There are a lot of us who don't have
iphones, and that might provide a simpler cross-platform alternative.

~~~
kmdupree
Thanks for the feedback!

I hear you on this. I actually am an Android guy myself. Android is on it's
way, and we've talked about adding a web version too. it's a bit tricky since
we have some feature ideas we have could be tough to implement via a web app.

~~~
mmm_grayons
Great, I appreciate the response and am glad to know that. I'm curious, what's
the long-term plan for monetization?

~~~
kmdupree
We don't really have one. We may never have one. We just knew there was a real
problem here.

If the app merely helps people get what they need and get home sooner (away
from the virus) and doesn't cost us a fortune to maintain, then that's ok with
us. If there's a business to build around the app, that'd be great too.

------
tobr
This needs crowdsourced data with _extremely_ short shelf life (if you pardon
the pun).

I don’t understand how this will ever work unless you find a more automatic
way to get the data. Some ideas:

\- Cooperate with the grocery store, and integrate with their existing
inventory systems.

\- Build the app around a smart shopping list. Automatically suggest the
nearest store that is most likely to have everything on my list in stock. For
any items I’ve added but didn’t check off after I left the store, report it
automatically as not available, to build up the database.

\- Something something AR?

~~~
leecarraher
2 and 3 are unlikely, most in store inventory and ordering systems are quite
antiquated, not easily integrating with modern web technology, they also do
not monitor things like shrink and shelf misplacement. Working with a large
grocer, the best method for in stock is sales analysis.

~~~
gregw2
I've done multiple POS data integration products with retail sales and
inventory data and have thought about the backend of this sort of app before.
#2 is doable, the main problem is that every retailer has different systems.
But it can be done with enough capital.

------
OOvsuOO
How the heck are you able to get this data? I called the local store (Fred
Myer) and they say they don't know they wait until the truck arrives and then
they see what they get.

~~~
wyxuan
Crowd sourced reporting

~~~
antonzabirko
What will motivate reports?

~~~
SquishyPanda23
Probably nothing really. It will work a while for frequently out of stock
items when the app has a small number of users. This replaces text messaging
to let others know what's in stock.

But with many users, notifying other people will just make the store run out
of stock sooner. So people will revert to texting their friends to let them
know when something's in stock.

------
goatherders
Awesome. About 8 years ago I was on vacation in Concan, Tx on the Frio river.
There are maybe 3 stores in the area and then 3 roads out of town that each
have a couple stores 10-15 miles away. I needed diapers. I didnt care what
brand, I just needed some diapers. I imagined a similar idea wherein a person
could search for "diapers" "beer" "charcoal" or whatever and find the closest
item.

Glad to see it has come to exist.

~~~
kmdupree
Thanks for the feedback! We think it's a neat idea too. My partner and I both
had similar stories. In fact, when he started to describe his story, I knew
how it ended and I just said, "I'm in. Let's build it."

------
leecarraher
A better method would be to have reservation only items, or even just a sign
up sheet and distribution. As the concept of people following hot tips and
traveling to en mass to various locations around the city will almost
certainly exacerbate the spread. If the majority of people are good enough to
use the system for it's intended purpose, then they can maybe also just not
hoard items others may need.

------
crazygringo
Awesome intentions behind the idea, but I've got to be realistic: how on earth
are you going to motivate enough people to report on availability?

I'm a huge fan of crowdsourcing, but I'm having a hard time seeing how the
math works out even remotely here. It's very, very different from Waze in this
aspect.

~~~
arkanciscan
Devil advocate: why do people report things on Waze? What motivates someone to
report road conditions when it doesn't really benefit them?

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
The math works out very, very differently for traffic conditions than it does
for store availability. With traffic conditions, with a full road of traffic,
if even only a couple percent of people have Waze, and then even only a couple
percent of _those_ report an accident, for example, you can still be fairly
confident the accident occurred.

With stores that have thousands of products, and the app is only useful based
on it's accuracy for each individual product, you need many, many more people
reporting because their reports are spread over so many products.

TBH, I don't think this idea is workable, mainly because for the most in-
demand items where you want a service like this, the inventory changes by the
minute. I mean, whole aisles of toilet paper can easily be cleared out in 10
minutes even when purchases are limited to one package per customer. It takes
me 10 mins to drive to the nearest grocery store.

------
grogenaut
Or they could just do online ordering and curbside pickup. Then availability
is online and updated by the in store system. And social distance is ensured

~~~
djrogers
My local grocery stores have pretty much killed that. You might be able to get
a pickup window some time 8-10 days from now, but they will straight up cancel
all of the high demand items like toilet paper.

------
hevad
Would be great if you could lease out this platform for other in demand assets
or services that need crowd sourcing info.

~~~
kmdupree
Interesting idea! Do you have any specific examples in mind?

~~~
sssk
We had a similar idea, but didn't follow through. Here are some non-obvious
use cases that you may find interesting

\- Price comparison for the same item at different local stores \- Localized
demand estimation for brands \- Referrals for items not available in the
traditional distribution model (eg. Organic/Handmade goods)

------
PaulMest
One thing that would be helpful to me is to get a list of the re-stocking
times for my local stores. I know that my local City Target gets restocked at
11am every day. And that a Walgreens down the street gets restocked on Tue and
Fri nights so Wed/Sat mornings are when to get in line early to get some of
the tough-to-find goods. This could be crowd-sourced like the rest of the app
or an appointed business owner could be verified or introduce a
superuser/moderator role for people to get karma based off of verified
submissions.

------
fendmark
It would be amazing to be able to see what Grocery delivery service has the
earliest delivery times open in your area, if it is even possible

------
tedmiston
I tried it briefly. Please tune the location algorithm to let me pick a nearby
store. I live in the city and it detected a bunch of one-off corner stores but
did not search broadly enough to find any actual grocery stores even major
ones just a few miles away.

~~~
kmdupree
We've updated the app so that it searches more broadly (10 store instead of
5), let me know if that helps! :)

------
nichos
My local news has done something similar with storm pins. Storm pins is an app
people used to post pictures and videos of interesting weather events, and,
gas and water during a hurricane.

They've enabled things like toilet paper and sanitizer in the app. It's been
pretty good.

------
black_puppydog
Interesting how this kind of app will be most useful if everyone uses the same
app. In which case there is perfect market transparency (well, regarding
availability only in this case) and perfect centralization. Of course, this is
still individuals contributing, and so it's not exactly central planning, but
it does go to show that centralized organization of available goods is quite
helpful in a crisis situation, simply because it is more efficient. Especially
in this crisis, where inefficiency (wandering around town trying to find
stuff) is in direct conflict with the best remedy (social distancing).

------
arkanciscan
Someone should make a website that does this. No reason for this to be a
native app.

~~~
kmdupree
Turns out this exists: [https://www.instok.org/](https://www.instok.org/)

And we're happy that it exists. :) Hopefully, more people working on this will
mean people spent less time exposed at grocery stores.

FWIW, we may pursue a web version of the app, but we do have some feature
ideas that could be difficult to implement as a web app, so we'll have to see.
:)

~~~
arkanciscan
I love shipping things that people think are difficult to implement as a web
app. Get at me.

------
cakkineni
shameless plug...we made something very similar... covidneeds.com ... just a
bunch of volunteers ..we've put this up over a weekend trying to help... very
basic.. sorry, if I shouldn't be posting about it here...

~~~
thimkerbell
Maybe it could also let you specify "old person hours" at your nearby stores?
And does it let you specify a thing you're looking for? (like 151 proof
alcohol)

I think the best way to get this off the ground is to pick 1 community and
really push it there, to try out how useful it can be. Then use that one as an
example.

~~~
cakkineni
cool..yep... thats what we're trying to do... hence you see a lot of updates
from NY / NJ area where its most needed; and where we're based of.

------
butz
Nice additional feature could be to display times, when there's probability to
meet least number of shoppers.

~~~
btrettel
Google has estimates of this which you can see in Google Maps.

~~~
thimkerbell
This busy-ness info doesn't show up when I use google maps on my phone,
though. Even when it is in desktop display.

------
readme
How are you getting your data? Are you scraping grocery websites or relying on
users to report it?

~~~
OOvsuOO
You missed the answer to my question -crowd sourced reporting.

------
wyxuan
Maybe you should look into reaching out to grocery store people and adding it.
Plus in the app there's no way to report duplicates or add stores (Costco for
example doesn't show up).

~~~
kmdupree
These are great suggestions.

You're right that the functionality is limited right now. Allowing people to
see more stores is one of the first things we want to work on next. :)

------
arkanciscan
Next; let users request updates about particular stores. Hire task rabbits or
provide your users with some gameified reason to go check the store.

~~~
kmdupree
Thanks for the feedback!

Requesting updates about particular stores is my favorite idea here. We had a
similar one: requesting updates about a particular item. :)

------
WesleyJohnson
Are you an Orlandoan, by chance? I'm seeing some familiar addresses in the
features screenshots. Need any help?

~~~
kmdupree
I am in Orlando! I appreciate the offer to help. I'll definitely keep that in
mind. Can you send me an email (email on my hn user is good)

------
manav
it would have been somewhat would be useful if you could tie into inventory
systems like brickseek, or directly from online grocers/amazon-
wholefoods/instacart.

but... during this time, even those systems are unreliable so i cant imagine
this being of much use as of now.

~~~
kmdupree
good point. we agree that this would be useful, even if the information isn't
perfect.

you're exactly right to point out that the information isn't perfect, by the
way. I was just at a store earlier doing some personal shopping and I noticed
they had employees counting the items because their inventory system wasn't
reliable.

~~~
WesleyJohnson
If this were to take off and maintain popularity past the COVID crisis, you
could start showing trends to identify when stores receive shipments, restock
their shelves, etc.

During the crisis, I don't see many people clicking "I Can Help", but it would
be interesting if you could find a way to solve that. Gamification as others
have said, might help, but not sure.

It would be interesting InstaCart shoppers, etc, could adopt this as a way to
drive more business for themselves. If they're already out shopping and can
identify high-demand items are in stock, a would-be buyer could procure it
pretty quickly by starting an order with that Insta-shopper. I haven't thought
through that, but it's an idea.

I could also see uploading, emailing InstaCart receipts. You could grep in-
stock/out-ouf-stock information from those and timestamp it based on when the
shopping was done.

------
rubyfan
just downloaded and unfortunately there’s a bug that list the same 10 stores
like 10 times. so i was scrolling forever just to get to the bottom where it
told me “Unfortunately, no one knows what’s in stock there.”

I love the concept though.

------
Papirola
Can't find it on the Canadian app store :(

------
lucasverra
It looks like a glide app , is that correct ?

------
illender
there's another app of the same name on the google play store that is wack as
frell might want to look into that

------
olafure
Thanks but no thanks.

[https://whatsinstock.app/privacy](https://whatsinstock.app/privacy)

------
albertshin
I recognize an app is more convenient but I do find that sometimes people
forget that they can _call_ the store to check if they really need something.

~~~
sitzkrieg
did you read the site?

