Business idea: recommendation system for physical stores

http://blog.celsopinto.com/post/5728926942/business-idea-recommendation-system-for-physical

by cpinto • 15 years ago

20 13 15 years ago

blog.celsopinto.com

lowglow• 15 years ago

There are a couple of start-ups looking to do this. The first that comes to mind is ShopTap. They are looking to hire quality engineers right now, so you might want to contact them if you're looking to build something like this.

cpinto5• 15 years ago

Like I said, I don't have any intention of pursuing this one any more :-) That said, I'd be more than glad to share opinions with anyone that wants to do this.

richcollins• 15 years ago

I have yet to find any recommendation system that stands on its own (vs. YouTube related videos for example) that I would regularly use other than HN. Any ... recommendations?

machupai• 15 years ago

excellent Thought. Could I be the devils advocate for a second.

1) Most of the retail chains (I mean the Big/Medium one which are primary target for this kind of system), already has a price check system installed in their store. This can be issues in following way - Why should the store waste some space for new harware - What is stopping these price checking sytem vendors to simply upgrade their system with this feature as addional one. They already have a installed base and customer confiedence, they can kill the market if they see any traction.

So ideally you may want to create a single system which will replace this price checking system with addional features. or the reverse.

2) Most of the Small shop owners any way wont have space for a price checker/scanner. So this market is pretty limited.

3) There are few key advantages for online profile like amazon does. - people can browse at their liesure and no effort/little effort is required from their side to do passive browsing. while nobody will visit a shop juzz to do passive shopping of grocessories/pharmacy. - Passive browsing helps to build one part of the user profile. This is not possible in case of physical profiling. Also there is some effort required from user to scan any item. - For online browsing, you can use IP address/user login details to track a user and hence his profile which can help u display related products. But when u do this physical, unless there is some way user enter his details (either scanning his member card or entering some number), u cannot use his history during shopping time. This will limit ur data to current shopping iteration only.

4) Already most of the groceorry shops provides coupons/deal details currently during your billing time based on the items u have purchased. So this is not new.

5) Now if these business are ready to share the details (which i dont think they will do)and u are keeping the profile of each consumer/customer in a centralized form, u will have more details during the checkout time. (due to same reason that u wont know the user untill he provides his member card). And that can be more usefull to provide more deals based on - other shopping he has done recently. e,g he bought a tv from best buy and he is in sears, offer him deals on tv stand. - See if u can utilize some social cues. either use facebook or have ur own social features. so that u can tap his friends profile to suggest something.

I am not saying these are big issues, but something u need to think before u pursue these idea

cpinto5• 15 years ago

Great feedback.

1) Indeed, price checking is already in place so perhaps in those cases the recommendation system can send data into them?

2) not the target market, not enough data. Remember, a small market that has huge value is still a valuable market worth pursuing.

3) Of course no one browses the stores :-) But when you make a buy there, you're already in a spending mindset so stores can take advantage of that to promote things that may interest you more. With the receipt recommendations, you should be able to track data across shopping sessions. Like a cookie ;-)

5) I don't think any of the possible clients will allow you to store the details elsewhere than at their own DC.

Thanks for the feedback.

chopsueyar2• 15 years ago

Are you a software company or a systems integration company?

elvirs• 15 years ago

i think he is a guy selling ebooks

cpinto5• 15 years ago

I wished :-)

cpinto5• 15 years ago

I have my own software company (http://leftfield.pt). This would be best pulled off by people with lots of experience in software integration (CRM, POS) both engineering as well as sales.

chopsueyar2• 15 years ago

Well congrats on getting your post up on the first page of HN!

danielharan• 15 years ago

Lost me at "without having to go through the frustrating experience of asking the store assistant for recommendations and getting none."

Is this seriously such a big problem that people will pay money or change their behaviour to use your solution?

cpinto5• 15 years ago

Daniel, this is not a product for consumers it's for big retail, eg. Fnac (Europe), etc.

Myrio• 15 years ago

Hello! In-store recommendation system in-store already exists. It is develped by Myrio company and is implemented at Diesel store in Europe. More news on the way from the founder of Myrio...

Business idea: recommendation system for physical stores

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