I don't mean to sound cynical, but are you sure this is a problem worth solving?
Yes, it's a problem, but it's along the lines of my microwave getting dirty over time, or needing to fill a car tire occasionally. I don't need or care about a service that only cleans microwaves or only fills tires.
If you want to improve on brick-and-morter, feet-in-the-store retail problems, why not, say, show me a big pinterest-style list of everything in every grocery store around me? That would save me some time instead of perusing up and down aisles and not being sure whether I should visit that farmer's market that sometimes has interesting stuff.
You make a good point, and candidly, we're not sure. The crux of the problem as we see it is that:
- If you enjoy shopping, you're probably pretty good at it, and don't need a lot of hand-holding.
- If you don't enjoy shopping, then a store is a bad solution. A better solution is "don't go to the store at all, we'll ship you the stuff," aka Amazon
What we're really trying to do is find the segment of the market that cares a lot about this? i.e. Willing to go shopping, if stores can just make it bit easier when you get there.
> What we're really trying to do is find the segment of the market that cares a lot about this?
Yes. Go do that. Like, right now. Find people you don't know who you think are your target demographic and ask them. They're probably in the grocery store right now.
You'll come back thinking (A) that nobody really this problem, (B) that everybody has this problem, or that (C) nobody thinks they have this problem and you need to show them that it is a problem and that, once you do, you'll change their life forever. B is probably a little delusional. C sounds really time-consuming and expensive.
Yeah. Thanks for that. We've done some of this and we're seeing (a) or (c).
We've kept going because we "feel" that there's something to be "fixed" inside a store.
For example, discovering new products inside a store is really painful. Typical "big box" stores are >100,000 sq ft with >100,000 products.
Want to find a "healthy snack that taste like wheat thins and goes well with cheese"? Well, we have a wall of a 1,000 products. What you're looking for might be in there somewhere.
I'm no expert, but I'm very sure that the difficulty in finding items in a retail store is by design.
If every customer walked in, grabbed exactly what they needed without looking at anything else, paid and left, the stores would probably make half as much money. It's common knowledge that "big brand" items in a grocery store go on the eye-level shelves because the distributors have paid more, and I remember reading that the ends of the aisles ("caps" maybe?) are super-primo real estate - that's why the ends always have Pepsi and Tostitos and big-name items. It's probably the same reason there are "impulse items" in the aisle when you check out. Oh, hey, yeah, I do need some gum, why not buy a pack.
It's also by design that milk and bread are in the back corners of the store.
But, ecommerce makes this disdain for the shopper unsustainable. 10 years ago, if you're store sucks, you don't really have a choice. Now, if you're store sucks ... well I can buy a majority of the stuff I need through Amazon, Diapers.com, etc.
So, could HelpPing be a timing play? Helping change stores right when they need to change ... so that they can survive to 2020?
There's no app/service for this already? This is a pretty good idea.
I like the "chat" aspect especially since (on the backend) it could be taken care of with machine learning & automation. Most of the time looking for a store employee I just want to know what aisle product X is in.
As a third party service for smaller stores and a white label solution for larger chains, it sounds like a nice business model.
There are apps that handle different parts of this, e.g. Aisle411 for product location, AisleFinder, etc.
But, in our early tests, what we found is that shoppers quickly move from "where is x?" to "what do I need for y?"
Our general hypothesis is that you need both machine learning / automation + human agent to create enough value for the shopper that they want to come back
> But, in our early tests, what we found is that shoppers quickly move from "where is x?" to "what do I need for y?"
I figured that would be the case. I imagine that there would be a "HelpPing administrator" (similar to live chat support on websites) that could a) jump in to assist on more complex questions and b) assist in mapping those complex questions into the system algo?
I like the idea. Get out there and do it. I hope, though, that the button isn't gonna look like the "easy button" from Staples ;)
One of the problems we're running into is that this problem (need for location and advice) does not seem to be an acute problem for users. In other words, most people are bothered by it, but not bothered so much that they pull out their phone to download an app.
What's HN's thoughts on this?
Should we keep searching for users for whom this is "a hair on fire" problem? or, try to find a different related problem that's more painful (for more people)?
If you're thinking of making this an app, consider two processes:
Mine:
1. I realize I need something and don't know where to find it.
2. I look around for a person who looks like they work here.
3. I ask said person.
Yours:
1. I realize I need something and don't know where to find it.
2. I magically and suddenly remember, "Oooh, there's an app for this that I downloaded last night when I was looking for apps that would improve my shopping experience."
2. I pull out my phone from my pocket.
3. I unlock my phone.
4. I navigate around my phone looking for the app which takes a while because I can't remember the name of the app or the icon.
5. I open it and wait for it to load.
6. I wait for geolocation to warm up while it tries to figure out what store I'm in.
7. I finally get a button that says "Ask now."
8. I click the button and wait.
9. A squawky voice attempts to help me, but by now I've forgotten what I'm looking for.
I'm really not trying to shoot you down, but I think you could find a bigger problem to work on. :)
Btw, I think it explains the lack of user traction of apps like Aisle411, ShopKick, etc. They take too long to use and they don't "fit" well with a shopping trip.
What keeps us churning on this space is the magnitude of the $ spent. $1.4T spent annually in low-service stores (e.g. Walmart). These formats have minimal shopper-facing technology (lots of great supply chain stuff) and have evolved slowly.
So, that goes us thinking ... so far, still thinking
This reminds me of how price scanners are now placed around retail store chains. I can't remember ever feeling like it was a big pain doing without them when they weren't prevalent. It was inconvenient when a shelf was missing a price, or when I forgot how much an item was once I changed aisles. But it wasn't "hair on fire" important because there was no solution yet. Nowadays, of course, when I need a price check and the nearest scanner is 20 feet away (if there is one at all) I'm feeling quite inconvenienced.
So to answer, I wouldn't abandon the idea until I had bounced it off of several customers and potential clients. It could be solving one of those problems we never knew we had.
Yes, it's a problem, but it's along the lines of my microwave getting dirty over time, or needing to fill a car tire occasionally. I don't need or care about a service that only cleans microwaves or only fills tires.
If you want to improve on brick-and-morter, feet-in-the-store retail problems, why not, say, show me a big pinterest-style list of everything in every grocery store around me? That would save me some time instead of perusing up and down aisles and not being sure whether I should visit that farmer's market that sometimes has interesting stuff.