The Next Step: Online Inventory Search
by Patrick Ruffini :: June 2nd, 2007 11:02 pmPeople wonder what the next ginormous step in tech is going to be. My money is on inventory search of every store. What needs to happen for this to become reality? RFID. Interoperability between inventory systems.
Lots of stuff you’re never going to buy online (groceries; the Target run). But if you’re searching for some obscure item, you should be able to go on Google and locate the stores closest to you that have that item, in real time. (Think how much time this would save in trying to hopscotch from store to store to find that perfect gift.)
When you think of it, most of Web 2.0 is a presentation layer above the existing, a way to rate/save/share/remix existing products. ECommerce is an option over and above bricks and mortar. What is the Web doing to change things at the product layer?
Tagged: ecommerce 
inventory rfid
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My husband has been truck shopping and is amazed that all the dealers don’t have every car and truck online. I would love to see them all at one site that you could easily search. He has spent many, many hours visiting lots of individual sites — dealer sites, eBay, Craig’s List, classified listings, etc.
Hi PatrickRuffini,
Thanks for this insight into the upcoming technology trend.
Sean
Funny you should mention it! I have a business to do just that! We are in the web programming phase right now but the initial “bones” are online, Live. We will be adding the search database functionality soon as well as a demo, FAQ’s, e-commerce, account management, etc. It is really exciting and has been needed for quite a while. I originally had the idea about 10 years ago but at that time I was going to do it over the phone. Now it makes since to do it online. We will also be offering text messaging tools to access the database. Stay tuned and Check it out!
Boy, I hope you’re right. I buy everything I can online and still find that it’s hard to make time to get to the store when I need to go. Especially those strange purchases you don’t make often. This would be a real benefit to me!!