Shop Smart
From Zanecorpwiki
An application to help you shop smarter and more efficiently. The core of the product is a smart list management engine that allows groups of users to combine shopping trips efficiently reducing the time to acquire items and the number of trips.
It starts with entering an item, like scissors or a gallon of milk. The system will automatically--based on pre-built and learned associations--suggest the kinds of stores where the item may be acquired and set an approximate price. The user may modify both and provide additional description. Some additional fields will be integrated, such as brand name and quantity, plus a general notes field. There may also be an idea of priority (discussed in a moment). You can also specify whom you want/trust to pick up an item.[notes 1]
Now, when someone goes shopping, the system determines which items may be available at the store their going to, and could even direct them to the best store based on passed availability[notes 2] How long you have to shop (I'll grab something as I pass it on the aisle vs. I'm willing to go looking for specific items at the mall), item priority, and perhaps other parameters are combined to produce a shopping list.
What's so great about this? Well, say I realize I'm always going back and forth between the office and the house to get scissors. I enter generic scissors into the Shop Smart system and now when my wife drops the grocery store she'll get the scissors for me or next time I need to go to the hardware store, I don't have to rely on my faulty memory to remember that I thought I needed scissors for the office a week ago.
It would also be a superior tool to manage family grocery list and requests. In this vein, could build in some simple budgeting features to allow parents to set budgets for the kids and the whole family. I'm seeing something really elegant for that usage.
