BizOrigin

Shopping convenience has reached a new level with GPShopper. Imagine you are in a new city looking searching for a last minute gift. Type in the product make and model into your cell phone, and instantly, you get back a list of locations where the product is available, along with a detailed location map.

The technology, called Slifter, rolled out on Sprint in early June of this year, appears to be a win-win situation all around. With GPS enabled phones the customer can locate the products they need with ease, wherever they go. The company (GPShopper) reaps revenue from the retailer every time someone clicks through to the product at their location.

Regular Sifter can be downloaded on to a phone, and is free to use. The search engine will find products based upon the zip code entered. Sprint provides the GPS enabled service for a subscription of $1.99/month. Furthermore, the application serves as an additional vehicle for Sprint to sell their data and other value add packages.

Of course there is the social networking aspect that seems to be bundled into most online services these days. Shoppers can share finds with their friends via mobile shopping lists.

Slifter boasts of an impressive list of brands that are listed on their search engine (with a total of 30,000 locations), such as Best Buy, CompUSA and Foot Locker. Slifter says it is working on adding smaller and more local retailers, although one can well imagine that here the challenge will be obtaining accurate real time inventory information.

Los Altos based NearbyNow got $5M in funding from Draper in April 2007, for their software that pin points the products that shoppers want, inside a mall (operated through websites maintained by shopping malls).

BrandHabit is geared towards fashion, and their search engine provides information online regarding brand name products and where they are available.

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Tags : New Media, Technology