• Isoprenoid
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    1 year ago

    The article title is bad, and should feel bad.

    I just read the article. I must have missed the part where representatives of the supermarkets gave their support.

    Edit: They based it on hearsay

    The developer of a grocery price comparison app says supermarkets have responded positively to the online tool.

    At the end of the article it was revealed that supermarkets are not good at helping developers of apps. So they undermine the premise of the title.

    Wong said he would like to see supermarket vendors help app developers.

    “I hope the vendors can provide a public interface for developers like me to build these kinds of third party apps to facilitate price comparisons and all other kinds of grocery activities there.”


    Also the following hypothetical doesn’t make sense to me:

    "They could have a consumer facing app where you can go and put your grocery list in. Then with AI and algorithms they can work out your best price and say we are placing the orders with these supermarkets.

    “So you can get three deliveries from three different supermarkets with the best price. I believe that is something that will force all supermarkets to bring prices down.”

    Wouldn’t three deliveries mean paying three shipping fees? Wouldn’t those shipping fees eat up the possible savings?

  • tirohia
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    1 year ago

    I tried the app out a few months ago. Good idea, but at the time it was basing product availability on the chain rather than the store - i.e. it would tell you that any product available at the larger Countdown’s was available at all the smaller Countdowns, which is very definitely not the case. I’m assuming that’s the sort of thing they’d need help from the supermarket chains to fix.

    • Dave@lemmy.nzOPM
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      1 year ago

      You should be able to select your store. Did that not change availability?

      • tirohia
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        1 year ago

        It did not. As I say, it was a few months ago, it may have been updated. At the time though, I could select a store and it appeared to populate from a single inventory for the relevant chain.

        Still, fingers crossed that gets/got fixed, the idea of the app is good.

        • Dave@lemmy.nzOPM
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          1 year ago

          That’s weird. If I for example select a bunch of countdowns, I get different availability per store. So it seems to work to some extent. Maybe it’s an issue with countdown’s site?