Sears Shopping Assistant

Inspiration

We attacked the main problem sears has online: brand recognition and new customer acquisition. Our approach is to do what is right for the customers and to show them sears when that is a better option than Amazon or Walmart.com. This introduces the customer to sears catalog in a deeper way, builds trust in the sears brand by saving money for the customer, and also gets the customer to go into a sears store more frequently.

How it works

Just install the Chrome browser extension here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sears-shopping-assistant/edpfbkanamlfniagpjlgjfghagekhmpo?hl=en-US&gl=US

While you shop on Amazon or Walmart.com, clicking the sears button on your browser toolbar will show you similar products on sears along with discounts and local pickup availability.

Challenges I ran into

The sears API are not thoroughly thought out. We had to call multiple APIs to get the results we wanted when a simple inclusion of some needed info would have cut our data pulls by 2/3.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The tool really works! And it works great. We actually found items we were just about to buy on Amazon for much cheaper on sears and ready for pickup. It really saves money from the day you install it. How cools is that for a hackathon!

What I learned

Deeper appreciation of sears catalog of items. Also that Amazon is many times not the lowest price available. You really have to pay attention.

What's next for Sears Shopping Assistant

More stores need to be added to the price comparison. We have Amazon and Walmart.com. Still need to add other major online retailers such as Target, Home Depot, etc.

Built With

• chrome
• extension
• github
• heroku
• javascript
• json
• toolbar