Milo.com Goes Hyperlocal in Its Mission to Level the Retail Playing Field

SAN FRANCISCO, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- ad:tech SAN FRANCISCO 2010 -- Milo.com (http://milo.com), the Web site that enables shoppers to research products online and buy local, today added products and real-time inventories for over 100 one-of-a-kind stores across the country. Shoppers can now turn to Milo.com to fetch local product availability and real-time prices from nearly 50,000 national big-box and regional retailers, as well as this first batch of mom-and-pop shops that cover everything from hard-to-find sporting goods to limited designer apparel.

"Smaller stores that once viewed technology as a threat, now see the benefit it has for reaching potential shoppers and attracting new customers into their actual brick and mortar locations," said Jack Abraham, Milo.com founder and CEO. "With little to no technical investment on the retailers' end, Milo.com can deliver mom-and-pop shops straight from the Yellow Pages into the big leagues and give them a platform on which to display their goods to the masses."

With more than 2.8 million products already in its database, Milo.com has emerged as the undeniable leader in local product search and is making quick progress towards its mission of tracking the real-time availability of every product, on every shelf, of every store. Milo.com provides shoppers everything they need in order to make a smart purchase decision based on their priorities—whether it's the lowest price, the most convenient location or the desire to support a neighborhood merchant. When a user searches for a particular product, Milo.com returns all in-stock results from nearby stores, so that a product at a small neighborhood boutique is as likely to get top ranking as one at a megastore. And, because shoppers can sort by a variety of filters including location, price and availability, they are certain to find the product that most appeals to their needs.

"As one of the last true brick and mortar stores for skaters, we're extremely excited to have our unique product selection included on Milo.com," said Konstantin Shostakovich, manager of Black Diamond Sports in Palo Alto, Calif. "We've been in the industry since 1997 and we realize that in order to keep our competitive edge, we need to reach our customers wherever they may be, whether it's online or right outside our store."

By adding the local availability and comprehensive details for thousands of unique products usually only found at independent merchants, Milo.com helps put mom-and-pop shops on more of an equal footing with their larger competitors. Making their store shelves searchable through Milo.com also helps these retailers reach potential customers who would likely otherwise be unable to find the item they want locally and, instead, order it from Amazon. Milo.com also helps secure and drive intent-based foot traffic into these merchants' stores, giving them a valuable opportunity to reach new shoppers, convert unique customers into returning buyers and use their product expertise to upgrade the customer to a larger or more expensive purchase.

"We are extremely pleased at how our initial stage of on-boarding has proceeded and are currently in the process of incorporating several hundred more independent merchants to Milo.com," added Abraham. "Having their real-time product selection appear on Milo.com will provide these merchants a unique opportunity to compete in today's marketplace, one which would be costly and time consuming–if not impossible—to accomplish on their own."

To see how Milo.com can help find locally available products near you, please visit http://milo.com.

About Milo.com (http://milo.com)

Milo.com enables shoppers to research products online and buy local. The leader in the local product search space, Milo.com tracks the real-time availability and prices of more than 2.8 million products at nearly 50,000 stores across the U.S. By combining the detailed product information and user reviews available online with the immediate and tangible benefits of shopping in local stores, Milo.com provides the best of both worlds and makes it easy for shoppers to research the best products, find the right prices and check where products are available near them. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Milo.com boasts leadership from comScore and Google, and is backed by True Ventures and prominent Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs from Mint.com, PayPal, Yelp, YouTube, and others. For more information, please visit http://milo.com.

SOURCE Milo.com