The Wall Street Journal (subscription req’d) writes about a partnership between mobile carrier Spint and GPShopper to provide information about local shopping inventory on mobile phones. The consumer application offered by GPShopper is called Slifter, which used to require entry of a Zip code. The partnership with Sprint removes that requirement because of the phone’s location awareness.
GPShopper is one of several companies seeking to put local store inventory information online (and on mobile devices). Others include ShopLocal, NearbyNow, Krillion, Yokel, BrandHabit, Channel Intelligence and CNet.
Even as the “local shopping infrastructure” isn’t fully built out it’s going mobile for obvious reasons: When shoppers are out and they’re unable to find a desired product the information “where else can I find this?” is highly valuable. NearbyNow offers text messaging for similar information in malls in the U.S.
Even though e-commerce has grown dramatically over the past couple years, it still represents less than 4 percent of U.S. retail according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Screenwerk 
October 15, 2007 at 2:43 pm
[…] company also has a host of mobile assets (SMS, voice, WAP) as well. In the mobile segment, GPShopper’s Slifter offers mobile product/inventory information (data from Channel Intelligence) but it requires […]