Have you heard about Milo yet? According to the their website they dub their service as: "Your local shopping companion"

What does this mean exactly? Milo is an online service that will search the inventory of major retailers in your local area to advice you of the availability of the product which you're looking for. In other words, it's a multi-search engine for shopping.

I was then shocked to see them say that 95% of sales happen at real stores in the real world. That is brick and mortar shops as opposed to somewhere on the Internet. Are you surprised as well?? Crazy, right?

If you have shopped for something in the real world recently, you'll know that the stores with the cheapest prices are also usually sold out of what you want. And when do you find that out? When you get to the store, of course.

I hate taking pointless trips! And I hate being unhappy even more! What about you?

Enter Milo, which will help you answer these three questions:

  1. What's available at local stores?
  2. Which product is the best for me?
  3. Where is it cheapest and available in stock?

Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it only searches 21 large chain-stores shown in the picture above. But heck, that's good enough for me. Let's try some searches in my hood!

I decided to look for a Nintendo Wii locally. Even this long after its release, it is still an issue to find one in stock. Let's see what Milo can do for me.

Well, that gave me way too many choices. So, I decided to narrow it down with Wii Console instead and that brought up what I was looking for.

I selected my console which was conveniently the first item and then it loaded up local spots that may or may not have it in stock. And just as I expected, they didn't :(

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I decided to expand my area and search Manhattan as well but no luck. I could find it online but I wanted it NOW! So for giggles I searched California and what do you know?

That's really not fair! But hey, Milo saved me a trip to the stores or even a phone call! Milo is currently in beta and only works in the following locations:

  • New York
  • San Fransisco
  • Chicago
  • Miami
  • Los Angeles

If you try to search another location you will get this cute response.

What do you think? Do you use an online search tool to check for a product's availability before heading out to the store? Do you shop online? If you do, I suggest checking out 5 Online Shopping Sites That Will Actually SAVE You Money.

Let us know what you think of Milo in the comments.