Quick Pitch: Shoplr seeks to serve as local radar for shoppers

If the team at Shoplr has its way, people won’t venture anywhere without scanning their radar — not for ominous storm fronts or looming low-pressure systems, but for deals. Shoplr, which derives its name from “shopping” and “Doppler” (as in the weather-tracking radar) is a mobile application for discovering real-time offers from local businesses. …

If the team at Shoplr has its way, people won’t venture anywhere without scanning their radar — not for ominous storm fronts or looming low-pressure systems, mind you, but for deals.

Shoplr, which derives its name from “shopping” and “Doppler” (as in the weather-tracking radar) is a mobile application for discovering real-time offers from local businesses.

Shoplr is an entry in the Dream Big Grow Here Innovation Gateway contest, which seeks the top tech-based business ideas in Story, Marshall, Tama, Poweshiek, Jasper, Marion and Mahaska counties in central Iowa. The top vote-getter in an online poll of the DBGH Innovation Gateway entries wins a $5,000 prize and a spot in the statewide Dream Big Grow Here contest, which has a $10,000 prize. Votes for DBGH Innovation Gateway can be submitted until 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 15 at DBGH Innovation Gateway’s polling page

Per Nathan Haila, one of the Ames-based co-founders of Shoplr, “It’s super simple via the app to share the local goodness that you’re finding with people all around you.”

The Shoplr merchant client is web-based software that enables merchants to send real-time offers directly to the Shoplr app on the mobile devices of local consumers. In turn, the Shoplr iPhone app, which is available now in the app store, enables users to discover offers from local merchants, save money at those merchants and share those deals with their friends.

“For merchants, it’s web-based software that enables them to send real-time offers to the mobile devices of local consumers in their city,” Haila said. “And for consumers, it really is hand-held shopping radar.”

Silicon Prairie News has covered Shoplr before, both in a feature story about co-founder Sam Schill and in our recap of the Dwolla Meetup on Aug. 25. And, with Shoplr rolling out in Ames and Des Moines this fall, we’ll have more on Shoplr in the coming weeks. But, in the meantime, check out the video for the scoop on Shoplr straight from two of the men behind it, Haila and Schill.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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