Many concerns that I’ve heard about the difficulty of shopping locally can be summed up as “local businesses are hard to find and cost more than [insert chain here].” Yeah, sometimes chains can undercut prices on certain items and also have the advantage of national branding/advertising. This certainly doesn’t mean that they’re always cheaper or better. Last summer we began working with HyLo to develop a location-based mobile application that gives local businesses the opportunity to 1. Be Found and 2. Promote Specials & Events. The cool thing about this is how varied Local First Arizona businesses are; you can open this app and see anything from coffee deals to book promotions to floor cleaning to PR/marketing offers. It really showcases the Arizona that we all know and love, all of the things that really distinguish Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, et al. from other US cities.

Promotions & Events

So how does this thing work? It’s basically split into a couple of different sections. When you first open the app, you see any promotions or events running in your area. You can tap on anything that interests you to get more info on it. Or you can rotate your phone horizontally to get a map view; on that screen you can choose as many things as you want and map all of the businesses locations at once. The businesses themselves can post these deals in no time flat on their computer… we envision things like a business having a slow day, posting a deal like “Next three people to come in and mention LFA get a half-price coffee” or something. Anyone nearby who looks at the app will see that deal pop up seconds after the business posts it. We think this is an incredibly convenient tool for both the business and the customer!

Local Directory

The other main feature of the app is the directory. This is basically the directory you see on our website in mobile form, only with more general categories. So if you’re looking for a locally-owned restaurant to check out, you would tap “Food & Dining” and then choose a category like “Italian”, “Mexican”, etc… you know, whatever you’re in the mood for. Then you’ll get an alphabetical list of those restaurants, all locally-owned. (Note: we’re developing the directory to also be location-based so that the list will be ordered by those nearest you. Look for that feature in an upcoming update)

The big plan is to share this app with other Buy Local and Local First organizations around the country. Ideally, you could use this same app and go to Buffalo, NY, where it would pull from their membership data and you would instantly have a list of all of the locally-owned (i.e. where the locals shop and eat).

In addition, HyLo has created a widget that will display all of the deals and events posted by the businesses on any web browser. You can enter your zip code and adjust the radius to see all of the happenings in your area. We will be implementing this on our website as well as sharing it with other sites and blogs who have an interest in supporting local businesses. This also means that you should be able to view the deals on any mobile browser on platforms that we have not developed for.

Update: The widget is live over on our site. Check it out, let us know what you think! If you’re interested in hosting this widget that shows deals and events from locally-owned businesses on your own site or blog, let me know and I’ll get you the code.

Your comments, suggestions, and total disses are welcome. We really want your feedback to make this truly a community effort! Let your favorite Local First businesses know that you want to see their deals posted! Tell non Local First businesses what we’ve got going on! We want to make it as convenient as possible to find what you’re looking for from a locally-owned source, and we hope this app makes it a little easier.