Local pricewatch information solicitation and sharing model using mobile crowdsourcing

Abstract

Shopping, in particular groceries shopping, is a necessity and has become part and parcel of our life, be it daily, weekly or monthly. Tied to this activity is the concern over the ever increasing price of goods. Ideally, one would want to be able to compare the price of an item between one shop and another before getting the best deal. However, this is impracticable if not impossible due to a number of factors, especially the time constraint. Nevertheless, advances in the internet technology, combined with the widespread use of the internet-ready devices that are often packaged with mobile internet plans have enabled rapid and timely information sharing, hence, creating an opportunity that can overcome the impossibility. People who go to different shops everyday can share information on the prices of items at the shops that they visit, which will be useful for those who are planning to buy similar items. What is missing is the mechanism to enable such information sharing. This paper therefore explains about such mechanism that we call the local pricewatch information solicitation and sharing (LoPrice) model that uses voluntary crowdsourcing technique to solicit the information from the public. Prior to that, justification on the need for the model is presented. Judging from the success of its counterparts in other areas of social networking, it is expected that the model can quickly gain interest from the public, hence helping them to save on their expenditures. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.