Getting groceries? Here’s how to make life easier

Grocery shopping in Hamilton during the pandemic got a little easier this week with the launch of a mapping tool to help shoppers navigate the aisles.

“You can search, for example, milk and it will highlight in the store where the milk is,” said Caleb Opersko, the founder and CEO of Spot It, a digital mapping and data visualization startup based out of the Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph area.

The tool is intended to help grocery shoppers minimize contact — both with employees and other customers — and maximize efficiency when shopping at major grocery chains. Opersko said some users are shopping at a different grocery store amid COVID-19 and are less familiar with the layout. Others are using it to prevent backtracking, which is a challenge with the new arrows on the floor encouraging one-way traffic.

“It’s not the silver bullet for everything, but the goal was to help minimize contact for everybody,” he said.

Store maps, along with the online tool covid19-waitingtime.thejoin.tech, can help ease the stresses of grocery shopping during COVID-19.

Spot It expanded to Hamilton this week with five stores across the city: Food Basics on King Street (845 King St. W.), Food Basics on Upper James (751 Upper James St.), Franco’s No Frills (640 Queenston Rd.), Frank’s No Frills (675 Rymal Rd. E.), and FreshCo at Upper Gage and Fennel (601 Upper Gage Ave.) Since the beginning of May, they have mapped grocery stores in Waterloo, Kitchener, Guelph and Cambridge.

“The response has been so good that we’re going to expand it,” he said.

The company has added a “request store” button to its website in order to better gauge where they will expand to next.

Spot It originally developed its technology three years ago, and has been working mainly with hardware stores to help employees locate products more quickly. When the pandemic hit and hardware stores closed, Spot It pivoted to use the same software to make grocery shopping more convenient for customers.

“We knew from the studies we did with the employees that the mapping software could drastically speed up gathering products,” he said.

The platform is free for both users and grocery stores.