The Grocery Collaborative

The Grocery Collaborative is an easy, efficient, and practical way to create, organize and share grocery lists. It can be as simple as keeping a running list of items that need to be picked up the next time you get to the store or keeping separate lists for parties, team dinners, elderly family members or college students. Roommates, holiday gatherings and vacation rentals also benefit from shared lists. Using the app is intuitive and simple. Once you have entered all of your items the list can be organized according to store departments and layout so as to optimize your shopping trip. If some of your items are only available at certain locations you can divide and conquer with family members working off of the same list using real time capabilities to enable you to see immediate progress.

The Grocery Collaborative (GC) let's you choose up to 10 favorite grocery store. These can be chosen from the Grocery Store menu, based on location, city, zipcode or favorite stores*. If your grocery store isn't on the list, no problem, just add it via a very simple menu. Once added, this is where the fun begins, it is available to all other Grocery Collaborative members. Members can then select a specific grocery store to use when shopping. The Grocery Store selector is found at the top of the Shopping List menu. Once a grocery store is selected and an item is added to the list, you will see the item's details expand. It will now show, not only the item's name, but the item's Category, along with aisle and section info. The Category was what you selected when added the item, but it can also be update by clicking on the Select category field or the selected category (e.g. Fruit). The 2 fields next to aisle indicator can also be updated. The first is the "aisle" field, which is the aisle that contains items associated with that category. The second entry is "section" field. It is an indicator of where in the aisle the item's category it is located, on either side. Use 1 for items that are closest to the front of the store, 3 for items in the middle of the aisle and 5 for items closest to the back of the store in the aisle. Use 2 or 4 to make the location more exact. Produce (fruits and vegetables) should be assigned a P for the aisle. Use B for the aisle for items located in the back row of the store and F for items found in the front row of the store. Once an item's category is defined for a particular grocery store it is available to you and all other members that shop at that store from that point forward. If everyone participates by adding the aisle and section for just a few blank categories every time you shop, the store's product list will get populated quickly. As an added convenience you can also sort the shopping list by Item, Category or Aisle. An upcoming feature will also help map out the best route through the store. As you and other members of the collaborative contribute, your shopping experience will improve over time.

You also have the ability to create groups. These can be used to add family, friends and other members. In order to add someone they must be member as well. Next you associate your shopping lists with your groups. This is done on the Shopping List menu, right under the name of the shopping list. One possible use of a group is to share the shopping work load by splitting up the shared grocery list. As an item is checked it is grayed on the shopping list on everyone's mobile device. When all of the items are gathered it's time to head to the checkout. Another use could be if you are shopping for someone else, say an elderly parent, your spouse or splitting the shopping for a party.

More features will be added over time. Please join and participate. Over time the experience will get better. The more contributing members the better. For suggestions or issues, please send email to gc-support@tecnov8.com.

*In the first release, the Grocery Store locator is only available to members in the USA.