As larger businesses continue to gain popularity with the advent of social media advertising, local businesses struggle to get attention. Although platforms like TikTok and even Instagram sometimes allow local businesses to share their content, the reach of this content is oftentimes not widespread. Even worse, people will often see these products on social media and forget to follow through to check out their website when time comes around, instead reaching out to more conveninet options like Amazon.
Go Local is a chrome extension intended to remind people about local businesses exactly when it matters. When a user persues Amazon to find a product that they wish to purchase, the Go Local extension immediately scrapes the web for similar products being sold by local business owners instead, and displays these on the screen with direct link to the products. This way, users do not have to go out of their way to support local businesses, and are conveniently reminded of these shops when it matters, greatly increasing the attention that local businesses receive. Most importantly, the extension uses the user's location to select local businesses in the near vicinity of the user, truly bolstering the goal of supporting local owners. This extension will be tied in with a UI that we built a prototype for, and through this, small business owners will get the freedom to create a custom profile to display their products, and thus view analytics about their product being displayed to users through the extension.
- Python 3.8
- Flask 1.1.2
- BeautifulSoup4
- Enable your device to provide location services to Google Chrome.
- Download the source code.
- Install libraries:
pip install flaskpip install beautifulsoup4pip install requests soupsieve lxml
- Move into the flask folder using the command
cd flask. Runpython -m flask runto start up the server. - Upload the Chrome extension:
- Go to Google Chrome, and click on Extensions (chrome://extensions/) from the menu bar. Select Manage Extensions.
- Once the extensions window opens, click the Load Unpacked button from the top left corner.
- Then, select the folder containing all the source code. Now, you should see the extension appear in the list of available extensions.
When a user is searching for a product on Amazon, they can use Go Local to see similar products from local businesses.
- After searching for a product on Amazon, click the Go Local extension
- A few products made by local sellers will appear. You will see:
- Seller's name
- Seller's description
- Product pricing
- Seller's Rating
- Click on the desired product to learn more about it! 🧠
Our Go Local team worked virtually to develop the chrome extension. Initially, it was difficult to communicate with each other about the various edits we were making to our code. Github was influential in our development as we used commits to better collaborate. During the process, we ran into merge conflicts which we were able to resolve by reading our partner's commit messages and understanding what their code does. By having detailed commit messages and remembering to continuously push and pull our work, we were able to most efficiently collaborate remotely. Additionally, with Github, we were able to create a detailed README where users can not only find out how to use the product, but also how to install it on their own devices. Furthermore, we were able to include pictures to better direct viewers about how to navigate our code. Overall, Github proved to be an engaging platform for both our collaboration and user outreach needs.
In Go Local 1.0, the main feature includes the ability to browse solely products from local businesses on Etsy. Future versions of Go Local will include:
- Ability to get notified of local products when on any online shopping sites, not just Amazon.
- Ability to browse local businesses that aren't only on Etsy.
- Ability for businesses to create profiles and directly engage with Go Local users.
🎨 For more information about our vision, please visit our UI prototype! 🎨