Show HN: Nonprofit Open-Source Food Delivery and Local Shopping Platform | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Nonprofit Open-Source Food Delivery and Local Shopping Platform

nearbyshops.org

154 pointssumeetk39 comments

So it's just an Android app and not a website?

One of my great frustrations with current platforms is that they're just apps. The UX is terrible: I'm stuck on a tiny screen, I can't search (control+f) and have to scroll through endless lists, I can't copy text (e.g. Google translate), etc.

Even though delivery is ridiculously cheap where I currently live (Indonesia), I find I use it a lot less than back home in Europe where Deliveroo etc. have a website. Often times just picking it up myself is faster than dealing with the crummy apps.

You're really in a minority here. Those webapps are barely used.

It's quite largely just an opinion: to me the if is perfect and super easy to use.

> to me the if is perfect

Sometimes i think autocorrect has a sense of humour.

It's hard to find good numbers on this, but one study[1] fond that well over a third uses the website (website + mobile website) and only about 20% used an app. Surprisingly, phone was still the most popular way to order. Granted, this is from 2016 and looks at all food orders, but it shows there's a lot more going on outside the tech bubble.

I don't know how many people are using the web app, but you're going to have to do a hell of a lot better to casually dismiss my user experience report. Even just 15% or 20% increase would probably be a good ROI, as a basic webapp is not very time-consuming to write and maintain if you already have an API for the native apps (it's fine to rely on the mobile app for account management etc.)

As for the UX, if you just use the "offers for you" then it's okay, but once you want something specific (that is, you're actually shopping for something) things tend to get harder. I don't think it's controversial to say that a 22" screen works a lot better here than a tiny 5" screen.

One paper found that desktop has 111% more sales than mobile[2]. That's a whopping difference! Two explanations for this:

1. Desktop UX is better, so customers find what they need and buy it, whereas they can't find it on mobile.

2. Mobile devices tend to be used quite a lot as "time killers": something you do when you're waiting for something else. So at least some of that "40% mobile traffic" is just time-killing browsing.

Either way, reports of the desktop's death have been greatly exaggerated.

[1]: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/deliveroo-statistics/

[2]: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/m-commerce-terrible-ux/

Not only that, it appears to be only an android app. So you can't use it on a windows tablet or an ios device.

I wonder how much work it'd be to port the ux to a web site/app.

We will be adding a PWA and IOS app. Its not so much difficult to build it ...

We just need some funds and Investment ! and copy the screens already in the android app.

In lot of developing countries android is dominant platform so we though we would start with android.

In most of Europe Android is the dominant platform as well. Only very few demographics have IOS as dominant platform. So it is a very reasonable business-choice to start off with an Android app.

I would, however, suggest you clarify your intent to reach other platforms in your communication. E.g. "iPhone app planned. Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to learn when we have an app for your iPhone" or so. That way you show interested people that it is on your radar, you have plans, but simply not the resources (yet).

Love the idea,but how do you handle support,customer-shopper arbitration(either side claiming the delivery did or did not happen for example),really bad customers/shoppers (basically quality) without central management?

Another solution would be to have a separate pickup location where shoppers drop it off at that location and customers would pick it up at a different date. This helps people that want the convenience but also it helps eliminate "food deserts". If say whole foods is 10miles away,the grocery is delivered 5 milea away, that means people that consider 10 miles too far can now pick it up at a closer location. I think this whole idea has potential at a larger scale, I would love to order stuff from amazon or ebay and have it delivered at someone else's house where I can pick it up later -- one more layer of privacy if I use gift cards and the like to shop they will never need to know my name,phone and address directly. Storage providers can charge by the hour/minute.

We are considering forming cooperative's of local vendors who will do all the management.

There will be multiple local market instance each managed by a separate cooperative.

There is no central management ... its a distributed platform !

What is the best way to contact your team? I know local people that were doing "instacart" before it was a thing at a small local scale who might be interested.

Sure ! ... we will be glad to hear from you ... You can contact us at our forum https://forum.nearbyshops.org/

Create a new thread we will reply to you !

Hello, looks like a cool project.

I had a quick read and here is what I picked out:

* I can stand up my own server ( Java REST API + PostgreSQL)

* I then need to update each app to my server URL

* Application source is released under MIT https://github.com/NearbyShops/Nearby-Shops-End-User-Android...

* I require a license to modify them https://nearbyshops.co/pricing.html * I don't think that's compatible with MIT license?

I think this will result in like 20 different apps.. Maybe a better approach would be something along the lines:

* You host a 'cerntal' api, and my instance must register with it. You can handle billing / fees you want to charge me there.

* It will inform the mobile app to connect to my backend when in the area served.

Eh, yeah that's... Odd:

> What will happen if i dont pay license fee ?

> In such case your use of software for commercial purpose is both unethical and illegal. You wont be receiving any official support in such case. We wont be helping you.

No support is fine - but the source is distributed as MIT... I'm guessing the intent here might be that you're free to change and distribute if you host your own back-end service for the api?

Yes its pretty much like that only ... there are multiple local market each self-hosted has their own server ...

And they connect with Central API for user login purposes !

Would there be a desktop or browser version of the software in the works? It'd be nice to see first-class support for free/libre operating systems so admins, shop owners, and customers alike wouldn't be forced to use walled-garden smart phone ecosystems.

This!

That a good point ... we will surely be providing a web app in future ...

We just are waiting for raising some funds !

This is a great initiative.

My suggestion is not have an app at all. Make it a PWA/TWA. It will work on both android/iOS, notifications will work properly and your development effort will significantly go down.

You can cut this even further by using one of the templates from here - https://themeforest.net/tags/pwa

iOS does not support web push notifications

fair enough (and my mistake). but i dont think that this project has an ios app at all

PWA and IOS app is in the pipeline ... it will be coming soon !

This is really great, and I hope it gains traction -- it's nice to see things that can supplant the funded-walled-garden-startup incumbents for these such cases with services that embody the original vision of the WWW

yes that was the original intent ... we want the platform to be open and welcoming to everyone !

This is awesome!! I recognize the importance of this being decentralized. I used to think this would be done on the blockchain, but maybe this will do... even better!

If people could mod the instance, you'd soon see people create their own "taxi service" instance. They'd have the server running on their smartphone and local users could find them and ask for a quote/estimate (calculated automatically or by the parked driver) to go to a certain destination.

Great concept -- open-source decentralized marketplace.

I believe the founders are from India, and buying vegetables/fruits from independent local vendors/farmers (vs a big box grocery store like in many western countries) on a daily basis is a norm, so this seems to be a natural extension.

Would be really interested to see how this goes -- if this problem can be tackled, even in narrow cases, it would serve as an interesting model for many other marketplace ideas.

Hello Friends,

If you like this Project Please share this project on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit !

Please Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Lets discuss and work together ! Links are given on website !

We are Looking for Volunteers who can help this project ... Please Join Us and Help this project !

Best Regards ! Sumeet Moray Founder - Nearby Shops Project

Will do ... Great work Sumeet!

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for showing such a great support ! Let us address some of your questions here !

You dont need to have any coding knowledge to use the platform. Anyone can install Local Market Instance and Setup their market. Its similar to Mastodon Project https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon

All the local markets are accessible from your end-user app. So you dont need to publish any separate app.

We are anticipating that Vendor Cooperatives will help us manage the local markets.

When the project gains traction. We will be releasing the PWA and IOS app also. So dont worry about that at all !

Looks like your team put in a lot of effort so I applaud that. So to be a tad negative now.. I don't know who this is aimed at or what the specific value is. The first thing that shown is it is decentralized, which is nice, but that isn't the core value.

The core value is this will help a shop owner and shoppers. What it actually does and why its worth investing time to set up should be the FIRST thing you see. Even reading more I don't exactly know how it works.

it doesn't tell us in about us who the people behind it are.

A quick googling resulted in this: https://www.zaubacorp.com/company/BLUETREE-SOFTWARE-LLP/AAL-...

The concept of this looks neat, although I am not sure I understand all the use cases yet.

It is a nonprofit version of regular food delivery or grocery delivery ... app !

I've been planning on building something like this for a while. I hope it succeeds and they document the journey.

Thank you ... We need volunteers ... You can help us through the Journey !

https://forum.nearbyshops.org/

How will local vendor update inventory and item details on platform?

How does the "decentralization" part actually work?

Nice Question ! ... Anyone can self-host their Local Market Instance ... and create a local market ... a local market is a collection of many shops ...

A customer can access all the local markets in his area from a single mobile app.

He can buy from any market ... and login using just one account !

Reply on news.ycombinator.com