Milo.com's Black Friday Guide Lets Shoppers Verify Local Availability of Sale Products Before Braving the Crowds

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Retailers lure foot traffic on Black Friday with promises of amazing deals and door-busting discounts, but how do shoppers know if a nearby store still has the product in-stock? Today, Milo.com (http://milo.com), the online leader in real-time local shopping, announced that it will feature thousands of Black Friday prices and real-time availability information for sale products at leading national merchants, including Target, Toys "R" Us and Macy's. Black Friday offers will be accessible online, on mobile phones and, beginning on Wednesday, November 24th, through the Milo Local Shopping app on Android.

Milo.com has aggregated Black Friday sale prices for more than 5,000 products, ranging from electronics and toys to apparel and home goods. (Black Friday specials will continue to be added through Friday, November 26th). To access the limited-time deals and see if a desired product is associated with a special offer, shoppers can either browse the homepage or use the Black Friday filter, located on the sidebar of search pages. Using Milo.com, shoppers are then able to locate sale items that are currently in-stock at their local stores and efficiently navigate the Black Friday rush.

"Everything we build at Milo.com is designed with the user in-mind—and we knew that shoppers wouldn't  want to wait in long lines or stand in the cold only to find that the products they wanted were sold out," said Jack Abraham, founder and CEO of Milo.com. "With Milo.com, users are saved from the chaos that is Black Friday. Not only can they access thousands of Black Friday deals in one place, but they can also do real-time checks to see if a product is still in-stock at their local stores."

According to the National Retail Federation, 138 million people are expected to hit stores this Black Friday weekend, up from 134 million in 2009. With more people shopping, sale products will run out faster than ever, making it essential to know if the product you want is still in-stock before you head out the door. With instantaneous inventory information on both desktop and mobile offerings, shoppers using Milo.com will know when sale items run out and where they're still available—in real-time.

"Not only does Milo.com show shoppers what products have Black Friday specials, but we also tell them if the items are still in-stock at their local store," continued Abraham. "After all, it's not enough to know that the product was available on sale somewhere at one point in the day—Black Friday shoppers want to know where it's available now."

If you're unsure what items are in demand this holiday season, here are some trends that have emerged on Milo.com in the weeks leading up to Black Friday 2010:

• Toys are king – Whether it's Sing a Ma Jigs, Zoobles or Squinkies, toys with funny names are on shoppers' minds. Get your hands on them before they go the way of the Zhu Zhu pets.
• What goes around comes back around – At least when it comes to UGGs, high tech digital cameras and HDTVs, which all make appearances again this shopping season.
• Reign of Apple continues – Apple products top the local shopping list, with iPad leading the charge and defeating netbooks as the must-have portable computer of the season.
• Time to Move and Kinect – The Wii opened the door for video games and consoles that stretch the limits of what's possible. But with competition this year from Playstation and Xbox, Nintendo seems to have lost its stronghold on consumers.
• Recession-friendly? Not interested – Espresso makers and other home entertaining items are no longer top of mind. Neither is the good old fashioned bicycle. Instead, shiny electronics and new toys and games top everyone's lists.

To check the real-time availability of Black Friday offers at your local stores, please visit http://milo.com.

About Milo.com (http://milo.com)

Milo.com makes local shopping easy by enabling consumers to research products online and find them in-stock at a local store. The leader in the real-time local product search space, Milo.com tracks the availability and prices of more than 3 million products at 52,000 stores across the U.S. By combining the detailed product information and user reviews available online with the immediate and tangible benefits of shopping in local stores, Milo.com provides users the best of both worlds and makes it easy to research a variety of products, find the right prices and find in-stock items near you. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Milo.com boasts leadership from comScore and Google, and is backed by True Ventures and prominent Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs from Mint.com, PayPal, Yelp, YouTube, and others. For more information, please visit http://milo.com

SOURCE Milo.com