Haystack is a mission-driven startup with a powerful model for promoting local stores and fueling a kinder, smarter shopping revolution. We believe in a future where supporting your local stores and neighborhood is also the fastest and easiest way to shop. Our vision is to put the inventories of local stores at your fingertips and create a platform that's as easy to use as Amazon - but the products you need are available right away, and right in your neighborhood. For shoppers, it helps you find the products you need when and where you need them. For stores, it helps you get your inventory online and get new customers in the door.

Haystack uses data intelligence to establish an unprecedented understanding of local store inventories, allowing us to include the inventory from ALL STORES across the country. How? Through a combination of available data, information from passionate shoppers and partnerships with stores. With each little piece of feedback, our “inventory picture” improves exponentially, and we get closer and closer to the promised land where supporting your local stores and neighborhood is also the fastest and easiest way to shop.

A lot of local stores that might have exactly what you need don’t have the sophisticated inventory systems necessary to get their inventory online. Haystack puts these stores on as level a playing field with chains as possible, and makes it simple for you to find the cake pan, cereal brand or drill bit you’re looking for. When you see probabilities and likelihoods of products being in stock at different stores, that’s based on heaps of data from users and stores. It’s not only what a piece of information tells us about a specific store (e.g., they have Elmer’s Glue at your local hardware store), but also what that means for similar stores in your area and across the country. Every bit of information we gather makes these probabilities more and more certain.

We would love to hear from you (hello@haystack.co) if you’re eager to get more involved! If you’re the type of person who loves supporting your local stores or who hates what the Amazon-ification of shopping is doing to our neighborhoods, you’re in the right place! We want to ask you questions and have you help shape and test the features that make Haystack fun and make helping stores a breeze. Coming soon is our community hub where you can help out simply by taking photos of store shelves, inviting friends, or helping to get missing stores on the map!

We’re extremely eager to hear from stores and make sure we help out in every way possible. Sign up and reach out (stores@haystack.co) and you can be an early member of a profound movement, and help shape your and our future.