If Mark Sherry has his way, people will soon forget about the most popular search engine when they shop for bargains.

Sherry, who calls himself a serial entrepreneur, has just released a new app to help people find the best possible grocery deals, Gofer.run, but he isn’t stopping there. If all goes well, it will expand into other areas of commerce and will be the first thing many consumers think of when looking for the best deals.

“If we can do that, don’t Google it. Gofer it,” Sherry, the co-founder Gofer.run, and president of its parent company, One Red Maple, said to FoodNX.

The app was launched in March and allows shoppers to create a shopping list of items, while also comparing pricing across local grocers. It will then generate a shopping plan and generate the best possible savings.

“How the app works is, you give us your postal code, and a radius around that, and we will shop all those stores in real-time in your neighbourhood,” he explained. “And so little Gofer goes out in real time and shops all the prices for that product.”

It then returns a shopping plan. “I say, create Gofer.run. It takes that list and shops at every store.”

Big monthly savings for shoppers

Available for both Android and Apple, the product analyzes all items based on price per 100 grams or 100 ml, and Gofer will determine the optimal shopping trip via an algorithm.

“It really depends on the shopper but we save people somewhere in the 25-per-cent range on their groceries for the average family, which translates into about $250 to $400 a month potentially on groceries,” Sherry said.

Users can choose to shop at anywhere from one to six stores, depending on their preferences.

“No one else is taking the price of your groceries, breaking it down to 100 grams, comparing them all and giving you the best in one store, two stores, three stores, and everything’s compared to your local stores,” he said.

“We optimize your entire spend.”

The app works by searching all grocery store flyers via their public websites, Sherry said.

Frustration with pandemic effects on locals

The idea came about during the early days of COVID, Sherry explained. When the lockdowns disproportionately affected local stores, which quickly shut down, the bigger and more monetized big-box stores remained open. “And so, I said, ‘I can build it, maybe,’ ” Sherry said.

Fast forward and early reaction is good, according to Sherry. It had been downloaded 10,960 times as of April 29, and he was heartened to hear from one person in particular. “I had a consultant who said: You just built the Holy Grail of grocery apps.”

“Something’s happening in terms of word of mouth.”

For now, the product is free to all but Sherry is considering future pricing options.

“We are thinking longer term, but (for now) we’re just trying to build. Longer term we would potentially charge the consumer a small subscription fee, maybe $4.95 per month but if you think about it, you’re going to save so there’s probably no better investment,” Sherry said.

It also offers such things as a photo search that allows a user to snap a picture of an item, and Gofer will search for the best prices. Handwritten shopping lists can be converted to a digital format.

As well, users can create shopping lists from recipes. If the user wants barbecued ribs, there is a search function that will do this.

“You search for it. It’ll bring back all the barbecue ribs and dozens and dozens of recipes, and then you basically pick one," Sherry said, while demonstrating the process during the interview. "You just tap on it, and we show you that recipe; we show you the ingredients, we show you the instructions, we show you the nutritional value.”

Looking south to grow the product

While the product is currently only Canadian, a move to the U.S. would seem a fruitful idea.

“Absolutely, the same (affordability) problem’s happening globally, and I think it’s actually easier in some cases to release apps like this to the U.S.: they seem to be faster adopters. Trying to do a business-to-commercial app in Canada is almost impossible because the VCs (venture capital investors) just don’t have the stomach for it, or the pockets,” Sherry said.

“But if you do it well, I mean, rewards can be huge.”

Once all the kinks are managed, Sherry would like to move on other areas of shopping.

“We can do restaurants, we can do services, we can do anything. If your car insurance is coming up and you think, ‘I’m tired of my car insurance.’ I’ll give my car details to Gofer and I’ll let Gofer find me the best insurance. My mortgage is coming too. I’ll give Gofer the details, and let Gofer go find out my mortgages, for instance.”