Milo.com revamps its product search for Black Friday

Looks like stores aren’t the only ones getting ready for Black Friday, the big holiday shopping day after Thanksgiving. Milo.com, the startup that lets shoppers see the products available in local stores in real-time, just launched a site redesign that highlights Black Friday deals.

Founder and chief executive Jack Abraham said that even without building many Black Friday-specific features, Milo’s traffic nearly doubled on Black Friday last year. Which makes sense — not only are people doing a lot more shopping than usual, but it’s also an environment in which Milo seems particularly useful, because you can use the service to see what’s in-stock with up-to-the-minute accuracy while stores are quickly selling out of their most popular items and you’re competing with other shoppers for the best deals. (Abraham said competing products like Google Product Search aren’t as up-to-date.)

So this year, besides adding a splash of black to the site, Milo worked with merchants to bring Black Friday deals to the site. If you’re searching for a specific product on Friday, you can see who’s offering it at the best price and whether it’s actually still available before you head to the store. Milo says it has gathered special prices on more than 5,000 products from retailers including Target, Toys R Us, and Macy’s, and that the deals will also be viewable on its Android app.

When I asked Abraham if Milo is hoping to do better than doubling its traffic on Friday, he laughed and said, “Oh yeah, for sure. We’ll aim for triple.”

Milo has raised $4 million in funding from True Ventures and a number of angel investors including Felicis Ventures’ Aydin Senkut (who also invested in VentureBeat). Milo also announced a new coupon feature last week.