Product Finder Module

The Product Finder module compliments the Inventory Module.

Using the Inventory Module the PFP software can upload a business inventory records of available wholesale products to an Internet database, where they will sit alongside all other business inventory records that have been similarly  uploaded.

Uploaded records can be sent to the business default country records, to another country or state records (conditions apply), or to international records for exporters.

Using the Product Finder module anyone using the PFP software can retrieve your product records from the Internet along with all other business product records that have been uploaded.

For example a plant nursery might upload 300 product records. But the plant nursery exists in a country which has 1000 plant nurseries in it. Each of these plant nurseries also decides to upload 300 product records. On top of this, the country also has 50 horticultural supply merchants which supply dry goods and supplies. Each of these business also uploads 1000 product inventory records. In this example, 350 000 product records have been uploaded to the Internet database for the country. Each of these businesses updates their records on a regular basis.

Using the Product Finder module a user of the PFP software can select the country from a combo box  (which has about 450 countries or states listed) and download all the product records for the country in a single process. To download 350,000 records may take about 15 minutes, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. After downloading, the country records are automatically turned into a recordset file and saved to disk on the user's computer, which will overwrite any previous file for the country. Using the product finder module the user can view the records as often as they like without having to reconnect to the Internet.

For export records the selected country is called International, and the same process as above applies.

The module itself is a simple window. All records are 'read only' meaning they cannot be modified by the user.

The module has the following features:

  • For any country or state product records, a report can be printed or print previewed. This report is indexed alphabetically. To see a small example of this report click here.

  • The records can be searched very fast for any product.

  • The records for any country can be analyzed via automation. A report can be produced based on any country, which will list every product once, based on product name and unit, and will provide data such as the minimum and maximum price, the total number available, the average price, the number of suppliers. While there may be curiosity about such data, what is not shown is product quality, or what the price may include or exclude (e.g. freight), or other such factors. This report is a guide only. To see a small example of this report click here.

  • The records can be filtered on a supplier to show only the records for any specific supplier.

  • The records can be filtered on product unit to show only the records that may be available for a specific unit e.g. container size.

  • The records can be filtered on genera e.g. rhododendrons, to show all rhododendrons that may be available in a country.

  • Within the product finder module is a shopping basket mechanism. Users can select products from a supplier, and  create a supply order for those products with a supplier via automation.

  • Hyperlinks both within the module and the data reports provide fast access to the business via email.


Whether this process will ever be used within the industry is currently unknown. Probably for most the system is too advanced. However the system does now exist and is available to those that want it.