Agreed, it is a difficult challenge. I know because I'm working on it right now with my company, Cashier Live. We've thought about doing something like this in addition to working with options out there like Milo or Google's local product search, but it leads to the same problem they have now. Comprehensive search. If I (or VendHQ) did something like that, we'd only have independent stores and not the large chains.

That being said, I think Milo knows their weakness is in independent retail and it looks like they're taking steps to solve that.