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I cannot find any web resource for crowdsourced consumer prices - e.g. gas/petrol, water, electricity, and food basics like rice. I am aware of consumer indices such as http://www.fao.org/giews/pricetool/ but its spread for localised ('domestic' category) data (i.e. in towns and cities) is limited, so I'm wondering about crowdsourced data. Anyone aware of anything?

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  • It would be helpful if you could add more specifics about what you are looking for. For example: what does the requirement that the data be "crowdsourced" mean, exactly? Commented Oct 1, 2013 at 17:01
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    Perhaps the FAO reference was misleading. I'm pretty sure what I'm thinking about doesn't exist. There should be something where people anywhere in the world can volunteer info on the general prices they face for basics. Sort of like OpenStreetMap for prices. It could be an amazing resource.
    – geotheory
    Commented Oct 1, 2013 at 22:25
  • For food, drug and household consumables you could try www.shoppingscout.com. It's a shopping app that has current local and online pricing.
    – user3685
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 5:02
  • i've seen a few separate pieces involving localwiki editathons trying to grow area sharing economies...its a shot in the dark, and mileage will vary per wiki, but you might want to contact them for more info
    – albert
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 0:19
  • Can their database be downloaded under an open license?
    – Nicolas Raoul
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 2:38

3 Answers 3

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Gas Buddy, the Price of Weed website (SE does not allow a link) and Craigslist all come to mind.

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  • Thanks. Gas Buddy is useful but only for US/Canada. Unless I'm missing something I don't see how Craigslist can help as (a) it shows ads and not final sale prices and (b) difficulty categorising ads for comparison.
    – geotheory
    Commented Sep 30, 2013 at 12:23
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    If you are looking for a specific geography, you should put that in your question. Craigslist apartment listings can be quite detailed and are usually the final price.
    – fgregg
    Commented Sep 30, 2013 at 13:41
  • I'd have thought 'world' was rather less specific geography than US/Canada! ;)
    – geotheory
    Commented Sep 30, 2013 at 14:40
  • It's still a specific geometry :)
    – fgregg
    Commented Sep 30, 2013 at 16:01
  • why does stack block links?
    – albert
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 0:13
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The World Bank did this kind of project in 2012-2013:

The objective of the pilot was to study the feasibility of crowd-sourced price data collection. Non-professional price collectors used personal computers and mobile phones for collecting data and entering it in a multilingual web microsite developed for the pilot. Price data was collected for thirty tightly specified food commodity items on a monthly basis for approximately six months in eight pilot countries. Non-professional price collectors received compensation in the form of airtime rewards.

The same data at https://app.enigma.io/table/org.worldbank.crowd-sourced.price.collection.csv

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Numbeo

Seems like just the resource you are asking for

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