The application, available on iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices for free, is called ‘Find-it’ and includes a database of 100,000 items that can be found in the store. The pilot project is rolling out in four of the chain’s 196 stores, and represents the first time Point Inside has created a branded application for a retailer, and the first time that it has offered the extreme level of granularity. Up until now, Point Inside has mostly been distributing its own mobile application that works in 720 airports and malls around the country. That data is limited to particular stores, or the location of a bathroom or a gate, and does not include particular items within stores.

There’s not anything magical going on behind the scenes to make this happen. Point Inside’s CEO Kevin Foreman said the company simply uses the best signal it can get to direct users to their location. First, it searches for a GPS signal, then falls back on cellular triangulation, and then Wi-Fi. Once Wi-Fi was hard to come by in stores, but now that’s less of a problem. For instance, Meijer has 26 access points inside each store that were installed initially for cash registers and VoIP, but can now offer fairly good location accuracy for consumers, Foreman said.

For Point Inside, Meijer is hopefully only the beginning. Its goal is to get enough “destination content,” including points of interest and real-time information to make its mapping data valuable enough for others to license it. It’s already being used by Clear Channel (OTCBB: CCMO), which announced an application yesterday in partnership with Geodelic, that offers location-based information and maps in airports.