Since the shop parks app has been discontinued, is there a way to locate if an item I am looking for is in a certain park or shop? If there is, how do I do it now? Thanks in advance.
Yep, that functionality has been rolled into the My Disney Experience app. Just search for the item you're looking for, go into its detail page, and click "Find on Map".
And if you don't find it on there, when you get there a CM can do a search for something on their computer. Tell you where and how many they have. I have done that multiple times to locate something as close as possible.