8. ShopSavvy
Only few stressful days left to track down last minute gifts. Can apps come to your aid and get you through the day? Here's one man's shopping day from hell, plus apps.
I dial up the ShopSavvy app and think about all the stuff that must have gotten lost before barcodes. The app lets you scan them with your phone’s camera and then spits back the best prices you’d find online for that good. I can only imagine how much storeowners loath this little tool. You give the app your payment details and with just a couple clicks, you can buy your scanned product – instead of buying it off their shelves.
But it also provides you with local in-store prices as well. Now, this is much harder to track. Like with GasBuddy, smaller stores aren’t integrating their prices with ShopSavvy – and bigger chains can have sales on the floor that may not register. But again like GasBuddy, it’s a rough – but quite helpful – guide.
I scan my wine rack and much to my chagrin, see that there are two online stores that have it for ten bucks less than I’m paying. I consider, for a moment, banking on the store’s shipping to make it by Christmas – but decide otherwise. I’ll pay the extra ten bucks just to know it’s under the tree for mom. I write the delta off as a Procrastinator Tax.
I head for the checkout, and then head home.