ShopSavvy Is The Ultimate Bargain Hunter

What is one thing that everybody and their mother own these days? The correct answer would be: a cell phone. Some people even have “smart phones”, which may seem like some sort of new drug judging by the dependence I see from my friends on a daily basis. It only makes sense that marketers would flock to the new hot thing. And so now we have “mobile marketing”, or marketing through mobile phones.

One product that colors me “awestruck” is ShopSavvy made by the Dallas based company Big in Japan. This is an application that allows you to take a picture of a product’s barcode from your camera phone and it will give you a plethora of prices for that product, both on the internet and from competing retailers.

Here are some useful features for consumers:

· Reviews of the scanned product can also be sought out on the spot.

· Price Alerts will notify you when the product you are seeking drops to a price in your given price range.

· Wish Lists enable you to organize and recall products you’ve scanned. As one reviewer says, all you have to do is forward the list you scanned to grandparents a few weeks before a birthday.

· History lets you view everything you’ve scanned, which will make it easy to go home and order a product online after checking it out at a store.

So what does this mean for the people selling and marketing products in competitive areas? Retailers should learn to use the internet in an effective manner regarding their inventories. If a retailer makes the products it sells available for online searching, then potential customers using the ShopSavvy application (or similar ones) will be able to locate the retail store, along with the prices offered and the proximity of the store to the user. (For an overview of internet search engine use, a good webpage to check out would be: http://www.kurtkomaromi.com/internetmarketing/2010/04/presentation-search-engine-marketing-paid.html) Google, along with other media sources, have been giving ShopSavvy the attention it needs to get off the ground and into smartphone users’ downloads. This product spreads simply by word of mouth and internet buzz.

Retailers will have to make more competitive price ranges now that they may be competing directly with online stores, once more consumers start using ShopSavvy, etc. The target audience for this convenient price shopping tool is the smart phone market. More specifically, it’s for bargain hunters that are comfortable using a cell phone and the internet. Anybody with a smartphone who is into finding the best available deal would fall into the market ShopSavvy has entered, which is a fairly broad target. And in these times, most everybody is looking to save any money possible.

The ShopSavvy application is not like any marketing channel I’ve heard of ShopSavvy itself. The ability to engage the consumer with this program is through the roof. Unlike receiving text message updates from a preferred retailer or company, the consumer seeks out the different prices, which ultimately will lead to the best deal for the consumer. The content is easily delivered to anybody who knows how to effectively utilize this type of technology. It’s more or less like shopping online with every available price comparison that is relevant to your specific shopping want or need. With the local store price listings, location-based marketing also comes into the picture. It’s truly amazing that a service offers the price ranges and suggests where you can seek out the product from your current location.

I was able to check this out over winter break on my friend’s iPhone. We simply took a picture of a CD case’s barcode and it brought us options ranging from the closest Barnes & Noble to Amazon.com’s selection. As I stated before, I was very impressed. I can understand that any bargain hunter could use this to its maximum potential. Reviews from the New York Times and NPR also seemed to be generally impressed by this device.

It’s possible for ShopSavvy to force retailers to adjust their prices to a more competitive marketplace. Smartphone users can potentially save a good deal of money by using this application. I look forward to seeing where ShopSavvy ends up in the grand scheme of things. It’s got a considerable amount of consumer buzz and is easily downloaded from Verizon’s Android phone or an iPhone. This application’s use is just another chapter in the internet’s role of shaping marketing and consumer buying. What’s next with marketing and ShopSavvy? Perhaps coupon notifications via text message are the next step in securing the best possible prices for consumers. Just scan the barcode of the coupon sent to your smartphone when making the purchase and that’s it. Not to mention, it’d also save tons of trees if coupons were made scan-able from your phone. The possibilities are endless.

With functions that I previously discussed, I wouldn’t be surprised to see next generation’s “everybody and their mothers, too” using ShopSavvy to hunt down the most attractive deal, either online or at a physical retail location.

To actually see ShopSavvy in action you can check out this video: