Wednesday, June 07, 2006

SCANBUY Shopper: A Shopping Assistant for your cell phone

"SCANBUY Shopper enables cell phone users to have the best bargain hunting tool at their very fingertips. Get the best prices and all the product info you need to make smart and fun purchases. "



The first version of the shopper application provides a user the ability to "scan" (I use this term loosely here) the products in a store before buying them.


How does it work ?
You walk into a store, you like a product you see on the rack and you want to buy it.
- You key in the UPC barcode value of the product in the Shopper application and Voila... you are able to see online offers and even read reviews of that product.
- If you like some thing you see, you can send yourself an email. Then, in the comfort of your home or cubicle you can review the information again on your PC.
- Its as simple as that.

Whats the value to me?
- Piece of mind factor: Before buying anything I would like to see how much extra I am shelling out to get the product then and there. If the price difference is something that catches my eye and I can wait a week or so for the shipping, I would much rather order it online.
- Reviews: Before buying that webcam or external hard drive I would like to know what the others think about it. I know, reading long reviews on a small shitty screen of a cell phone isnt a very rosy proposition but for products like books, cameras and other electrnonic stuff these reviews will help me make up my mind.

I took the application out to Staples when I went shopping for web cams. We needed a few for the office and some of the price differences were pretty amazing. I bought a Creative Labs webcam online after sending myself an email from the Shopper app but I also bought a couple of other models from the store cause the price difference was just not worth the wait.

The first version seems simple enough. Its a Java app based around J2ME and is available for Java enabled cell phones on all GSM carriers here in states. One catch for the average user, you will need data service on your phone. You can add it to your plan through your carrier for a few dollars more but its definetly a good investment considering the applications that you can then load on your phone ;-).

The app is now available for download at http://wap.scanbuy.com
For more info and also to send yourself a link to download the app visit :
http://www.scanbuyshopper.com

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