I love a good deal. After all, I’m descended from folks who haggle at Taiwanese night markets! But in our society, finding a good bargain isn’t so much about raw negotiating skills as it is about searching the Internet and timing your purchases in a game of retail chicken, especially when it gets down to holiday shopping.
Do I buy it now?
Or wait to see if it goes on sale?
But what if they sell out of the size or color I want before it gets marked down?
And what if the price drops and I don’t know about it?
You could stay up all night pondering all possible outcomes. Or, you could download a new app onto your iPhone that keeps track of the prices for you — even after your purchase. I was recently invited to be one of a group of bloggers to test drive an app that was called Eyeona (called Savvy during its beta days).
Over brunch at Santana Row, I sat next to Eyeona’s co-founder, Paul Patterson, who told me how he came up with the idea for the app after he and his wife discovered that many of the appliances they bought for their new home went on sale soon after they’d purchased them. According to the parent company Pricetector.com’s research, consumers missed out on $20 billion worth of price adjustments over the 2010 holiday season.
How Eyeona Works
Eyeona lets you keep track of items on your wishlist from many major retailers, such as Lands’ End (my money and my kids go there), Toys R Us, and Crate and Barrel. There are even stores my husband likes– such as REI, Home Depot and Best Buy. Search the retailers websites for items to watch — such as the Canon 7D camera I’ve been coveting for the better part of a year — or scan the bar code at the store. You can even enter in your desired price and Savvy will send you an email when the price drops.
And if you’re the type that gets consumed by buyers’ remorse (Did I get the best deal? Will it get marked down even further?), scan your receipt and you’ll get a notification if the price drops within the store’s price adjustment period.
Since I’m still have a month and a-half of year almost without clothes shopping, I teamed up with Christine Candelaria of The Aums and tried out the app while shopping for some Thanksgiving cookware.
I’ve been eyeing a Le Creuset enameled French oven for years. And it was marked down at Williams-Sonoma…
Le Creuset calls this color “Flame”. I prefer to call it Pimp My Kitchen.
I initally thought I’d get the classic red enamel finish. But at the store, I couldn’t resist this this red-orange ombre. Le Creuset calls the color “Flame”.
Even when things are on sale, the bargain hunter in me still wonders whether I got the best deal. But I scanned my receipt so that if it gets marked down even more and the fishwife in me can go back for a price adjustment.
The application is still sort of in testing mode, so all of the bells and whistles aren’t activated yet, but new tweaks are being made constantly. Eyeona is available for iPhone in the App Store, and an Android version is in the works for early December, too.
The Eyeona app and the French oven courtesy of Pricetector, Inc, but the opinions expressed are all my own.
[Update 4/2012: At the time of writing, the beta version of this app was called Savvy. It was rebranded in February 2012 to Eyeona, as in “I’m keeping an eye on a…” But the app is still free and now it’s available for Android, as well as iPhone.]
Very cool!
That Williams-Sonoma has actually marked down a Le Creuset is very impressive. My hubby and I have been collecting them over the years. We love them! It is no joke or being over enthusiastic to say that stews and sauces requiring many hours of cooking simply come out tasting the best you’ve ever had. (Now I sound like a commercial, lol!)
This year we are drawing names and setting a price tag. When the family gets very large, it would simply be ridiculously expensive to try to by for everyone. However only my grandsons are getting real gifts from grandpa and Bella!
Thank you for the helpful post, Grace. Good timing, of course! By the way, I visited your Pasta Putanesca post, a simply mahvelous recipe. :)
~Virginia
Virginia, this is a dangerous trend. I could begin collecting Le Creuset, too! When my relatives started having children, we started drawing names for Christmas presents, and I really like it. Much less stress and expense. Thank you for stopping by!
Thank you so much for covering Savvy’s mobile shopping app. We thought your readers might be interested to know that we have changed our name to Eyeona (as in, keep an eye on a price). You can visit us at http://www.eyeona.com. We really appreciate it and thanks again.