June 8th, 2010 
Stephanie Talalai 
I love to shop and, really, what AndroidGal doesn’t?? With today’s economy, saving money is important and comparison shopping is a great way to do it. Unfortunately, comparison shopping also means spending a lot of time doing tedious research to find that great price. That is why ShopSavvy is such a valuable application. A winner of Google’s 2008 Developer’s Challenge, ShopSavvy is like having your very own comparison shopping assistant right in your hands.
After downloading and launching ShopSavvy from the Android Market, you simply choose “Search for a product” from the menu and use your phone’s camera to scan the bar code of the item you are shopping for. ShopSavvy will then give you a list of both online and local stores who carry your item along with prices. You can also search products by name or use the keyboard to key in the bar code.
If you decide to pick up the item locally, you can click on the store’s name and get a list of all those stores in a 15 mile radius from your current location. Once you pick a specific store by clicking on it, you are then given the choice to “Open in Browser”, “Call Store” or “Get Directions” using Google Maps.
See an item you like but think it costs too much? Name your price and have ShopSavvy tell you when that product hits your price. You can even add the items to wish lists that you can send to your friends and family. You can also see product reviews and ratings right at the bottom of your screen.
As a test, I used ShopSavvy to scan an Adobe Photoshop book. I did have a problem scanning the bar code at first using my Droid Incredible, but quickly realized that I was holding the camera too close to the bar code. My search returned 49 online stores with prices ranging from $1.50 to $54.99. My three local choices were: Barnes and Noble ($37.99), Borders ($54.99) and Sears ($43.99)
Overall, I was quite impressed with the ShopSavvy application. The developers claim that more than 20,000 retailers are providing pricing and inventory information to more than 5.5 million ShopSavvy users.
ShopSavvy is a free application in the Android Market. So, if you are a bargain shopper like me, download it and give it a try.
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