Dec
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First ShopSavvy Ban: Target?
According to Brandon, a ShopSavvy user from Detroit, tells this story:
I saved money using shop savvy. I used shop savvy to search for an item and used the mapping to locate sam’s club and go! when i got there i found the items was priced higher. so i took it up to the counter and scanned it in front of the manager. confounded that such technology even existed he matched the price and i saved ten dollars. target on the other hand wasn’t so friendly. they said it was against the rules for customers to scan items with their phones. (once they found out what i was doing) if they would’ve cooperated instead of making up new policies i would’ve saved more money.
I called the Target he visited (27300 Dequindre Rd. Warren, MI 586-573-4200) and talked to the store manager, Debbie, who indicated that she wasn’t aware of the policy. I asked her if she could check as I wanted to let our users know if they weren’t allowed to scan items in her store. She put me on hold for several minutes as she called her manager who indicated that whoever told Brandon he couldn’t use ShopSavvy was simply wrong.
Note: Everyone writes Shop Savvy instead of ShopSavvy. Should we just give up and go with the flow or stick with ShopSavvy?
I say stick with ShopSavvy…. users will come around eventually… /crossfingers
Comment by Bradley — December 1, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
It is interesting to see two opposing views so neatly laid out like this. On the one hand you have a store who is baffled by the technology but yet who does right by the customer, and them you have a company (or maybe it was just that store) who is scared of the technology so makes up some fake rule.
It doesn’t come as a huge leap to imagine a store doing this for real though, does it? I mean, it’s a power tool and serves the customer first and foremost.
I just wish it was available in Australia on my phone! I would be using it all the time!!
Comment by Russell — December 1, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
Stick with ShopSavvy.
Comment by RJ Scott — December 2, 2008 @ 9:38 am
[...] may be catching on to this barcode-scanning trend, some stores are still in the dark. For example, a Target store in Michigan recently requested a shopper to stop scanning merchandise, saying it went against store policy. The customer reported the event to the application’s [...]
Pingback by Stores Clueless About Mobile Barcode Scanning Applications? « LocalLab : Foire aux Infos — December 3, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
[...] First ShopSavvy Ban Target [Biggu.com] [...]
Pingback by thecolor » Cameraphones, your weapon in the coming price-match wars — December 3, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
I wanted to buy a 1TB Western Digital ex. hard drive at Wal-Mart. The price on the shelf was 199.99, the Shopsavvy scan was 169.99. I had printed the item from website and it even had it at 169.99 in stock at stores. But the store I was in was not listed, but the one down the street was at the lower price! They WOULD not sell it for 169 in the store I was standing in to match their own store!. I did not take it and bought it online from another seller.
Comment by James White — December 4, 2008 @ 9:24 am
[...] may be catching on to this barcode-scanning trend, some stores are still in the dark. For example, a Target store in Michigan recently requested a shopper to stop scanning merchandise, saying it went against store policy. The customer reported the event to the application’s [...]
Pingback by Stores Clueless About Mobile Barcode Scanning Applications? — December 4, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
THIS APPLICATION IS GREAT. I HAVE HAVE PAINSTAKINGLY SEARCHED THE NET FOR YEARS ON MY SIDEKICK AND WENT BONKERS WITH MY NEW G1. BESTBUY HATES IT. MOST PLACES WILL. BUT THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN SO EXTREMELY GREEDY NOW SHOULDNT THEY. GO SHOPSAVVY. I LOVE IT.
Comment by PEGGY — December 6, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Well, I guess that depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re trying to make a name for yourself and the name of your product is still ShopSavvy, stick with it. If you’d just like to get bowled over, switch it up, call yourselves Spendthrift, at least that way you don’t have to worry about what the public writes you up as…
-Eric
Comment by Eric — December 8, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
Go with Shop Savvy, it is just more natural to type. Kudos to Sam’s Club for sticking with thier price matching policy and a BIG thumbs down to Target. I’ll stick with Walmart/Sam’s…
Comment by cob05 — December 9, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
I own a small specialty retail tennis shop and so far welcome the ShopSavvy application. A lady scanned an item while looking at ours and saw our price was about $10.00 less than either of the stores that came up in ShopSavvy.
I am even trying to get our store on the retailer database so we can be compared to everyone else.
Comment by John — December 14, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Walmart won’t honor what Shop Savvy says. This item I am looking at lists for $10.00 both online and in stores, yet it rings up as $29 in store. Always call first to verify prices.
Comment by Jon C — December 18, 2008 @ 9:54 am
The item in question is on WalMart’s website for $10 and $29 in store. When you get the price on the phone, click “go to website” and you will be redirected to the item on WalMart’s own website. WalMart DOES honor prices they have online when they are higher in the store.
Comment by Big in Japan — December 21, 2008 @ 11:46 am
Why this web site do not have other languages support?
Comment by green card — December 24, 2008 @ 11:15 am
We will be offering translations in the future, for now use Google Translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=en#
Comment by Big in Japan — December 24, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
I say, boycott Target for this stupid policy and also their stupid return policies. I will NEVER be back at Target.
When I tried to comparison shop for camera’s using my cell phone to take a picture of the barcodes, the employees in electronics started scrambling around, calling managers over the radio, etc. By the time they could figure out what to do, I had left the store because I found the exact item for less at WalMart!!!
Go Shop Savvy!!!!
Boycott Target!
Comment by Dawn Wilson — January 2, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
I read this article elsewhere and it was mentioned that maybe the employee thought it was a competitor scanning prices. When I was in retail several years ago, I know it was common for managers from one store to price check in our store. We were supposed to try to spot them and let our management know. This technique wasn’t used as much to undercut as to RAISE basic item prices. If Wal-mart sells it for 1.50, we sell it for 2.00, why not go to 1.75 and make another quarter?
I can understand store clerks being weary, ESPECIALLY at photographs (as mentioned by a shopper). Wal-mart uses a barcode technique to make the same item “different” for Wal-mart only, therefor not necessarily needing to be price matched. The smarter the consumer gets at price shopping, the smarter the big companies are going to get with ways to not honor it.
Comment by Worked retail..... — January 4, 2009 @ 9:41 am
The good news about ShopSavvy is that we DON’T take a photo of the barcode. Instead we scan the size of the lines in the barcode. No image is take and stored.
Comment by Big in Japan — January 4, 2009 @ 9:50 am
If any retail person comes up to me and tells me to stop doing something like price checking because it is against “store policy” I would immediately inform them that I wasn’t given a policy statement when I walked through the door and will continue my activities until they produce one for my personal retention.
Comment by Don — January 4, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
How could Target already have a policy against the use of technology which, by their own admission, they didn’t know yet existed? Does Target have rules to prevent customers from looking at the price tags too or must we get that information by surprise when we check our receipts?
Comment by Marie — January 4, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
They don’t have a policy. I talked to Target corporate and they said, “Scan away, scan, scan, scan!”
Comment by Big in Japan — January 4, 2009 @ 8:03 pm
Sounds reasonable. Unless they ask you to leave the store and threaten you with trespass. Anyway, Target allows scanning.
Comment by Big in Japan — January 4, 2009 @ 8:03 pm
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Comment by accicheWeaway — June 14, 2009 @ 3:45 am
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Comment by accicheWeaway — June 15, 2009 @ 3:35 am
[...] want to control the environment, at the end of the day, pricing shopping is what people will do, whether or not barcode scanning is banned. Ultimately, consumers will win this battle, and that’s a good [...]
Pingback by Mobile internet access further blurring lines between channel-specific pricing | eBusinessBlog.org — September 20, 2009 @ 10:19 am