With the highest sales tax in the U.S. hovering at about 10.75% (California), you have to ask yourself if the savings are worth the effort.  Crowded stores, long-lines, uncooperative kids and driving all over town might save you that 10%, but what if you could save more from the comfort of your own home or office?  I think it is possible to save on your back-to-school shopping and, if you start today, you can still have your student(s) stocked up and ready to head off to their first day.

Start With Amazon.com

No other online business makes shopping as easy as Amazon.com.  Take that required list of school supplies provided by your school district and head over to the Back-to-School Savings area.   Items on Amazon.com are typically less-expensive than their big-box store counterparts and you don’t pay tax, ever (at least in Texas).  Become a member of Amazon Prime (FREE trials available, $79 a year) and you can take advantage of unlimited fast shipping, including FREE Two-Day shipping and One-day shipping for $3.99 per item on all eligible purchases.

I myself have been an Amazon Prime member for the last year and I will never go without it again.

Shop Competitvely

I’m not saying you need to put on a helmet and pads, but you do need to flex your tech skills to get the best prices on the more expensive items on your child’s list.  Whether your college freshman needs a new laptop or your middle-schooler needs a backpack, you can use online or smartphone shopping tools to compare prices from other retailers before making your decision to purchase.

For those of you with smartphones (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry) there are numerous barcode scanning apps that you can download.  ShopSavvy (my favorite Android tool) is just one of these apps, which allows you to scan a barcode and get instant comparison results from over 20,000 retailers and 200,000 products.  In many cases, the online price of an item can be 20%, 30% or more off of retail.

Coupons, Coupons, Coupons!

No matter where you end up shopping, don’t forget the coupons.  “But why would a blog about computers and tech write about something as traditional as coupons?” you might ask.  Coupons have evolved as much as shopping over the last few years.  Not only can you find coupon codes for just about any website (thanks to RetailMeNot.com), retailers like Target and JCPenney are distributing digital coupons that cam be redeemed right from the screen of your smartphone.

For Next Year

Unfortunately, it’s too late to take advantage of this great service I found while doing my research.  Next year, stay ahead of the game and order your supplies from a company like School-Pak, Inc.  They have been preparing and shipping packaged school supplies since 1991.  You email them your list and they send you a quote for all the items and delivery.

If you have school shopping left to do, just open a new tab in your browser and get started now.  You could be done with it all before you leave the office today.  If you know someone else with school-aged children, forward this article on.  They’ll thank you later.

• I like to see an item in person before purchasing
• I want to be able to return the item easily, in case it’s not what the site showed/described
• I need it now and can’t afford to wait a week
• I would only save a few dollars by buying online – it’s not worth the hassle
• I don’t have the time to sit at the computer and comparison shop

While there are times when you absolutely must have an item in hand immediately, I think most purchases are a little rushed and impulsive.  Time is an important factor in shopping, but it doesn’t have to be a barrier.  Thanks to the makers of some very smart applications for smart-phones, online shopping doesn’t have to be scary, time-consuming or unrewarding.

Smart-Phones

If you own a smart-phone (iPhone, Android, etc.) then you have a shopping tool in your pocket/purse at all times.  Add a simple application (like the ones below) and turn your phone into a barcode scanner, comparison shopper and ordering device.

ShopSavvy is by far my favorite FREE shopping app and it is available (CLICK HERE) for the iPhone, Android phones and certain Nokia devices.

“With ShopSavvy users can scan the barcode of any product using their phone’s built-in camera.  Once scanned, it will search for all the best prices from local and online retailers. ShopSavvy is used by more than 5.5 million users around the world providing them access to more than 20,000 retailers and 20,0oo,000 products.” - taken from the product web site

I have personally used ShopSavvy for the last year and it is super-simple and super-rewarding.  If you are interested in the features of ShopSavvy, take a look at the video below.  The content is great, even if the voice-over is a little…. lacking.

Amazon App is something I wish I had known about before today.  Now, you can add their app to your smart-phone and access pricing, reviews, wish lists, 1-click ordering and your own Amazon account right from the palm of your hand.  Just like ShopSavvy, you can use the camera on your phone as a barcode scanner.  The app is available for Android, iPhone and Blackberry users. (CLICK HERE)

Safe Web Sites

No matter what great deals your smart-phone returns in a product search, be sure to buy from trusted, safe sites.  While the Amazon App will keep you within the Amazon site at all times, ShopSavvy links to many other retailers and might take you to some sites you have never heard of.   If you are unsure of how to tell the difference between a safe site and a scam, check out our article Shopping Safely – 101 Days Until Christmas.  The title might be outdated, but the content is not.  In the article, we provide a few, simple tips and tricks on making sure the site you are on is secure.

Arguments Revisited

Here is some food for thought.  Remember those arguments that I posted in the beginning of the article?  I’d like to revisit them and show how using one of the apps above can still work within your “guidelines for shopping.”

• I like to see an item in person before purchasing – This is what I do.  I visit retail stores and check the product out in person.  While I am there, I simply use one of the apps above to scan the barcode or I write down the product information and price compare when I get home.  Waiting a day or two for delivery on the item could save me some hard-earned cash.
• I want to be able to return the item easily, in case it’s not what the site showed/described – Many web sites, including Amazon have simple, fair return policies and they often include return labels with your delivery.  Depending on the reason for the return you might not lose a dime.  I recently returned an item to Amazon because of an ordering mistake I made and I was only out $5.
• I need it now and can’t afford to wait a week – Programs like Amazon Prime can cut wait-times down to 2 days on all products (FREE shipping).  No matter what site you buy from, check for coupon codes that will yield you free shipping or see if there is a minimum purchase price to activate free shipping.  In some cases, the money you save will more than outweigh the cost of a 2-day delivery.
• I would only save a few dollars by buying online – it’s not worth the hassle – In many cases, you will save more than you think possible.  For instance, in the example video above (ShopSavvy) the item scanned retailed at $141.99 and the ShopSavvy application found the same item (NEW) online for $64.99.  I think the savings on this item was well worth the wait and the “hassle.”
• I don’t have the time to sit at the computer and comparison shop – Using an app, like the ones above, limits your hassle.  Simply scan the item and email the results to yourself.  When you get home, spend 2 minutes on the computer and order the item from the link provided.  You can find that 2 minutes if it will save $$$.

Grocery IQ is a FREE application (originally priced at $4.99) for smartphone users and is currently available for iPhone and Android owners.  The tool, powered by coupons.com, was designed to help users with a number of typical grocery shopping activities (listed below):

Create Grocery Lists

iPhone List

Create a simple, itemized list of everything you need to pick up at the store.  Enter items via keyboard, voice command or barcode scanner and be as generic or specific as you would like.  For instance, I need milk, but I don’t buy a specific brand, so I simply type in “milk” and there it is on the list.  On the other hand, if I want to buy specific sodas, I can enter in “Diet Dr. Pepper” and choose that very specific item (2-liter, 12-pack, case, etc.) from the Grocery IQ database.

iPhone Barcode Scan

The single best thing about this product is the ability to use the barcode scanner that is built into every iPhone and Android phone to add items to the list.  That’s right, in case you were not aware, the camera on your smartphone doubles as a barcode scanner (minus the red laser shooting out of the lens).  All you have to do is hold the camera still over the barcode for a couple of seconds and the phone picks up the barcode.  From there, you are presented with a match or prompted if the barcode is not in the database.  So far, I have only come across one item that did not show up in their database.

So, grab your phone and head to the kitchen.  Scan all the items that you need to buy at the store and type in any that you can’t scan.  It literally takes just a couple of minutes.

Organize Lists

Android List

Scanning and typing all of your grocery items into the application is just the beginning.  You can create lists for different grocery stores (in case you split up shopping by products), add item details and even organize your items by aisles.   You’ll never have to head back to the other end of the store again, since your list will be organized in the same way you shop.

My favorite part of the organization is favorites.  If you have a few items that you buy every single time you go to the store, you can simply add them to the favorites section and you’ll never have to add them again.

In the future, I would love to see individual stores work with this application to do the organizing and research pricing for you.  In a perfect world, I would simply scan in the barcodes of items I needed and the list would populate, in order with pricing and comparisons to other stores.  While they are at it, they can go ahead and have my groceries waiting for me when I arrive or deliver them, for a fee.

Share Your List

Do you share the grocery shopping with another household member?  Maybe you take turns going to the store?  Grocery IQ allows you to synchronize lists among users of the application or simply email a copy of the list to someone else.  Either way, the details are there and you can rest assured that your “significant other” won’t come home without the most important item on the list or (worse) the wrong item entirely.

Coupons On-the-Go

Android Coupons

Since Grocery IQ is powered by Coupons.com, they have made coupon clipping a part of the application.  Search the online list of coupons available from Coupons.com and “clip them” for use at the store.  iPhone users can even print the coupons they find directly from the application, to an HP printer.

For a small segment of Grocery IQ users, the true tech comes into play.  Safeway shoppers (which includes Randalls here in Houston, TX) can actually download coupons to their “Savings Card” from within the application and use them at checkout without ever printing them off.   The Safeway Coupon Link program is actually available from several other partners, including shortcuts.com, cellfire and P&GeSAVER.    Can you imagine saving money by simply surfing the web and saving coupons to the card that you already use at the store?  Amazing.

My only issue with the Grocery IQ program so far is the lack of “coupon linking.”  By this, I mean that the application should search my list and find digital coupons that match the item descriptions.  Take this a step further and add a function that allows me to scan items as I put them in the cart.  Grocery IQ would then search the web and save any corresponding coupons to my “savings card” while I shopped.  The technology is there and I would be willing to pay for that application.

Bonus for Android Users

Wanna see something really cool?  That same barcode scanning technology that we mentioned in the Lists section above can be used to install the Grocery IQ application itself.  Simply open up the app called Barcode Scanner and scan this image (barcode shown below) to point your phone at the application install page.  Yes, you can even scan images on a computer screen.