originally posted on www.stopthinksocial.com on February 9th 2011

Every week at work I participate in an online Social Chat, where employees from various locations get together using an internal Twitter like application, to have a discussion about various topics.

This week we were discussing mobile phones and the topic of comparison shopping was raised.  Online comparison shopping with sites like Kelkoo, have been around for a long time. However things have recently moved to the next level, to the point where you can now download apps on your iPhone or Android phone that allow you to scan the bar-code of an item you are interested in and immediately get information on how much the same product would cost to buy online.

Imagine if you are in a bookshop and a particular book catches your attention.  You can quickly take out your phone, start one of the comparison apps, scan in the barcode, and within a few minutes you will be able to determine if you can get the book cheaper elsewhere.

Check out this Amazon Android App that allows you to scan in a bar-code to determine if there is a better deal on the Amazon UK site and you’ll see exactly how it works.

Of course cost is not always the only consideration on shoppers’ minds.  While researching this article I came across details of an interesting app for the iPhone call Barcoo, which operates very much in the same manner as the Amazon App mentioned above. However, rather than letting you know if there is a better price, you can instead get information on the producing company’s social responsibility rating and environmental credentials.

Some interesting points were raised on this topic during our online discussion.  One of our colleagues in the US pointed out that certain stores do not take kindly to customers scanning their products to find a better deal and have been known to ask customers to leave the store.  Whatever happened to “the customer is always right”?

If these shops are so afraid of customers finding lower prices, then they should lower their own prices.

One of our colleagues in the UK had a positive experience to share.  He uses this technology as a way to get a discount when shopping.  For example, he was recently buying a new TV in a high street store and deliberately scanned the bar-code in front of the sales assistant just as the sale was closing.  He was able to secure a £100 discount on the spot after showing the sales assistant a competitor who could give him a better deal on their price.

So what are your thoughts on this topic.  Have you used your mobile phone while shopping to see if you can get a better deal?  Did this get frowned upon by the staff of the shop?  If you haven’t done this yet, would this be something you’d be prepared to do?  Let us know via the comments.