Share Your Price Comparison Results

This blog continues to introduce you more features of www.compariola.com.  It assumes that you have found prices either by product name or by a Barcode as discussed in Find Best Price by Product Name or Find Best Price by Barcode.

You sure can continue to shop by clicking corresponding links to go to Amazon, eBay or local stores like BestBuy, Home Depot, Macy, Target, etc. Here, I would like to introduce you how to share/email your comparison results with you or your friends.

The following screen displays price comparison results.

Notice the pencil circled area on the left side. It is a group of social media sharing image buttons.

Click first image to share it on Facebook.

Click second image to share it on Twitter.

Click third image to share it on Google+.

Click the last image to email to you or your friend.

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Maintain Your Scan History

In the previous blog, I show you how easy to find best price by scanning a barcode using SmartBars mobile app. In this blog, I show you how to maintain your scan history with SmartBars.

If you haven’t installed SmartBars mobile app yet, you can search SmartBars at App Store for iPhones or click here, or search SmartBars at Google Play or click here.  You can also click here and follow the instructions.

Open you SmartBars app from you smart phone, you see a History button on top right.

Tap History button, you see the scan history as follows.

Tap an item in the above list, it starts to search prices. Say, you tap the second item as follows.

In a few seconds, you see the results as follows.

From the above screen, you can tap Amazon, Best, eBay, Shopping.com and local stores to find the details regarding the offers. You can search store coupons. You can also tap a similar product to find out offers for it.

From the scan list screen (Screen 2), there is an Edit button.  Tap it, you can start to maintain your scan history.

From the above screen, you can select items you want to delete or email, then, tap Delete button to delete them or tap Email button to email them to you or your friends.

Related articles

• Find Best Price By Barcode (effectiveshopper.wordpress.com)

Find Best Price By Barcode

In the last blog, I show you how to find best price by directly typing a name in www.compariola.com search box. However, using barcode (EAN, UPC and ISBN) is more accurate and efficient. You can type in a barcode in the search box to find prices for a product. But there is a better way if you have a smart phone.

Typing a barcode in search box is anti-intuitive and error-prone. It is better to have your smart devices read the barcode and look up prices for you automatically. In this blog, I want to show you how SmartBars mobile app can help you read barcode and compare prices. If you haven’t installed SmartBars mobile app yet, you can search SmartBars at App Store for iPhones or click here, or search SmartBars at Google Play or click here.  You can also click here and follow the instructions.

Once you have SmartBars installed, tap SmartBars app on your smart phone screen, you see the following screen.

Tap Scan button and aim your smart phone’s camera to a barcode. You see the following screen.

Tap LookUp button. You see the following screen.

From the above screen, you can tap Amazon, Best, eBay, Shopping.com and local stores to find the details regarding the offers. You can search store coupons. You can also tap a similar product to find out offers for it.

Find Best Price by Product Name

In this blog, I show you how to find prices by name directly from www.compariola.com.

Open www.compariola.com in your browser. Type a name, say, “olay” in the text box. Click Find button. You see the following screen.

Click an item in the results, say, the second item, you see the following screen.

It finds offer prices from Amazon, eBay, shopping.com and 34 other offers from local stores based on your zip code.

You can also refine your search by selecting a Category as shown below.

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• How to Refine Your eBay Bidding Strategy to Perfection (coupons.answers.com)

Why Mobile App Developers Do Not Write Windows Phone Apps

The premise of Windows Phone’s future is dull due to lack of applications. Some attribute it to lack of interest from developers. But why? Because developers hate Microsoft that much? Or because Windows Phone is negligible since it is late in the game? Before I give the answer, let me give the conclusion first: Windows Phone’s future will not be brighter than today.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a lifelong Windows developer. Of course, I don’t hate Microsoft. I have developed on Windows NT, 2000, XP and 7 for Desktop, Web and database applications. Recent years, I started to develop mobile apps with IOS first, then, Android using Windows 7.

I love what I am doing now and my Web site and mobile app for IOS and Android is up running happily. So, I thought it is time to move my mobile app to Windows Phone platform. But I can’t. And I can’t even learn Windows Phone development. The reason is that you can only write new Windows Phone applications on Windows 8.

So, basically, Microsoft doesn’t want millions of mobile developers to write Windows Phone apps simply because they use Windows 7! Giving the slim share of Windows 8, no wonder there are not many Windows Phone apps.

To me, the decision is very simple: I have to hold off Windows Phone development for a while until I have time and money. I don’t want to make my life more difficult.

So, it is not that developers don’t want to write Windows Phone apps, but that Microsoft restrains developers to write Windows Phone apps. This mistake may cost Windows Phone and Nokia!

Related articles

• Nokia Not Happy with Microsoft’s Slow Windows Phone 8 Progress (thelazygeeks.com)
• Nokia Exec Pleads For Microsoft To Get Better Windows Phone Apps (macgasm.net)
• Nokia says Windows Phone major app ports matter of “when,” not “if” (pocketnow.com)

Interesting Experience at Home Depot

Our 3-year old kitchen table top got sticky and scarred. We are considering to replace it with granite to match our kitchen tops. So, we went to Home Depot. We didn’t find what we were looking for. But the Home Depot lady was helpful.

The conversation turned into the granite maintenance. She showed me a tin of countertop polish but somehow couldn’t find its price. So, I used SmartBars installed in my iPhone to scan the barcode on it. Boom! In a second, the Home Depot price was shown in front of us. And even more, it also found prices at Amazon, Shopping.com and Google. (You can try this link http://www.compariola.com/?barcode=0790027009093 to see what you get).

I felt obligated to buy something after all her help. We ended up with a countertop care kit to take home. Of course, I didn’t forget to scan the barcode on the kit package with my SmartBars. To my surprise, the Home Depot was cheaper than Amazon!(You can try this link http://www.compariola.com/?barcode=0790027000052 to see what you get).

Two nice surprises for today’s Home Depot trip.

1. SmartBars can find a price even quicker than a store clerk.

2. Brick-Mortar stores are not always more expensive.

Quick tip: Don’t forget to scan before you buy.

How Much Is It At Amazon, eBay, Google And Stores Near You?

Yesterday, I scanned a few product UPCs at a local SAM’s Club store using SmartBars installed in my iPhone 4S. For each scan, it took a few seconds to return results. Here are what I found.

Brother TN450 High Yield Toner Cartridge – Retail Packaging – Black

Online: Amazon $37, BestBuy $68.99, eBay $9.99, Shopping.com $20.95, Google $44.18.

Local: (Zip Code: 48188, Radius: 15 Miles)
3 Office Depot stores at $68.49
4 Staples stores at 68.49
10 Best Buy stores at 68.49

It also lists all local store’s addresses and phone numbers. Click the first link in Related articles to see the complete page results.

Lincoln (DVD)

Online: Amazon $22.99, BestBuy $19.99, eBay $0.99, Half.com $11.25, Shopping.com $19.96, Google $16.38.

Local: (Zip Code: 48188, Radius: 15 Miles)
Not found any stores.

Click the second link in Related articles to see the complete page results.

Related articles

• Brother TN450 High Yield Toner Cartridge – Retail Packaging – Black (compariola.com)
• Lincoln (compariola.com)
• The Huge Mistake Amazon, Google, and eBay Are All Making (dailyfinance.com)

Not All Mobile Shopping Apps Built Equal

There is no lack of mobile shopping apps these days. Amazon’s Price Check, eBay’s RedLaser, Google Shopper, and mobile apps from retailers like Target, Walmart, etc., to name a few.

But there is one problem. They don’t talk to each other! Therefore, you may end up with many mobile apps installed if you want to shop around using your smart phone and switch between apps to do price comparison.

ShopSavvy tries to address the problem. But it hurts by Amazon’s policy of no mobile app access to its Web Services. Actually, ShopSavvy is shunned from Amazon’s Web APIs.

SmartBars solves this problem by conjunction of compariola.com web site. It puts side by side offers from Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Google, Macy’s, Shopping.com, Target, Walgreen, Walmart and thousands of more merchants. It is an ultimate mobile shopping and price comparison app you ever need!

SmartBars is merchant-neutral and product-centric.

SmartBars has most comprehensive quality information.

If you use or have used the above merchant-centric mobile shopping apps, you should try SmartBars. You will love its simplicity, comprehension and speed.

Related articles

• 20 Mobile Shopping Apps For Discounts and Better Deals (hongkiat.com)
• Top 5 coolest Money saving Mobile Phone Apps (mirolta.com)

Effective Shopping Means Saving Money and Time

No matter whether you are a savvy shopper or not, you want to save money and time. Actually, for an unsavvy shopper like me, shopping effectively makes even more sense.

I am lazy and always try to avoid shopping whenever possible. So, my dream is that one day, I can use my smart phone to scan a product code, then, boom!, the best deals online or in local stores are presented in front of me!

With SmartBars mobile app, this dream comes true. SmartBars is a barcode reader and does price comparison and coupon search. For any product you scanned, it displays offers from Amazon, eBay, Google, Shopping.com, Best Buy, Sears, Macy’s, Target and Walmart and thousands of more merchants side by side.

SmartBars is simple, quick, and definitely a money and time saver!

Related articles

• 5 shopping tips to get best price (mommyfactor.net)
• How Did Technology Change The Way We Shop (noorurocks.wordpress.com)