Coupons on your smart phone: Consumer Web Site of the Week
Coupons on a smart phone? Consuming Interests has got you covered.
Last week, Andrea Walker blogged about how some local grocery stores have adopted e-coupons, making coupons more convenient by eliminating the "clip'n'save" steps in the process. Instead, you can go on Safeway's or Giant's or SuperFresh's Web sites, select the coupons for the products you want, and load them on your store loyalty card.
Loyal reader Evan, who tested the e-coupons at SuperFresh, said:
Wonderful idea, wonderful timing what with print advertising and the green movement and all. Now if these folks could just figure out a way to have coupons that could be used on a smart phone ...
Funny he should mention this ...
... because several consumer sites have reviewed CardStar, a free iPhone/iPod Touch app that lets users load the loyalty card information onto your phone itself. The program then displays a bar code that the checkout person can scan. (That's a screen shot of the app -- sans the customer number -- on the right.)
So, to recap: follow all the steps as listed above (load coupons onto store loyalty card, etc) but then instead of hauling a stack of plastic on your next shopping trip, simply open the CardStar app and scan the bar code image on your phone. You can even manually enter a number for a merchant if you patronize one that's not among those on the company list.
Lack an iPhone but still want to cut down on keyring clutter? They are working on versions for other smart phones, but you could always use photo-editing tools to scan pictures of your cards and create a "master card" with all the bar codes from each card. Or, Lifehacker linked to KeyRingThing, which will create a laminated version of a card with up to six bar codes for $3.97.
Categories: Cellular/Landline/Voice over Internet, Cheap/Frugal, Consumer Web Site of the Week
