Eyeona: A New Way To Save Money

Like a shopping mall that destroys local mom and pop shops, internet shopping has wreaked havoc with brick and mortar retailers. I can admittedly speak up as part of the mass exodus to almost exclusive online shopping. The majority of non-grocery items I buy are, by a wide margin, from Amazon. I order groceries from FreshDirect often enough to have a pass for shipping. Even with free shipping, easy returns, and the ability to always find the best deal, I go to brick and mortar stores. (Let’s call brick and mortar stores BAMS for shorthand from now just to save time.) But more often than not, I scope out items in stores that I can find online for a lot less.

Retailers are looking to compete with the deals and customer service that online behemoths such as Amazon and Zappos are known for. Some local grocery stores, such as Waldbaum’s, now offer online ordering, delivered as soon as four hours later. That’s a huge win over FreshDirect’s next-day delivery if you’re in a rush; however, that quick turn-around doesn’t help for many kinds of businesses, such as clothing stores or places that sell baby gear, where the need isn’t always immediate. Instead, BAMS need to increase consumer confidence in their prices while consumers are physically in their stores.

Eyeona, formerly Savvy.com, supports over 140 retailers to offer exactly that consumer confidence (funny enough, Amazon and Zappos are supported retailers with them as well). Through Eyeona, users can take a picture of their receipts with the app, available for Android and iPhone/iPad, and older purchases can be entered through Eyeona’s website. Prices are monitored for up to 30 days, depending on the retailer, and Eyeona sends notifications to users when the price has dropped, initiating the process for a price-match refund. In-store purchases require in-store refunds while online purchases are refunded to each store’s policy. Both the app and website are free, with funding provided by the member retailers.

Signing up is quick, and you can link your Yahoo! and Gmail accounts to automatically track your online purchases. With retailers ranging from Ace Hardware to Neiman Marcus, you can get money back for a wide variety of products. I went through my recent purchases to try out the system, and I uploaded one order manually on the site by looking up the URL and filling in the purchase date and price I’d paid. The second order I submitted by email at 8:30 AM, and seven hours later, it seems to be lost in the ether.

Along the right side of the browser, the latest price drops on the site are shown, with an option to buy or watch. The Deal Maker section allows you to scan in a bar code or select an item on the website to list the price at which you would buy it. Eyeona sends a notification when your price is matched. You can also create alerts with keywords, but you can’t do an actual search of retailers’ items through the site. Alternatively, a user can create a watch list of items and receive notifications any time there is a sale on said items.

Eyeona aims to increase consumer faith in retailers. With constant purchases from Oriental Trading, Ace Hardware, and a multitude of shoe and clothing stores, I’ll rely on Eyeona to wean me off of my near-exclusively online shopping habit.

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