All it takes is a couple of clicks on your phone – while you’re on the train, say, or sitting at your desk – and your groceries will arrive at your door on the same day. With its emphasis on speed and convenience, the new Amazon Fresh service, which is being rolled out in central and east London is likely to shake up the grocery market.
However, even if you are not a fan of the global retail giant, there are plenty of grocery-buying apps out there that also deliver the goods and save you money.
With apps rather than desktop shopping, you can more easily scroll special offers, and it’s quicker to zip through the mobile checkout while you’re cooking the tea or checking what’s in the cupboards than it is to fire up your computer.
Main supermarkets
Generally speaking, the apps from the major supermarkets, such as Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Waitrose and Sainsburys work in a similar way to the retailers’ websites. You can download the “pick your own offers” app from Waitrose, for example, and set your choices the same way as you can if you were shopping on your computer.
However, some do have extra features, which may make it more likely that you will spot a deal. For example, Lawrence Hene, director of marketing and grocery retail at Ocado, says: “Shoppers can find products by using voice search (on Android), barcode scanning or simply typing the product name. Shoppers can quickly add products to an existing order using one-click functionality.”
With Tesco, you can take things a step further if you download the If This Then That app and link it to your shopping basket. You can set preferences, for example, asking it to pop nappies into your basket every fortnight. “You set the rules,” says Nick Lansley, an innovation consultant who has worked for Tesco on its website and apps. “If you run 5K, you can tell the app to reward you by putting chocolate into your basket, say. Or if your favourite wine drops below a certain price, the app will add a bottle to your list. You can change your mind before paying for your goods, but it means your basket builds up without you having to fill it.”
Money-saving sites
The Mysupermarket app lists prices across major supermarkets, including: Sainsburys, Aldi, Waitrose, Tesco, Ocado, Asda, Iceland and Morrisons. Unlike the main website, the app also allows you to scan products by their bar codes to find out where they are cheapest. You can check the best prices for individual products at any given time, and find out where your basket would be cheapest overall before you checkout.
There’s a grocery section on the app from deal-sharing community HotUKDeals, which allows members (there are as many as 1.4m of them registered) to share information about bargains they have spotted. On its app, you can search for products, scroll the posts and sign up for keyword alerts for supermarket brands or branded products. Currently on the app, for example, members are sharing deals such as half-price strawberry trifles at Sainsburys and boxes of Alpen at Tesco at £1.39 (half price). There’s plenty of deals to trawl through, but to make the biggest savings, instead of making spontaneous purchases from the random deals, sign up for keyword alerts on pricier items such as meat, fish, alcoholic drinks and household cleaning products.
Cashback sites
TopCashback, Quidco and Shopitize all have apps allowing you to earn cashback when shopping at your local supermarket simply by taking a photo of your receipt.
Once you’ve signed up to TopCashback (there are free options) and downloaded its Snap & Save app, you buy an item, and upload a photo of your receipt via the app and the cashback (advertising commission paid to the site by the retailer) will be credited to your account in the usual way.
The Quidco app is similar, though there is an option to activate personalised offers. You download the ClickSnap app and, when you’ve gone to a store and bought a featured product, you upload the receipt. However, an easier way to claim the cashback is to pick a supermarket, share that choice with the app and then just buy featured products online. Either way, you earn cashback such as £1.50 if you buy a Brookside chocolate pomegranate pouch 198g at Tesco and £2 cashback if you buy Malibu white rum with pineapple 75cl at Asda or Waitrose.
Shopitize’s cashback app is currently offering £1.50 if you buy five sachets of Moma Porridge from Sainsburys and many offers allow you to buy at a wider selection of stores, such as an 80p cashback offer on a Birds Eye Spanish paella, available at Waitrose, Asda, Co-op, Tesco, Sainsburys and Morrisons.
Independents
If you want to buy groceries from independents and local producers there are apps that can help you do that. The newly launched the Food Assembly app allows you to buy directly from producers within a 28-mile radius and collect your groceries at a weekly meeting.
There are also geographically specific apps for seasonal, fresh foods. London-based customers can use the Farmdrop app, for instance, while the We Deliver Local app delivers affordable groceries from local butchers, bakers and grocers in your area.
Dietary requirements
Buying groceries on your phone can be tricky if you have dietary restrictions, as the apps (as do the websites) vary in how much information they list about each product. If you avoidgluten, dairy or nuts, for example(and particularly if you have a serious peanut allergy), you often have to go into shops in person to read the back of packets. However, the technology is improving, and new apps are appearing – FoodMaestro is one – that list dietary information and filter products such as wheat-free items, which makes shopping by smartphone easier.
In future, buying food via an app could get even easier, as technology that has already been invented is rolled out. In Sweden, a firm is talking about apps that can get the food to your fridge without you having to wait in, while in the UK Sainsbury’s is experimenting with technology that allows people to take “fridge selfies” to remotely check before they start shopping.
