As we near Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon is launching a new way to comparison shop on the go. Called Price Check, the free iPhone app allows users can scan the barcode of a product, take a picture of an item or say the product’s name to access product listings on Amazon.com’s marketplace. If the product is listed on Amazon, customers can then purchase the item with one click.
The beauty of the app is that you can use several ways to search for an item when you are in a store. Using Amazon’s barcode scanner, which was recently added to the company’s primary iPhone app, you can simply scan the barcode and the app will match an item and provide pricing from Amazon.com and other online merchants.
You can also use the app to snap a photo of the item and match the picture to books, DVDs, CDs and video games (Amazon says it will be adding more categories to this soon). You can also speak or type the product’s name into the app.
The app by default will display prices sorted from lowest to highest and will also show if the item is available for free shipping. Amazon says that Price Check includes prices on “millions of products” and also includes access to customer reviews; sharing via Twitter, Facebook, text message or e-mail link; and immediate purchasing using 1-Click ordering and Amazon Prime.
For online retailers like Amazon and eBay, comparison shopping apps that include barcode scanning is a way to draw in-store shopping to online marketplaces. As we wrote this morning, eBay launched a similar comparison shopping feature this morning that leverages barcode scanning technology.
The company also recently launched a new shopping app, called Window Shop, for the iPad.