My day job requires trips to the grocery store at least three times a week, and sometimes up to five times a week. Needless to say, I'm always looking for tools to help make shopping quick and efficient, with a minimum of forgotten ingredients — nothing is worse than having to return to the store for one stupid thing! — and I think I've found it all in the Grocery iQ app.
With Grocery iQ, you input shopping list items — either by manually typing them in or using your phone's camera to scan the bar codes — and organize your lists by store. Items can be attached to a certain store or put on all lists, so that you only see curry paste on your "Asian Market" list, but brown sugar will show up whether you are shopping at Whole Foods or the corner store.
As you shop, you can check items off the list to move them into your Shopping Cart, and when you're done, you "check out," which moves all the items you bought into your history. This means you only need to enter an item once into Grocery iQ; once it is in your history, adding it to a shopping list again only requires a finger tap. Frequently purchased items can be marked as Favorites, so it is easier to find them and add them to a shopping list.
One of the best features of Grocery iQ is the ability to easily organize the list categories to match the aisles of a given store. When setting up a store list, you can move aisles around, delete unnecessary aisles, and add or modify aisle names. It's such a time-saver!
Another important feature for me is the ability to share lists with others. You can either email a nicely formatted list to a non-Grocery iQ user, or go the much cooler route of inviting someone to share a list with you, which means you can both modify it in real time.
There is also coupon integration, but because I do nearly all of my personal shopping at Trader Joe's, the bulk goods store, and the farmers market, I have never used this feature.
My only minor complaint about the app is that often the brand name of the item is so long, the actual thing is difficult to discern at a glance. For that reason, I find manually entering items is often better than using the bar code scanner; I just write "heavy cream," and I can figure out for myself what brand I want when I get to the store.
Grocery iQ is available for the iPhone, iPad and Android.
• Check out the website: Grocery iQ
• Download the app: Grocery iQ at the iTunes store
Do you use Grocery iQ? Are there any apps or programs you use to make shopping lists or do you prefer pen and paper?
Related: Download This: Free Meal Planning Grocery List
(Images: Grocery iQ)
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I've been using this app for a long time now -- it's great! I just wish I could get my wife to use it. Theoretically, she could add items on her phone and they would show up on mine when I get to the store.
This app has made life much easier! My husband and I share a list, making it a lot more efficient to pop by the store and get everything we need. I agree about the brand names items in the app's own database, I prefer to just type in the item and choose what I want.
I have also been using this app for a while and it's fantastic! Sometimes it's a little bizarre what has been built in to the app's initial memory (green bell peppers? yes. red bell peppers? no) but it can be worked around pretty easily. I also installed it on my husband's phone so he can add things he needs and then whoever goes to the store knows what needs picking up! Big time saver.
I've been using this for awhile now as well and love it. I have added other non-grocery stores to my list (Target, gas station, post office, etc) to keep all of my errands in one place.
I've also added "Household Chores" as a store and have put my household to-do's on the list and just check them off as I get them done...Obviously I'm a bit of a "to do list lover", but it does help keep me organized.
I really like this app - much easier than fiddling with a list and a pen in cramped produce markets. I don't really like how it suggests brand names instead of just a product name. I do love how I can share it with my boyfriend if I need him to pick up some groceries.
This seems awesome. Thanks for sharing!
AND! They just introduced the web app, so you can add stuff online, and it auto-syncs to the mobile app.
AND! You can plug in prices, so you can control the damage and stay in budget.
Ive tried so many grocery list apps including this one and finally just came to the realization I hate walking around the store constantly turning on the screen of my phone to mess with it and swipe off items on my list. I always feel like people think I'm stumbling through the grocery texting too.
Alas, a piece of paper is all I can do.
Wow, my husband (who is a tech geek) had been talking about creating something like this for years, especially with a sight-impaired wife, he is aware of how cumbersome it can be to grocery shop. I'm DLing the app on my iPhone as I type this and keeping my fingers crossed that it's VoiceOver compatible so that I can navigate it with the screen reader. I plan to review the product on my blog. Thanks, all, for the tips. :)
I love this app! At first it was really irritating that I had to choose a brand (especially here in canada where we don't have a lot of the brands listed), but then I found I could just type it in and hit done which is so much better. I'm not loyal to certain brands or flavours (ever try to enter juice?), so I like to see what's on sale at the store before choosing.
I've also added all the stores I frequent to it, so it's as great for remembering to buy bread as it is for remembering to buy paint or picture frames or whatever!
I tried this app for awhile, but wasn't crazy about it. Too many bells & whistles. I ended up going back to the much simpler app I'd been using before (OI Shopping List for Android) and I love it. It even has a fun option that my daughter loves that lets you shake the phone to clear the list :)
I use Grocery IQ and like it very much, but it lacks two key features the old Handyshopper had: The ability to add share an item among specific stores, and the ability to search in one's own favorites list.
There are some things I can buy at any of a few different stores; I want them to appear on the lists for those stores and, if I buy one of them, to be checked off automatically for each store.
My own "favorites" list has gotten quite long, and sometimes I'm not sure if an item has already been added. If I search for it in the database it doesn't tell me if I already have it on my list, so sometimes I end up with the same item appearing two or more times.
I've tried so many of these apps and none of them give me what I really want. I want an app that I can make shopping lists, scan the items I am buying, but that will also total up my purchases before I get to the counter. Keep me from unpleasant surprises and maybe help me shop smarter. I know the difficulty in this is that prices of items vary from store to store but i think the tech geniuses of today could make it happen.