Amazon Price Check App for Android

The online retailer Amazon has always been at the forefront of bringing technology into retail in amazing ways, and they’ve done it again with Price Check, their latest comparison shopping app on Android. The app is familiar to iPhone users, having released its iOS version a year before it finally ported to Android in November 2011.

The app, in Amazon’s own words, helps you find out “if the deals you see in retail stores are really deals?” It does this by allowing you to compare the price of items you see at retail stores with Amazon prices, as well as read product descriptions, ratings and reviews. During the holiday shopping season of 2011, Amazon even offered a discount if customers used the app to check the price of items while inside a retail store.  With such promotions, it is no wonder that the app stirred up controversy with brick-and-mortar retailers alleging unfair competition.

Such apps are here to stay though. For a major purchase these days, almost everybody uses online retailers, comparison shopping sites and review sites to research alternatives, reviews and prices. With its Price Check app, Amazon takes this to the logical next step, so that even for smaller purchases and products, customers can easily research their purchases right from the store.

Price Check App allows you to search for items using barcode scan, image search, voice search, or text search. If you are at a store, simply scan in the barcode using your Android phone and Amazon will return the exact product matched. You can also take a picture of the product using your phone. Amazon uses image matching algorithms to match your product to the products in their database. You can speak the name of the product into the app and do voice search. In addition to these pretty futuristic options, there is the old-fashioned text search too, where you type in the search query and get matching products. The app will display the product descriptions, customer reviews and ratings from Amazon.com and the Amazon prices. You can log in using your Amazon.com account and securely purchase using the App.

Other features of the Price Check App are adding to the Wishlist, sharing using Facebook, Twitter, e-mail or text message. Price Sharing is another feature introduced in the latest version of the app, which further steals the thunder from brick and mortar stores. Using this feature of the app, while shopping at a retail store, you can share their prices with Amazon.