Tesco Groceries

Thank you Tesco!  First you brought me online shopping so I don’t have to go to the store (I cannot stand food shopping it makes me so stressed and anxious!).  So now I can choose my groceries and they get delivered to my door (every two weeks on a Monday night!).  Brilliant.

Then you brought me an iPhone app so I can do my online grocery shopping on the move.  Again, brilliant.  I can add things to my shopping basket (and not just my shopping list) as I remember I need them.  Perfect.

But now, you’ve done it again.  I don’t even have to type anymore.  In fact, I don’t even have to think.  I just point my iPhone at the barcode of the jar/bottle/packet I’ve just finished and it adds it to my basket.  This is what I’ve been waiting for!

In case you haven’t heard, Tesco have added “Scan and add” to their iPhone app.  This basically means that you can use the app to scan the barcode of the product you want to add to your basket, it finds it for you and you click “add”. 

It’s very simple… press “scan & add”, then your camera engages with a Red Laser-esq scanner, hold it over the barcode so the stripes are vertical (as long as the barcode is within the white lines/arrows it doesn’t seem to matter how close/straight you are), and it automatically detects the code, searches the database, and…

…then you just click on add and that’s it.

All good right?!  Well… there are a few issues.

Firstly, the Scan and Add feature only searches for the exact product you have.  So, when I scanned the last of the Fruisli Bars from a box of six, it came up with “product not found”.  Well I guess it was obvious it would do that but it does mean that if you don’t keep the multi-pack packaging (and let’s face it, who does?) you will not be able to use Scan and Add for all your shopping.

The other thing it doesn’t do is suggest alternatives.  For example, I scanned a jar of peanut butter – it was a small tesco jar which I bought because when I got it they only had that size. 

The app found the jar of peanut butter but really I want a larger jar this time… it would be great if under the scanned item the app gave me some other suggestions “things similar to the scanned item”.  Alternatively it should give me the option of “see rest of shelf” like you do if you search for something on the website.  Unfortunately the only option on the scanned item page is to add it or go back to the scanner to do another one.

So fantastic – brilliant Tesco – thank you!  I love the fact that I now have less need for a shopping list on my fridge door coz I can just scan items as I’m finished with them (less likely to forget things).  But there is still room for improvement to make things even easier for me and other customers.

Seen any other apps I should be trying/reviewing?  Let me know!