From BZ/dpa
The promise sounds fabulous: save money by using an app when shopping. It’s just not that easy, according to a study by Stiftung Warentest.
If you grab a bargain when shopping for groceries, you can save valuable euros every month. There are apps designed to help with this. They know the brochures of the dealers and scan them for offers.
But do the apps really deliver what they promise? The magazine “test” (issue 5/2023) examined eight free price comparison offers. The result: sobering.
So none of the applications went beyond a “satisfactory”. Six of the apps received this rating, two others even only met the requirements “sufficient”.
The reason: None of the apps really found all the bargains. According to the testers, the price comparison in the store resulted in more savings – up to 20 percent. With the app Marktguru, which brought the greatest savings, it was only twelve percent.
Anyone who wants to save should be mobile
According to the testers, the search for bargains with the apps was sometimes cumbersome. In addition, an average of three supermarkets would have to be visited in order to really get hold of all the bargain prices. At Marktguru there were even four. The effort is therefore often only worthwhile for those who would pass by several markets anyway.
Although “test” could not proclaim a test winner, the apps Kaufda, Marktguru and Youpickit were the most convincing overall.
Kaufda in particular with its user-friendliness, Youpickit especially with the reliability of the price information, and Marktguru was ahead of the curve when it came to savings. The evaluation also included data protection criteria and possible shortcomings in the general terms and conditions.
For the study, the testers put together a sample shopping basket for singles – with eleven products – and one for families – with 16 products. They then determined the prices for this basket of goods in Dortmund and Munich – in five local shops each.
What users of such apps should be aware of: They pay for it with their data. According to “test”, all apps rely on tracking, and most also record and process shopping behavior.