One of the problems with most deal apps is that people never think to open them while they’re in stores. ShopSavvy users are different, however, as they generally use their app whenever they are comparison shopping. Through our new partnership with Spotzot, ShopSavvy can now serve these users highly targeted deals, delivered while they shop.

Here’s today’s press release:

ShopSavvy Partners with Spotzot to Give More Targeted, Timely Deals to Mobile Consumers

Smartphone users are delivered the deals, coupons and sales they want – when and where they want them.

ShopSavvy, the leading mobile shopping assistant, has joined forces with Spotzot, the primary source for mobile deals, to help merchants and brands connect with consumers by providing highly targeted deals.

By partnering with Spotzot, ShopSavvy will deliver the deals, coupons and sales information most relevant to its users, based on their location and demonstrated shopping interest. ShopSavvy users will receive the most relevant deals within 500 feet of their location.

“When consumers go shopping, most don’t think to open deal apps, which can be overwhelming and painful to navigate,” said Matt Weathers, vice president of product for ShopSavvy. “Also, people don’t just wake up in the morning and say ‘Let’s find some deals.’ They shop for items they actually need and want. Along the way, they seek the best prices and deals. Users already use the ShopSavvy app to get price and review information. Now, with Spotzot’s data, we can serve them deals that relate to exactly where they are standing and what they want at that moment.”

ShopSavvy’s partnership with Spotzot provides users with the most comprehensive catalog of in-store offers and coupons available at locations across the United States. Shoppers can spot deals before or while visiting more than 400,000 retail locations, including 1,000 major malls and outlets.

“ShopSavvy helps retail merchants and brands reach consumers while they shop in stores,” said Jim Schreitmueller, Spotzot co-founder and vice president of sales and marketing. “When consumers scan products on ShopSavvy, Spotzot’s deal search engine reveals discount offers and coupons valid in the store where the consumer is shopping, in nearby stores and available from retailers’ online stores, ensuring consumers get what they want at the best available price.”

Spotzot was selected from more than a dozen vendors because it offered ShopSavvy the most structured, accurate and comprehensive deal inventory available.

Spotzot is currently delivering deals to ShopSavvy’s Android smartphone users, with the service expected to be deployed on iPhone next month.

About Spotzot

Spotzot is a mobile deal search platform that helps merchants and brands reach millions of consumers and drive them into retail stores and restaurants. Based in San Jose, California, Spotzot is the #1 source of location-based, in-store promotions and coupons featuring richly tagged offers from the top 750 retail chain operators valid at more than 400,000 locations across the U.S. Spotzot’s unique deal content attracts consumers with high intent and enables merchants and brands to display timely and contextually relevant ads and offers to shoppers by location. The company distributes its content through leading mobile shopping app publishing partners that include eBay/Milo (in-store shopping), ShopSavvy (comparative local/online shopping), Shopkick (retail shopping rewards), CardStar (virtual merchant loyalty cards), Geodelic (local deals / discovery) and others. For more information about Spotzot, visit www.spotzot.com.

About ShopSavvy

ShopSavvy is the leading mobile shopping assistant, with more than 20 million downloads and 11 million current unique users. ShopSavvy empowers smartphone users to quickly and seamlessly locate, research and buy products at the point of sale. When users scan a barcode or input a product name, they discover where the item is sold locally and online, where it’s in stock and at what price. ShopSavvy aggregates product data, deals, ratings and reviews from retailers, partners and its own users to provide the most comprehensive source of information and advice for mobile shoppers anywhere. For advertisers, ShopSavvy delivers “hyper-relevant” deals, promotions, warranty offers, and other UPC/GPS-targeted content to consumers. For more information, visit http://shopsavvy.mobi.

It is that time of the month again to share our progress on downloads and users across all platforms and versions. The trend lines continue to improve and I am pleased to report that we have crested the 10 million user mark.

- 19,800,000 Downloads/Installs (up from 17.9M in April)
- 10,500,000 Current Unique Users (up from 9.3M in April)

In the coming months we will begin to release data related to iPad (and other tablets) users who have ShopSavvy on their devices. We estimate the number at approximately 1,000,000 iPad owners who have ShopSavvy on both their iPhone and iPad. We are just beginning the process of developing an iPad version of ShopSavvy  and the great news is that it will be part of the same project as the iPhone version. No need to download a second app – ShopSavvy will offer two completely independent experiences based on your platform. On the iPhone we focus on scanning as an input and on the iPad we focus on shopping from your couch. Stay tuned.

Until last month almost twice as many Android users downloaded ShopSavvy than iPhone users. Two weeks ago we hit a peak of 50,000 downloads in a single day – approximately 25,000 downloads on iOS and 25,000 downloads on Android. The trend is continuing. Nielsen is reporting that Android’s lead over iOS has stopped growing – perhaps this is why we have achieved parity.

Our friends at AppFigures decided to include downloads from Android market alongside Apple’s market so for the first time we have a fairly universal view of our daily downloads. According to them we had more than 51,102 downloads yesterday – we assume this is an all time record for ShopSavvy. Of course the 50,102 number does NOT include downloads we get form alternative markets – perhaps 20% of our Android users come from these secondary app markets.

According to HTC, their latest update will fix almost all of the Thunderbolt’s various problems except LTE. We are not sure if this will prevent ShopSavvy from crashing on the device, but we are hopeful. Please take a minute to update your phone and see if ShopSavvy is working (if it is let us know).

You can download the HTC Thunderbolt update from Verizon:
http://support.vzw.com/system_update/thunderbolt.html

Here is the PDF explaining why you need to update:
http://support.vzw.com/pdf/system_update/thunderbolt.pdf

Here is the PDF explaining HOW to update your Thunderbolt:
http://support.vzw.com/pdf/system_update/thunderbolt_instructions.pdf

DOWNLOAD SHOPSAVVY HERE:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.biggu.shopsavvy

Engadget has more on the update here: http://engt.co/jtJzXo

One month ago we publicly released our numbers for the first time. One month has passed and ShopSavvy has continued its leadership as the leading mobile shopping assistant.

- 17,900,000 Downloads/Installs (up from 16M in March)
- 9,300,000 Current Unique Users (up from 8M in March)

One of the most important numbers we look at internally is our product pageviews (we don’t release this publicly). Each time a product is scanned the user is presented a product page where we can insert an AdOn (i.e. how we make money). Our users are generating millions of these each month. We noticed something very strange (and exciting) when we began comparing our most recent quarter (Q1 2011) to Q4 2010 (last year’s holiday shopping season). Our product pageview growth was up over 100% between those two quarters. Normally Q1 is down from Q4, but not this year. It was up, up a lot.

Another interesting change is our mix of scans. It is changing. With more and more grocery data (lots of it generated by consumers) we have seen a big increase in engagement with groceries and health & beauty products. Interesting groceries has become our largest category. Here is a break down of scans and their share:

Our friends at Engadget just reported that the HTC Thunderbolt is going to get a radio firmware update that includes ‘stability updates for data centric applications’ like ShopSavvy. There is a garbage collection issue in the Thunderbolt that causes apps like ShopSavvy and Facebook to crash on the popular Android phone. We are hopeful this will resolve the issues.

This morning I woke up to find that someone had commissioned a comparison between ShopSavvy and ScanLife. The post was titled “UPC Scanner App Comparison: ShopSavvy vs. ScanLife” and was found on the From One Mommy to Another. From what we can tell the two important guidlines of the test were:

- Comparison to take place on the HTC Thunderbolt
- Shopping to take place in Nordstroms

When I read these two guidelines I knew we were in trouble. First, HTC’s Thunderbolt has a big problem with garbage collection causing apps that use large pictures (like ShopSavvy and Facebook) to crash. While HTC is working on a fix, in the meantime Thunderbolt owners are really struggling to use ShopSavvy. Apps like Scanlife that don’t use large pictures or heavy graphics don’t crash as often. Second, Nordstroms provides us a feed of their pricing and inventory data, BUT their products are often unique to their stores. Many of their items can ONLY be found in Nordstroms making a PRICE COMPARISON app basically useless since other retailers don’t sell the other products. Based on these two factors I assumed we were set up to fail.

But when I scrolled down to the bottom of the page (and let me tell you, it was a long article) I was shocked to learn that the author actually picked ShopSavvy – HANDS DOWN! Here was her quote: “Overall, ShopSavvy wins this comparison hands down.  It is as easy to use as ScanLife, but the organization and added features take it beyond being just a basic scanner.”

I was floored! I can’t wait until she gets the HTC fix and goes to a store with products sold by multiple retailers.

One of the hottest new phones from HTC, the Thunderbolt won’t run a LOT of apps like ShopSavvy. We wrote about the issues extensively last week here. We reported our findings to Google and they have confirmed it is an HTC issue. We have not heard back from HTC, but it is clear LOTS of developers and users have let them know about the problem. The Droid had a similar issue when it was launched and it took Motorola about three weeks to issue a fix – we are hopeful HTC will be able to resolve the issue shortly. In the meantime, ShopSavvy won’t work. We are updating the app to send a message to Thunderbolt users explaining the issue and letting them know we will alert them when HTC fixes it. If you are Thunderbolt users PLEASE stop giving us 1 star ratings in the various app stores – we know it doesn’t work and there isn’t a way for us to prevent you from downloading the app.

Apple and Google just updated their ranking systems in their respective app stores and based on what we are seeing they both decided to punish apps that ‘game’ the system. Now the stores seem to check to see how often your app is downloaded AND how often it is used by those who download the app. So if you are paying folks to download your app you will get punished HARD. As a result ShopSavvy’s rank in every market has improved and our daily downloads have almost doubled. Here is a run down:

- #6 in Apple App Store (Utilities)
- #5 in Android Market (Shopping)
- #3 in Amazon’s Android Market (Shopping)
- #1 in Windows Phone 7 (Tools)

UPDATE: GigaOm is reporting that Apple is now rejecting apps that use Pay-per-install campaigns.