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RedLaser – the secret weapon for smart shoppers!

 

For several weeks now, I have been sharing favorite recipes for cookies, bars, and cakes to help make your holiday celebrations a little sweeter. In lieu of a recipe today, I am excited to share with you a secret weapon designed to help you save money and make your life a little easier ~ all with ease using a free app on your smart phone, called RedLaser.  I tested out several of RedLaser’s features, including price comparison, loyalty cards storage, and scanning food items to get allergen and ingredient information and more. Here are some of the highlights:\
Welcome to Red Laser!

 

Save Money with Price Comparison and Deals! 

This feature is by far my favorite, and what I found most useful (and timely with holiday shopping).  I was shopping for a few Christmas gifts for Adam and wanted to save money by getting the best price possible.  I powered up RedLaser, entered “b symphony.”  The handy app let me know the lowest price was just down the street at my local Target store.  Easy!


To locate a product, simply enter the product into the search bar (left)
 or scan a barcode (right).  I entered B Symphony and easily found what I was looking for in the search results (left).

The search results for B. Symphony in B tells me the best price is at Target. Later that day, we drove to our local Target down the street and picked up this toy…happily knowing we found it at the lowest price!


Whether I was at home searching or scanning a product at the store, RedLaser helped me find the best price available for toys, toiletries, clothes, etc.  I was able to easily verify if an in-store price was better than online since RedLaser did the research for me with one quick scan.  The app also pulls up current deals associated with each store (powered by Retail Me Not), which saved me yet another internet search.

Consolidate Your Loyalty Cards!  

Mike was most excited about the ability to scan all of his loyalty cards into his smart phone.  With so many cards, his wallet is out of control.

How nice is it to be able to just whip out a smart phone (you always have it with you, right?) to access your card.  There are pre-loads, such as CVS, Walgreens, Panera, etc, where you can just scan your card. You can also scan local grocery cards, and I even scanned my fitness club card ~ all easily accessibly on a smart phone.  Your wallet will be a little lighter, and you will never be without your cards again!

Allergen Information:

As a person with a tree nut allergy and a mother to a child with a peanut allergy, I was most interested in this feature of RedLaser.  I had very high expectations for the ability to scan food items and get allergen information.  I did some test scans with various food items to see how this feature works.

First I scanned pretzels. As you can see, the details (left) show nutrition information as well as allergen information. I expanded the allergen information (right) and it gives a nice snapshot of allergens associated with these pretzels.

Next I scanned peanut butter to see how allergen information would appear for a peanut product.  It was consistent with what I would expect.  The allergy information is informative and helpful.  So far so good!

As I continued additional scans on a jar of peanuts and a bag of whole wheat pastry flour, I expected both to be flagged for allergens.  Unfortunately there was no allergen information for either item.

So while the allergen information is useful when present, the inconsistency makes me uneasy.  People without allergies or folks with newly discovered allergies always have lots of questions about what foods are safe.  I was hoping to be able to point them to RedLaser.  However without reliable results, I just can’t do that…yet.  I see great potential here and am interested in seeing where RedLaser goes with this.  Like I said, when it does work, it really is an amazing feature.

 
RedLaser is available for download on iPhone, Android and Windows smart phones and has been downloaded over 22 million times. Clearly the secret is out!


This post is brought to you by RedLaser. Get the free app at RedLaser.

Disclaimer:  As part of the DailyBuzz Moms program, I have been compensated for my time on this post for RedLaser, however the details and opinions are completely my own.