Mike's NBC-TV stories

Holiday Shopping Apps for 2014

‘Tis the shopping season, that’s for sure. And this year’s sales are everywhere. How do you make sure you have the best price? How do you keep track of everything? Fear not… I have some apps that will help you organize and manage your holiday shopping this year with a new efficiency.

If you’re a coupon collector, get the SnipSnap app. There’s no longer a need to carry around a stack of physical coupons. Snap photos of the print coupons with your smartphone and store them within the app. You can also browse over a million coupons collected by other users.. They’re all searchable, too. At the store, call up the coupon photo at check out. That’s sure than dealing with a stack of paper coupons.

If you know what you want to buy and are waiting for it to go on sale at the lowest price, ShopAdvisor is the app you need. For iPhone and Android. Want to find out if that deal really is a bargain? ShopAdvisor searches its database of millions of products in thousands of local and online retailers for best prices for your favorite gift . You can also put items on a “watch list,” alerting you when it on sale at a nearby location.

Here’s a couple of other cool apps: Santa’s Bag for the iPhone lets you enter a shopping list, keeping track of what gets what, what you spent, what you need to buy, from where and when.

I love RedLaser. It lets you know if that gift you want to buy can be bought cheaper somewhere else. Scan the product bar code with your Android, Apple or Windows phone and the RedLaser app will tell you if the item can be found at a better price at a nearby store or online.

Here’s my NBC-TV video of these apps:

Mike is a veteran journalist whose video "PC Mike" reports have been distributed weekly to all 215 NBC-TV stations since 1994, making him one of the most experienced tech reporters in the country. His tech stories and videos have appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, the Today Show, The New York Times, USA Today and in numerous national newspapers and magazines. In addition to the PC Mike tech blog, he also publishes the Roadtreking.com RV Travel Blog in which he travels North America in an RV reporting about interesting people and places.