ZipList – Creating Smarter Shopping Lists

Grocery shopping is about to get high-tech, at least for people who are using ZipList. The online tool aims to simplify people’s lives by automatically importing the shopping lists they’ve created online to their mobile phones and organizing their lists by aisle or by store. Once a ZipList user gets to the store, the application will search the person’s list and bring up any relevant coupons that match the items.

Move your cooking into the digital age by tearing down the shopping list that’s stuck under a magnet on your refrigerator door and creating an account with ZipList. By adding the ZipList bookmarklet to your web browser, you can quickly “clip” recipes that you’d like to try and add the necessary ingredients to your shopping list. ZipList will search through the coupons available in your area and send you an email list of all that apply based on what you’re already planning to buy. When it comes time to head to the store, just click over to ZipList and decide whether you want to import your list to your mobile phone or share it with the family member who will be doing the grocery shopping this week.

People who use ZipList can actually get through the store in less time thanks to the application’s store management feature. Not only can you easily separate lists and sort your items by store, but you can also use ZipList to keep track of the order of the aisles in your favorite markets. ZipList will use this information to automatically rearrange your shopping lists based on the location of the items as you make your way through the store.

Practical Uses:

• Spend less time at the grocery store
• Find recipes that look good and add the ingredients to your shopping list
• Save money by using coupons to purchase the products you were already going to buy
• Send your shopping list to your husband’s mobile phone

Insider Tips:

• You can assign items to be purchased at more than 400,000 local and national stores around the country
• ZipList tells you which items you may already have on hand, such as water or salt, before populating your list with a recipe’s ingredients
• Users can create multiple lists
• ZipList users can share their lists with people who haven’t registered for accounts

What we liked:

• The aisle-organizing feature could be very helpful for people who shop in a hurry
• ZipList emails relevant coupons to its users
• Spouses and families can share shopping lists easily
• Shopping lists can be re-arranged or edited on the fly

What we didn’t like:

• Users have to set up the aisle organization for each store they frequent, as opposed to the web-app automatically pulling that information for people use

Alternatives:

• aisle411 – http://aisle411.com
• Grocery Server – http://www.groceryserver.com
• Kitchen Monki – http://www.kitchenmonki.com

Company Info:

• Launched: February 2010
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Sterling, Virginia
• Founded by: Steve Geyer and Geoff Allen
• Web site: http://get.ziplist.com

Costs:

• Free