Bargain hunter

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This article was published 09/11/2015 (3088 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg company has come up with a new way for consumers to use their mobile devices to save money.

It’s called Pricerazzi.

Most of the big retailers have a lowest-price guarantee, and with that in mind, Pricerazzi has built an automated algorithm to do the searching for the consumer to find another store with a lower price.

The savings have run the gamut from $200 off a Nordstrom pantsuit, to $7 back for earbuds from Best Buy.

Consumers across the country now have a shopping assistant to help them find the best price.

“We think this can change the way people shop,” said Pricerazzi co-founder and president Declan McDonald. “They can buy what they want when they want it.”

McDonald founded Pricerazzi about a year ago.

Started at his dining room table, he launched a website inviting people to email their receipts, and he would scour the competition (sometimes popping out to the store himself) to see if there was a lower price at another store.

The system has now been fully automated, and last month the Pricerazzi mobile app was launched — for Apple and Android in Canada and the U.S. — and already there are almost twice as many users.

“It’s been pretty awesome,” said McDonald, who used to own a small chain of cellphone stores. “It’s a very cool thing to talk to someone while they download the app.”

All the user has to do is sign up for the service, take a photo of the receipt with their phone and send it in.

When Pricerazzi’s system locates a lower price, the user is notified, and if they want to go and collect the refund they pay Pricerazzi 15 per cent of the money back.

McDonald has found 100 per cent of the top 75 retailers have such a guarantee.

Pricerazzi’s only obvious exclusion so far is grocery stores and produce.

The different restrictions are built into the system — for instance, Toys “R” Us has a 14-day limit. Many others have 30 days — and if the store doesn’t have such a policy, Pricerazzi will tell the consumers.

Peter Alexander, who is a manager at a Boston Pizza restaurant in Winnipeg, got $170 back from an Acer laptop computer he bought at London Drugs. “I brought in the evidence, and they were very good about it at London Drugs,” Alexander said. “They told me, ‘Good for you. That’s why we have the policy.’ “

The Pricerazzi system searches online for the product’s model number and sends the consumer a screen shot of the flyer or the advertised price. Pricerazzi will refund its 15 per cent fee if for some reason the retailer will not provide the discount, but McDonald said that hasn’t happened yet.

He hasn’t had much communication with the retailers but expects to as the user base grows.

“The stores do give good service,” he said. “When we give the customer everything the store needs, they get their money back, no questions asked. The retailers want to make their customer happy and they want to keep them as their customer.”

With close to 10 employees, the Winnipeg company is now scaled up to do as much volume as they can get.

Jeff Ryzner, the CEO of the Eureka Project, which has been working with Pricerazzi as it builds the business, is an enthusiastic supporter.

Ryzner says Pricerazzi doesn’t need the most downloads to be successful, just active users who are getting money back on a regular basis.

“It would be so difficult for someone to get $200 back on a TV and not tell their friends,” Ryzner said. “Would I pay someone 15 per cent to continuously get me money back? Absolutely.”

As the word spreads, dedicated bargain hunters will find they don’t have to worry if they’re missing out on a better deal.

“Once we start getting money back to consumers, they will make sure they shop at stores with price-matching policies because these prices change weekly, almost daily,” said McDonald.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca