For online shoppers, there’s no worse feeling than shelling out a chunk of cash for a new dress or pair of shoes that you deem worthy of an investment, just to find that same item on sale mere days later. The money you could have saved dances away in front of your eyes, but you shake it off: How could you have known?
Thanks to PoachIt, the new “shopping sidekick” startup based out of SoHo in New York City, you’ll never have to wave goodbye to that cash you could have saved again.
Whether you’re looking for your favorite store’s next blowout sale, or want to keep an eye on a new statement bag to see if the price drops, PoachIt will do the dirty work for you, meaning they’ll track the price of your desired item for that glorious day when it finally drops, or scour the Web for coupon codes that actually work.
You’re probably familiar with the coupon code aggregating sites that make you do the trial-and-error guessing work. But PoachIt’s algorithms intelligently sort coupons based on whether or not they’re functioning, which eliminates the part where you shoot in the dark to find a valid coupon. (Spoiler: PoachIt data has found that, of all the coupons floating around the Web, only about 20 percent of them work.)
If you’re a frequent online shopper searching for the best deals, you’ll want to install the Chrome extension to your browser. No matter where you’re shopping on the Web, you can click the PoachIt button and the tool will open a pop-up screen in the same window that pulls up any existing valid coupons for that site or item. Not ready to buy? You can choose to track – or “poach”– the item, which will add it to your PoachIt collection (which, PoachIt recommends, doubles as a great wish list for gift-buying). You’ll receive an email from PoachIt if the price drops.
According to Marlena Sarunac, PoachIt’s marketing director, the idea for PoachIt was born in 2010 when CEO Gidi Fisher, a Tufts graduate formerly working with Nielson, was looking into buying a new purse for his wife, and the prices kept changing from day to day.
“[Fisher] wanted something to track the price on it that would let him know if something was on sale,” said Sarunac. “In addition to that, when he started researching the space, he found the coupon code world frustrating. So, the two meshed into one idea.”
Fisher then gathered an initial team, including current Chief Experience Designer and fellow Tufts alum Ben Yee, and went to work building technology that could both track online items as well as scour the Web for working coupons. Sarunac said that forming the technology, which is patent pending, was a complicated process, as it had to mimic the checkout process across thousands of sites in order to validate a coupon, be it for 50 percent off everything on the site, or a discount only applied to jeans.
Now, after a full launch in May of 2013, PoachIt operates on more than 4,000 online retail sites and boasts about 150,000 users. If a small or independent retailer isn’t yet included in PoachIt’s database and a customer chooses to track one of its products, the company will add it to their list of retailers. “We’re constantly refreshing,” said Sarunac.
On average, PoachIt has found that its users save $47 on an item. This figure takes into account both the money saved when prices drop on one item and when coupon codes provide discounts at checkout. Sarunac added that a major sale hosted by a large retailer boosts those savings, after PoachIt informs users that it’s happening.
“Things are constantly going on sale at, for instance, Banana Republic, which is notorious for its sales,” said Sarunac. “On the right day, they’ll have a 40 percent off coupon code. We’ll alert users about it, and then they’re able to save a ton of money on a full price item. Otherwise, they might never know about these sales.”
PoachIt: Your Shopping Sidekick from PoachIt on Vimeo.
Images via PoachIt
