Shopping at the grocery store is getting more and more expensive. That makes saving some money on your weekly grocery shopping trip a bit of a priority. It seems that others agree as 49% of people who responded to a survey conducted by Vision Critical say saving is a top priority for them, and a further 31% will save on products if it’s convenient for them. The same survey also says that 48% of respondents use paper coupons on grocery items once a month or more often. Fifteen per cent use them at least once per week and 21 per cent use coupons a couple of times per month.
This is where an application called Zweet comes in. Available for iOS and Android, it’s goal is to save you money without having to clip coupons and keeping track of them. That sounds simple enough. But how does it work in real life? To find out, my wife volunteered to try the app over the last three weeks on her iPhone 6.
It uses gamification to do this as the app will direct you to certain brands and items that can earn you money and points.
You’ll note the “Capture Your Receipt” button. This allows you to use the camera on your phone to capture your receipt so that Zweet can verify your purchases. This is what my wife thought of that:
Zweet gives you clear instructions when you are ready to capture your receipt. You align the edges of the receipt within the template lines and then start scanning the receipt starting with the store name. logo and date. When one section is finished Zweet takes a screen shot of receipt and from the last line of the receipt you can start scanning the next section part of your receipt until you are finished scanning whole receipt. It is not hard but with long store receipts it can be a bit cumbersome.
You can cash out once you have $20 in your Zweet account, or starting at 650 points you can use your Zweet points to cash in on gift cards at your favorite retail stores such as Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Amazon, and Indigo. Or you can use your purchasing zest to do some good via donating to a list of well established charities such as then Canadian Red Cross, Children’s Wish Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, and Nature Conservancy.
Now, when it comes to the items and brands that Zweet offers you on a weekly basis, here’s what my wife observed:
Many of the offers comprise of big brands that I recognized such as Ben and Jerry’s, Tenderflake, Cavendish Farms, Unico. But there were many brands that I will admit I have not heard of until the Zweet offers came up such as Toscan cooking wine, Caprina products, Fontaine Sante products. In some cases, Zweet gives you a whole brand as options. For established brands such as Unico they tend to specify the product. For example, Unico olives was one item that was offered to us when when Unico has tons of different products that we could have chosen.
One thing that we did note is that the offers were similar from week to week:
May 13/15 offers:
- Sliced bread $0.25
- Tosca cooking wine $ 2.00
- Clover Leaf tun $ 0.25
- So Nice Fortified soy beverage $ 0.50
- Wong Wing Egg Rolls $ 0.50
- $ 2.00 for each friend loading Zweet app
- Caprina products $0.75
- Simply Asia products $ 1.00
- Healthy Choice $ 0.50
- Unico Olives $ 0.50
- Boathouse Farms smoothie $ 0.75
- Fontaine Sante products $ 0.50
- Pretzel chip $ 0.75
- Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream $ 0.50
- Mikes pizza $ 0.50
- Skippy’s peanut butter $ 0.50
- Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn $ 0.50
- Salada Tea $ 1.00
- Cavendish Farms frozen potato $ 0.50
- Nature’s Path Cereal $ 0.50
- Tenderflake $ 0.50
- Maxx Scoop Cat Litter $ 0.75
- Purina Dog Chow $ 0.75
- Stagg Chili $ 0.75
- Guru Energy Drink $ 0.75
- Contest Win 750 Zweet points – Go to Zweet Facebook page and tell them what you’re go-to & quick mid-week meal. Contests ends Friday, April 28 at noon.
May 6/15 offers for this week
- Dairy milk any brand 1 L or more 0.25
- Contest selfie w flowers for Mother’s day 0.25 – enter to win 2000 sweet points on Zweet Facebook
- Tosca cooking wine $2.00
- Encore chicken woodland chicken wing sauce up to 3 $ 0.75
- GIA Italian cooking paste up to 3 $ 0.75
- Share zweet with your friends $ 2.00
- Encore liquid smoke up to 3 $ 0.75
- Jordan’s Morning crisp cereal $ 0.75
- Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers $ 0.50
- Que Pasa Mexican salsa $ 0.50
- Sara Lee desserts $ 0.50
- Que Pasa Tortilla chips $ 0.50
- Mott’s Clamato 1.89 L or 6 pack cans $ 0.50
- Orangina 1.75 L or 6 pack $ 0.50
- Simply Asia products $ 1.00
- Whiskers dry food for cats 1.4 kg – 9.1 kg
- Nutella 375 g or 725 g $ 0.50
- Prana prducts $ 0.75
- Nestle Parlour Ice Cream $ 0.50
- WH Steamers $ 0.50
- Apetina feta cheese $ 0.75
- Pastene canned tomatoes $ 0.50
- Mazola cooking oil $ 0.50
- Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent $ 0.50
- Guru Energy Drink $ 0.75
Now there’s a fair amount of items that are listed here. But in our case, we got mixed results. Here’s what my wife had to say for our first week of shopping:
For the first week I did not figure out how to submit my purchases properly. That meant that I missed out on the cooking oil offer. But aside from milk and the cooking oil, we have never bought anything else on the list and Zweet savings of $ 0.50 is not enough of an incentive for us to buy something that we have never purchased before or switch brands.
And for our second week of shopping:
For the second week I scanned two receipts all at once as I missed scanning the previous week’s during that week. For the all the offers again we only managed to score on the bread and then it was rejected, as it did not recognize the brand of bread as part of the bread offer.
Part of the reason why we haven’t earned as much as we could have is that the items that we buy on a weekly basis don’t match what Zweet serves up as offers. This is due to the fact that my wife eats pretty clean and my buying habits are governed by my food allergies. Also, there are things that Zweet offers that we would never buy. Guru Energy Drink is an example of this. However, if you have an affinity for these products, you could earn a lot. In other words, your mileage may vary when it comes to the usage of Zweet.
Another thing that my wife noted was how Zweet tries to expand its user base:
Over the course of 3 weeks Zweet offered me at least one fun Facebook contest each week to enter for some serious Zweet points. The contest in the first week was to submit a selfie with flowers on Mother’s day for a chance to win 2000 Zweet points. Or another week it was share your favorite go-to snack idea on their Facebook page. While it’s entirely up to you to participate I like the creativity demonstrated in their social marketing. It is gorilla social marketing at work. Though sometimes its subtle other times it’s aggressive.
Here’s one of the more aggressive ways that Zweet uses to expand its user base. The app asks you to send e-mails to your contacts that they need to act on within an hour by downloading the app and creating an account. You get $2 in your Zweet account and the user you send the offer to gets $1 if they act in time. Some might find that to be a bit of a turn off regardless of the reward on offer.
One last thing that my wife noted immediately was this:
In settings I turned off the location access as I asked myself why I would Zweet need to know where I am? In my Zweet login profile I had provided region and country information (Ontario and Canada). There is no value add to leaving it on.
I suspect that the answer to that question is that Zweet will likely expand on this capability by providing location specific offers. I also suspect that Zweet uses locations services access to collect info on you as per their privacy policy which says that they do collect this sort of information.
What’s our bottom line? I will let my wife sum things up:
Hubby and I have decided that our weekly meal plans will not change but I could be persuaded to switch some things such as salsa as I am not tied to a specific brand for that item. So in the world of Zweet it will take us a long time to accumulate Zweet rewards as we don’t purchase the brands that Zweet has offers on or we just eat too much fresh produce and that’s not Zweet is about. But you may be different and if you do buy the brands that Zweet offers or if you wish to change it up and buy an item that you normally don’t use, then you can make Zweet work for you and your family.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
This entry was posted on May 18, 2015 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Zweet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Review: Zweet For iOS
Shopping at the grocery store is getting more and more expensive. That makes saving some money on your weekly grocery shopping trip a bit of a priority. It seems that others agree as 49% of people who responded to a survey conducted by Vision Critical say saving is a top priority for them, and a further 31% will save on products if it’s convenient for them. The same survey also says that 48% of respondents use paper coupons on grocery items once a month or more often. Fifteen per cent use them at least once per week and 21 per cent use coupons a couple of times per month.
This is where an application called Zweet comes in. Available for iOS and Android, it’s goal is to save you money without having to clip coupons and keeping track of them. That sounds simple enough. But how does it work in real life? To find out, my wife volunteered to try the app over the last three weeks on her iPhone 6.
It uses gamification to do this as the app will direct you to certain brands and items that can earn you money and points.
You’ll note the “Capture Your Receipt” button. This allows you to use the camera on your phone to capture your receipt so that Zweet can verify your purchases. This is what my wife thought of that:
Zweet gives you clear instructions when you are ready to capture your receipt. You align the edges of the receipt within the template lines and then start scanning the receipt starting with the store name. logo and date. When one section is finished Zweet takes a screen shot of receipt and from the last line of the receipt you can start scanning the next section part of your receipt until you are finished scanning whole receipt. It is not hard but with long store receipts it can be a bit cumbersome.
You can cash out once you have $20 in your Zweet account, or starting at 650 points you can use your Zweet points to cash in on gift cards at your favorite retail stores such as Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Amazon, and Indigo. Or you can use your purchasing zest to do some good via donating to a list of well established charities such as then Canadian Red Cross, Children’s Wish Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, and Nature Conservancy.
Now, when it comes to the items and brands that Zweet offers you on a weekly basis, here’s what my wife observed:
Many of the offers comprise of big brands that I recognized such as Ben and Jerry’s, Tenderflake, Cavendish Farms, Unico. But there were many brands that I will admit I have not heard of until the Zweet offers came up such as Toscan cooking wine, Caprina products, Fontaine Sante products. In some cases, Zweet gives you a whole brand as options. For established brands such as Unico they tend to specify the product. For example, Unico olives was one item that was offered to us when when Unico has tons of different products that we could have chosen.
One thing that we did note is that the offers were similar from week to week:
May 13/15 offers:
May 6/15 offers for this week
Now there’s a fair amount of items that are listed here. But in our case, we got mixed results. Here’s what my wife had to say for our first week of shopping:
For the first week I did not figure out how to submit my purchases properly. That meant that I missed out on the cooking oil offer. But aside from milk and the cooking oil, we have never bought anything else on the list and Zweet savings of $ 0.50 is not enough of an incentive for us to buy something that we have never purchased before or switch brands.
And for our second week of shopping:
For the second week I scanned two receipts all at once as I missed scanning the previous week’s during that week. For the all the offers again we only managed to score on the bread and then it was rejected, as it did not recognize the brand of bread as part of the bread offer.
Part of the reason why we haven’t earned as much as we could have is that the items that we buy on a weekly basis don’t match what Zweet serves up as offers. This is due to the fact that my wife eats pretty clean and my buying habits are governed by my food allergies. Also, there are things that Zweet offers that we would never buy. Guru Energy Drink is an example of this. However, if you have an affinity for these products, you could earn a lot. In other words, your mileage may vary when it comes to the usage of Zweet.
Another thing that my wife noted was how Zweet tries to expand its user base:
Over the course of 3 weeks Zweet offered me at least one fun Facebook contest each week to enter for some serious Zweet points. The contest in the first week was to submit a selfie with flowers on Mother’s day for a chance to win 2000 Zweet points. Or another week it was share your favorite go-to snack idea on their Facebook page. While it’s entirely up to you to participate I like the creativity demonstrated in their social marketing. It is gorilla social marketing at work. Though sometimes its subtle other times it’s aggressive.
Here’s one of the more aggressive ways that Zweet uses to expand its user base. The app asks you to send e-mails to your contacts that they need to act on within an hour by downloading the app and creating an account. You get $2 in your Zweet account and the user you send the offer to gets $1 if they act in time. Some might find that to be a bit of a turn off regardless of the reward on offer.
One last thing that my wife noted immediately was this:
In settings I turned off the location access as I asked myself why I would Zweet need to know where I am? In my Zweet login profile I had provided region and country information (Ontario and Canada). There is no value add to leaving it on.
I suspect that the answer to that question is that Zweet will likely expand on this capability by providing location specific offers. I also suspect that Zweet uses locations services access to collect info on you as per their privacy policy which says that they do collect this sort of information.
What’s our bottom line? I will let my wife sum things up:
Hubby and I have decided that our weekly meal plans will not change but I could be persuaded to switch some things such as salsa as I am not tied to a specific brand for that item. So in the world of Zweet it will take us a long time to accumulate Zweet rewards as we don’t purchase the brands that Zweet has offers on or we just eat too much fresh produce and that’s not Zweet is about. But you may be different and if you do buy the brands that Zweet offers or if you wish to change it up and buy an item that you normally don’t use, then you can make Zweet work for you and your family.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on May 18, 2015 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Zweet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.