Here’s A New App That Lets You Save On Your Groceries

The developers behind Honey, a web browser add-on that applies promo codes to your online purchases, are introducing the Milk app, which lets consumers save when shopping for groceries.

Milk is a welcome addition to the current crop of apps that help people save on consumer good purchases, especially those users who can not find the time to clip coupons from newspapers. Some of these existing apps include Shopmium, Checkout 51, Groupon Snap, SavingStar, and ibotta, just to name a few. These apps have become useful especially in bringing paper coupons from the declining newspaper industry into mobile devices.

According to Honey co-founder George Ruan, 315 billion coupons worth more than $400 billion are distributed every year, but only a very small percentage (0.8 percent) is actually redeemed by consumers. Also, in the last few years, the rate that these coupons are redeemed are steadily decreasing.

In the age of smartphones and social media, it is not surprising that more and more people are reading less and less newspapers. And the coupons -- the people who actually use them are also becoming fewer. Also, the act of clipping coupons admittedly takes time -- something which today's millennials and tomorrow's generation might not be willing to do. 

But with the use of grocery rewards apps, redeeming coupons is made much more convenient. After you shop for groceries, you just confirm your purchases' matching offers in your app by scanning the shopped item's barcode then upload a photo capture of your receipt. 

For stores that offer loyalty rewards, the app will automatically apply the discounts upon checkout. The Milk app works the same way. It only processes digital coupons that are "attached" to store loyalty cards. 

This makes the Milk app useful especially when you are shopping in stores that still use loyalty cards, such as Kroger, Vons, Tom Thumb, or Safeway, among many others. Moreover, the Milk app is quite easy to use. You just have to add the card to the app, and then shop for the best deals. Because the app sorts digital coupons into various categories like bakery, beverages, baby food, etc., you can easily find the offers that might be relevant. Furthermore, you can also add the deals to your shopping list in the app so that the next you shop, you will be reminded of which items to get.

The only potential downside to Milk is that the app's developers are thinking of charging a monthly fee for the service. For sure, that would be a possible turn-off for consumers. 

For now, the Milk app can be downloaded for free from iTunes. Its creators will soon be releasing an Android version via Google Play.