Users pay with their data
boat is a free offer for consumers with a commercial interest. The business model: Manufacturers, retailers and chains that advertise their brochures and products in the app pay the boat-Offerista provider a click fee or commission in the event of a sale. This roughly corresponds to the business principle of price comparison sites such as Check24 or idealo. Offerista does not disclose how high these costs are for business customers and to what extent individual contracts influence the prominent placement of offers within the app. This limits the transparency of the offer. boatusers, but it is legitimate to protect trade secrets and possible advantages over competitors.
The advertising context of the content displayed in the “News” section is particularly obvious. In addition to a survey, there are occasional messages about the range of retail chains. If you wish, you can also receive information about them via push notifications, as well as about “favorite stores” (i.e. retailers that you have previously marked as appropriate) and “exclusive information” (from boat (selected offers and events). You can turn this off in the settings. You can also set your own location to display offers in the area. However, to save and protect data, we recommend disabling GPS tracking in the app and entering the current address in the text field.
No registration is required. However, when using, you should always be aware that the use of boat personal data collected can be tracked and used for individualized advertising offers. This significantly affects services from the American company Google, such as Adsense or Adwords. They analyze search inputs, shopping preferences and locations to present the user with personalized shopping tips and in-app or third-party ads.
Tailor-made shopping pleasure
Unlike product scanners like Yuka, Code verification or EcoCheck stay boat Aspects such as climate protection and healthy eating tend to take a back seat. Instead, it is essentially about providing the easiest possible access to product offers and brochures from retail chains. The presentation and handling meet the high standard that you would expect from an established and successful app. The home screen initially contains particularly “popular” brochures and offers selected by the provider. Alternatively, these can be sorted by current affairs. The associated retailers should be marked as “favorite stores” using the search area and list of “popular stores”. Otherwise, you will have to repeatedly search for preferred stores every time you start the app and the display of “popular” content will depend on what the Google advertising tracker or the Offerista provider recommends. Once you have customized your own home screen according to your preferences, you can quickly and easily navigate through relevant offers. The area search with address information and current offers of all stores marked in Apple Maps (in the iPhone version) or Google Maps (in the Android version) also works perfectly.
Where is sustainability again?
Looking through the lens of sustainability, what is much more interesting for this test is the extent to which boat can also impress with functions that have added ecological value. This is where the product scanner comes into play, which not only wants to examine the products contained in the database in terms of price, availability and nutritional values, but also the sustainability factor. Finally, I want boat support responsible purchasing and protect the environment the provider’s description in the Apple App Store.
In our random test to detect 100 products boat moderately good. While almost all supermarket branded products were recognized, we were rarely able to find private labels from large supermarkets and discount chains in the database. The hit rate in the area of hygiene products and other drugstore items was even worse. Only about half of the scanned products were recognized, regardless of whether they were private label or store brand. Recognized items usually contain all the manufacturer’s information on ingredients or ingredients. In addition, you can find information on the nutritional value and the proportions of sugar, fat, saturated fatty acids and sodium (salt) in the foods, which are marked in green, yellow or red in the familiar shape of a food traffic light.
The “Sustainability” section is somewhat hidden, namely below the user reviews. Here you can find information about the emissions balance of the product or product category, as well as basic information about the manufacturer, sometimes in greater or lesser detail. Unfortunately, the latter is limited to a link to Wikipedia, where you can rarely find further information about the ecological aspects of production. Information about the CO2 footprint of a product category is more useful, but unfortunately it is rarely found. The most useful and user-friendly option here would be a kind of quality traffic light that provides information about the extent to which manufacturer XY adheres to certain sustainability standards for its products. The app, for example, offers something similar Palm oil sweep.
Conclusion
Success gives boat Right, because in terms of clarity and user guidance when navigating through the current brochures and offers from retailers in the region, the app is at the forefront of quality. Shopping enthusiasts who are more committed to sustainable consumption than to the best price will probably be less satisfied with the app. In addition to the rather poor information about the ecological qualities of a product or manufacturer, it is also unfortunate that you cannot independently add this information to the app’s database or correct existing entries before they have been editorially checked. As a shopping app like boat convincing, but there is still room for improvement in the transparent handling of consumer data and sustainability features.