Have A Smartphone? Get Rid Of Those Plastic Shopping Loyalty Cards.

Last week I installed a new application on my iPhone called “Key Ring“. It’s a free application that holds the information for any shopping loyalty cards you may have for your favorite grocery or department store. Instead of carrying around several different plastic doodads on your keychain, you enter the information in the app, which then creates the appropriate barcode for that store’s card reader. While the natural food store I normally use doesn’t have a loyalty card (and neither does the Farmer’s Market), the big grocery store across the street that I use sometimes makes you use the card in order to get their lower prices. I was of course doubtful that either the guy with the magic gun at the grocery store and/or the self check scanner would be able to read the barcode on my phone, but both did with ease. In fact, the checkout guy thought it was pretty cool and was going to download the app when he got home that night, as he had never seen it before in his checkout lane. Here’s what it looks like on my phone:

keyring1

keyring2

This is also handy for me because when I do head over to this grocery store, I rarely if ever have my keys with me… it’s across the street, so I walk to it. But I never leave home without my phone, so this way I always have that rewards card right in my pocket and don’t get dirty looks when I tell the cashier I forgot my card. (They never believe me.) Anyway, if you have loyalty cards and hate having all those little plastic things on your key chain, and use a smartphone, you might want to check it out.

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