Beyond 100,000 downloads – Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming for Price Kaki
By Melvin Yong
May 12, 2022
This article is contributed by Melvin Yong, CASE President. Any extracts must be attributed to the author.
Follow CASE on social media and you would’ve known about the big buzz earlier this month when we crossed the 100,000 downloads milestone of our popular Price Kaki app.
As a pet project started in 2019 to help consumers compare prices and make informed purchasing decisions to stretch their dollar, it’s hard to believe just how far Price Kaki has come.
Importance Of Stretching Your Dollar
The importance of stretching our every dollar cannot be understated. Since the start of the year, prices of food and daily essentials have been rising. In March 2022, Singapore’s core inflation rose to a 10-year high of 2.9% year-on-year, placing a financial squeeze on many Singapore households.
I am heartened that many consumers find Price Kaki useful in helping them save and look for the best deals.
One such user is Mr Seah Take Wee, who uses Price Kaki regularly to check the prices of items before heading to the supermarket. Mr Seah is able to save up to $10 per week on his groceries, which definitely adds up over time.
Making Price Kaki Bigger and Better
As more users like Mr Seah join the Price Kaki community and provide feedback, the team has been busy brainstorming on how to make the app even more useful and relevant. Today, I am super excited to share our plans to enhance Price Kaki.
1. Turning Price kaki Into The One Stop Grocery Shopping App
First, we have ambitions to turn Price Kaki into the one-stop app for all your grocery shopping needs.
We will enhance the app to include a “Shopping List” feature. This will allow you to add various items into a virtual shopping basket and see the total price at your nearest supermarket. The feature will also alert you if there is an alternative supermarket outlet that offers you a cheaper overall price.
Consumers typically buy a whole host of items when grocery shopping, and we hope that this feature will help them better choose where to shop for that day.
Consumers who have shifted to purchasing their groceries online have also given suggestions to integrate Price Kaki with the various online retailers, so that they can easily purchase items after comparing prices.
We hear you!
We will be launching a “Shopping Cart” feature to allow users to “checkout” the items that they were just “checking out” (pun intended) from the Price Kaki app straight to the participating online store!
2.Looking Beyond The Price
Beyond price, the team is working on a new feature to allow consumers to upload pictures of their meal, and include reviews of food bought from hawker stalls.
We will also address the issue of shrinkflation – the practice of manufacturers reducing the size or quantity of a product while maintaining its retail price, which makes it hard to make effective comparisons.
To counter shrinkflation, Price Kaki will display unit pricing to help consumers easily compare the true price of goods, even if it is sold in different amounts by manufacturers.
3. Come, Be My Kaki!
At our core, Price Kaki relies on a community of likeminded folks to update and share the latest prices of grocery items. We want to grow our network of “Kakis” (friends) sharing the best deals.
We will set up a social wall within the app, where users can post comments and upload pictures and videos of the latest food and grocery deals in their neighbourhoods. Users can also use the social wall to organise group buys and enjoy greater discounts when buying in bulk.
4. Adding More Retailers, Products And Services
A few weeks ago, we announced a collaboration with RedMart to help consumers compare prices of daily essentials sold by the online grocery retailer against those sold by physical supermarket chains. Under the collaboration, RedMart will contribute a pilot list of 100 frequently purchased daily essentials and groceries for comparison on Price Kaki.
Going forward, Price Kaki will include more products and more retailers.
Beyond Redmart, we will expand the product listings to groceries sold online by other retailers and supermarket chains. We will also engage industry stakeholders such as coffeeshop associations and operators to expand the number of food items listed on Price Kaki. Our goal is to expand the products listed on Price Kaki to 10,000 by end of 2022.
To encourage consumers to use Price Kaki and to add a bit of fun, the team is looking to incorporate new features such as gamification, where users can complete task-based challenges to earn points and redeem vouchers that can be used to offset their grocery purchases.
I hope that you are as excited as I am about the future of Price Kaki. Let me know if you have a favourite feature that you want us to focus on, or if there are other features that you think would make Price Kaki even better!
