Natick man’s GrocerSave app aims to help you find deals, simplify shopping – Natick Report

While sky high grocery prices since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have put a hurt on people’s wallets, Natick’s Gabriel Ha says he’s was plotting his newly released GrocerSave food shopping app well before that.

“I wouldn’t say that COVID happening was a factor in changing the timeline of the project, but there were certainly times—the baby formula shortage, the high egg prices a while back—where I was like ‘man, having something like this out there probably would have been very helpful to the community,’” says Ha, a first-time entrepreneur who has been working on the app full time for more than two years. he got the idea for the app about six years back.

GrocerSave is a free app that Ha’s rolling out to help people track grocery prices and compare unit costs for products initially in stores within Natick and the surrounding area (we’ve played around with a test version on an iPhone). The goal is to help people make more informed decisions, save money, and reduce shopping stress.

Ha’s got a development team honing the product, ensuring it works well on different mobile platforms.

The concept grew out of Ha’s own frustration with the time-consuming process of trying to comparison shop across the many local grocery stores in the area to help stretch his family’s budget. Given his background in software development and product management at big tech outfits like MathWorks and Microsoft, Ha saw an opportunity to create a software solution that uses a combination of his own grocery item database compiled through lots of legwork with crowdsourced updates from users to keep the app current.

“Our app helps users create and manage their shopping lists, perform unit price calculations to ensure they’re getting the best value, and can even provide the location of products in-store to make shopping trips more efficient,” Ha says.

The app has come a long way since being a “clunky spreadsheet” Ha says he initially used to track prices.

As it evolves, the app will give users the option to slice and dice data in new ways, such as divvying a grocery list between two stores and showing the cost difference over shopping at one place. The user can decide if the savings are enough to warrant two trips.

“I want to make sure the app can assist someone no matter what their shopping workflow is like,” he says.

The Natick father of two young children realizes people shop for groceries in a variety of ways—some prefer to do it all in one fell swoop, others hit up different stores for the best deals on key proteins and other items, and many run out to grab a few things at one store or another through the week. In the latter case, Ha says: “the price difference even on smaller ticket items is likely significant enough to merit a few minutes of research.”

Even for those that typically do one big shop, within that approach there are those who seek to complete their list at one store and then there are those who look at the prices of key items (say proteins) and then make their shopping plans from there. GrocerSave can help in either situation, Ha says.

Personally, Ha and his family typically do a big shop at Market Basket in Ashland, and then make other trips to various stores depending on what’s on sale and what they’re low on (stocking up and freezing certain items as makes sense). He’s still mourning the departure of Wegmans from Natick Mall last year.

Among the surprises for Ha during his research on grocery prices was that you could get international foods, say the vegetable bok choy, for less at Roche Bros. than at the Asian supermarkets in Chinatown. He’s also learned that there are deals to be had on certain groceries at more general retailers like Walmart and Target.

Ha refers to Natick as “a natural test market” for his app because there is real price competition among a dozen-plus stores. The app is free to users, and Ha looks to make money from it by attracting advertisers.

Users are encouraged to join the official GrocerSave Discord channel to connect with Ha and app developers, interact with other users, and share feedback.

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