Just in time for the holiday season, RedLaser 3.0 — the latest version of eBay Inc.’s leading barcode and QR code scanning mobile application — is now available. The new mobile app combines local shopping functionality from Milo, in-app checkout and payment features from PayPal, and sports an overhauled, friendly interface.
With RedLaser 3.0, users can create categorized shopping lists to use as springboards for product research throughout the holiday season, and benefit from a new partnership between RedLaser and Toys”R”Us Inc. In this interview with Rob Veres, General Manager of RedLaser, learn more about what the new version of this free mobile app is capable of doing. You can also watch a video interview with Rob, courtesy of the eBay Ink blog.
Rob, please tell us what’s new in RedLaser 3.0 and what features you’re excited about.
It’s a very big evolutionary step for the app. First, we’ve overhauled the user interface and added a lot of navigation features. It’s also a lot faster, and there are some significant new capabilities. There is in-app checkout, which means you can actually transact with merchants from within the app. Our first partnership on that front, timed for the holiday season, is with Toys”R”Us.
If you scan or search for a toy, RedLaser will bring back its standard set of results, but if Toys”R”Us has the item, you’ll be able to buy the item directly from within the app, whether it’s available through Toysrus.com or one of their local stores. You can even pay with PayPal. This means we’re not just handing off the customer to a merchant, but closing the loop on the whole transaction.
I’m also excited about lists. We’ve added the ability for users to create customized lists of products. One big use case for this is that if you have a holiday wish list or shopping list, you can scan items you’re interested in or add them to lists, and watch for the best deals.
Is the Toys”R”Us example you provided, where local and online inventory are available for end-to-end transactions, going to extend out to other retailers?
Yes, RedLaser’s future in this area has been enabled through some of the many acquisitions that eBay Inc. has recently made. Version 3.0 of RedLaser is the first one to optimize contributions from some of the company’s new divisions, including an expansion of integration with Milo’s local product inventory. We’ve also worked closely with PayPal to make all the payment functionality useful and easy.
Toys”R”Us is an initial partner for us as we combine all these features, but our intent is to extend out to other merchants as well.
You’re on the front lines of a major trend, which is the blurring of online and offline commerce. What is the future of that trend?
Mobile devices are helping to spearhead that trend. People are acting on commerce impulses while they’re on the go, and their shopping habits are changing. It wasn’t long ago that if you were standing in a store and suddenly wanted to see reviews of a product, you would write down the product name, go home and look up the reviews. Now, all that power is in the palm of your hand.
Where is all this going? We’re making more and more information accessible through that mobile device that you’re carrying. With RedLaser, we’ve already done a lot of this work, and we can give you information about a product, photos, reviews, price comparisons across many merchants, which local stores carry it, maps to the stores, phone numbers and the ability to buy the product from within our app.
Where is RedLaser 3.0 available, and how can brand new users get going with it?
The app is available in the App Store. Just search for RedLaser there and it’ll pop up. Install it to your phone, and then open it up. The first time you go through the app, you’ll see some tutorials that we’ve added to introduce how to scan and how to use the important features.
One good thing to do first is to simply scan an item that you have around, or you can search for a product you're interested in. Also note that this latest version supports voice input, so you can search for products by speaking keywords.