Price Tracking Service PoachIt Discreetly Shuts Down

PoachIt, a smart shopping tool to help consumers track prices, sent an email on Monday (May 18) to its 300,000 users, explaining that it will be shutting down, TechCrunch reported.

The company, founded in 2012 by Gidi Fisher, an early BuzzMetrics employee, raised $2.8 million in outside funding during its existence.

The app tracked over a half million products to help consumers know if their favorite items had dropped in price as well as to locate valid coupon codes to be used at checkout. According to TechCrunch, PoachIt’s consumers saved over $40 million.

The price tracking business is not booming, to say the least. TechCrunch reports that only a few brave price tracking companies are still up and running such as Covvet, Pricify, Trackif, Shoptagr and Savelist. New York-based Hukkster closed last year, while price tracker Nifti reconverted into group polling and mobile messaging. And the list goes on.

In her op-ed published at the beginning of the year, Karen Webster explains that “consumers now have apps and email promotions and spiffed-up websites that make deals and product selection and availability now very transparent – and immediate. ”

PoachIt may have struggled to compete with Pinterest’s Price Alerts feature or Amazon’s competitive prices. But mobile shopping apps such as Aisle411 could also be a culprit. Aisle411 messages the shopper with unique information and offers based on a shopper’s location within the store. Its new updated app was just released yesterday and is doing well. Another example is Wish.com’s app, which buys products directly from the merchants, thereby enabling higher discounts.