Leading retailers and tech giants are racing to go even more high tech when it comes to online shopping. All you need is a photo of a product and a smartphone to purchase or find what you want.
Is the scan phenomenon the picture perfect way to buy everything from clothes to light bulbs? Are there risks?
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"A lot of times, I'll find, I'll see things in, like, a magazine or an ad, so I'll go and try to look that up, and it can be kinda difficult to find," said app tester Sandra Bohlken.
Bohlken tried out the "In a Snap" app, Target's new move to nab mobile-minded shoppers.
Here's how it works:
- Download the app.
- When you see the app icon on specific ads in magazines or in a store, just take a picture.
"It takes a picture of the entire ad, and so then I have an option of all the different things in the ad," Bohlken said.
And you can buy right then and there.
"I think, clearly, technology is changing the way we shop, whether it's image recognition, visual search, augmented reality, these are all things we're testing," said Eddie Baeb with Target's Corporate Communications.
It's not just Target using image recognition technology. At Heels.com, you can input an image of must-have shoes, and a visual search tool will either match the product exactly or bring up look-a-likes.
Apple has the Camfind app, which recognizes and describes items. And Google has long been in the forefront of the recognition game with its Google Goggles app.
"I use it to compare prices," said Google Goggles user Amy Curtis. "I use it to search the Internet for pictures and art."
There are limitations: Sometimes recognition tools are slow and they can't ID everything, at least not yet.
Google, for example, says the goggles are better at recognizing things like books, landmarks and products, but not so hot at some things, including apparel. Curtis has only one issue.
"It stores the pictures. And it does tend to geo-tag things, which is always a privacy concern," Curtis said.
Privacy attorney David Straite says tracking location is common with images unless you take precautions. While he doesn't have a problem with shopping photos, faces are another story.
"Where it starts to become a problem is when you take pictures of human faces, or when the metadata starts to allow surveillance technology to associate people, places and time," said Straite, a digital privacy attorney with Kaplan Fox.
Bohlken and Curtis believe that isn't a problem with shopping apps and any potential privacy concerns are a fair trade for easy shopping.
"I'll continue using the app," Curtis said. "I use it a lot, so it's kind of become second-hand."
"It can make shopping a lot easier," Bohlken said.
If you wonder what information is collected and possibly shared on specific apps, there are privacy policies listed once you download.
Be aware, once you click over to a company site for purchase, you then fall under website privacy rules, where more information may potentially be collected and shared.