These apps are holiday shopping money-savers

If you’re already in the store, try SnipSnap’s Scout feature, a sort of deal-finding concierge service. Here’s how it works: Use the SnapSnap app to photograph the product you want to buy. The app then finds the product in its database and looks for the best deal it can muster from around the Web — coupons, rebates and price-matching guarantees.

What’s unique, though, is that SnipSnap intelligently analyzes the results against the store you’re standing in, so it shows you only prices that are compatible with that store’s price-matching policy. It’ll even display that policy — in case you need to educate your cashier.

SnipSnap is a weird hybrid app that can include some interaction with an actual human on the other end of your phone, and the results aren’t quite instant (they can take several minutes). But given what SnipSnap’s Scout can deliver, it’s probably worth the wait.