New app lets you buy pet food while walking your dog

If you’re too lazy or busy to head down to the pet store to get puppy chow for your pet Shih Tzu, then SingPet‘s new app may just suit you. While online pet shops are dime a dozen in Singapore — see Doggy Friend, Paw Family, Pet’s Gourmet, and Pawpawsg — SingPet is probably the first one to innovate with an mobile app.

The company has been around since 1998 and claims to have served over 500,000 customers globally. So at the very least, they deserve some applause for making a substantial technological leap from the days of yore.

While SingPet could have just created a run-of-the-mill app, they’ve done the right thing by adding some nifty features to make it a more worthy download. The basics are covered: The app lets you browse items for a variety of pets — cats, fish, dogs, birds — and add the desired items to a shopping cart. After that, you can purchase the items via PayPal or Direct Deposit.

But where the app shines is in the extra features. If you’ve purchased tuna-flavored cat food from the SingPet app once, you won’t have to browse the store to locate the same item again — previous purchases will be displayed for one-touch reordering.

Alternatively, the app lets you scan the barcode on your favorite product, which will then be delivered to you. Other important features like loyalty point tracking and promotion code input round up the app.

If we have one gripe about the app though, it would be the design. While the homepage is cute and colorful, the rest of the app interface looks atrocious. There’s no design consistency — it feels like two different apps mashed into one.

Imagine yourself entering a physical pet shop with a nice storefront. But when you’re inside, it’s just grey walls and concrete  – which looks depressing. That’s what the app sorta feels like.

In contrast, a fine example of wonderful app design would be buUuk’s WeatherLah, which is not only useful, but also looks clean, simple, and gorgeous.

So while we applaud SingPet’s efforts, the app still has much room for improvement (actually, their website is also due for a revamp). It is now currently available for the iPhone, iPad, and also Android.

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