Shopping

This topic enables you to man­age all the infor­ma­tion related to your shop­ping needs, includ­ing lists of items to buy, prod­ucts you reg­u­larly buy or wish to research for future pur­chase, gifts you want to give, and gifts you have received.

Key fea­tures of the Shop­ping topic

  • abil­ity to define shop­ping lists, includ­ing quan­tity, pack­ag­ing, cost, and store
  • sup­port for track­ing items on a per-product basis, includ­ing stores, prices, notes, and bookmarks
  • sup­port for track­ing items on a per-store basis, includ­ing prod­ucts bought at each store and prices paid
  • sup­port for track­ing coupons
  • abil­ity to track prod­uct, price, date, and note infor­ma­tion for gifts you give to other peo­ple or gifts you have received
  • auto­matic reminders through inte­gra­tion with your device’s Calendar
  • auto­matic re-use of infor­ma­tion, such as seller and price for a prod­uct you buy frequently
  • touch­points to the Events and Travel + Places topics

Using Shop­ping touchpoints

Touch­points allow rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion to be shared seam­lessly between Shop­ping and the Events and Travel + Places top­ics. Exam­ple: Sup­pose you have a list of sup­plies to buy for a party you are host­ing. The sup­ply list you define in Events is also acces­si­ble from Shop­ping. Or, if you spec­ify items you want to buy for a trip you have defined in Travel + Places, those are also acces­si­ble from Shopping.

How do I use Shopping?

The Shop­ping topic view pro­vides these sections:

  • All Shop­ping Items — all items on all shop­ping lists in LifeTopix
  • Shop­ping Lists — all shop­ping lists defined in LifeTopix
  • Things to Sell — items you wish to sell or have already sold
  • Gifts for Oth­ers — items you have given or plan to give to other people
  • Gifts Received — items you have been given by other people
  • Coupons — touch­point to the Coupons cat­e­gory of the Notes + Files topic
  • Con­fig­ure Prod­ucts — all pur­chasable items defined in LifeTopix
  • Con­fig­ure Sell­ers — all ven­dors of products

Cat­e­gories are avail­able in these sec­tions. You can cre­ate, mod­ify, hide, or delete cat­e­gories via Life­Topix Settings.

All Shop­ping Items

Tap All Shop­ping Items to go to its view. All shop­ping items on all shop­ping lists are dis­played, along with the total cost of all shop­ping items on all shop­ping lists.

The sort selec­tor at the top of the view allows you to change the order­ing in the view; tap Seller to view all shop­ping items by seller, or tap Cat­e­gory to view all shop­ping items by cat­e­gory. The view selec­tor at the bot­tom of the view allows you to change the con­tents of the view; tap All to view all items, tap Open to view only the unpur­chased items, or tap Bought to view only the items already pur­chased. For each seller, the seller name, total num­ber of shop­ping items, and total cost of shop­ping items for that seller are displayed.

To add items to the All Shop­ping Items list, tap  to add a new item quickly by just spec­i­fy­ing the item’s name, tap  to add a new item with details, or tap to bring up a search win­dow which will let you find exist­ing items quickly. To mark an item pur­chased, tap the empty check box to the left of an item. To mark a pur­chased item as not pur­chased, tap the check mark in the box to the left of an item. To remove an item from the All Shop­ping Items list, tap the item, then tap at the bot­tom of the view.

Shop­ping Lists

Tap Shop­ping Lists to go to its view. Two pre­set shop­ping lists are avail­able: Gro­ceries and House­hold Items. Shop­ping lists you have cre­ated are also listed, includ­ing lists cre­ated as part of an event in the Events topic or a trip in the Travel + Places topic. Shop­ping lists are sorted alpha­bet­i­cally. Event shop­ping lists are named Event: event_title and Travel + Places shop­ping lists are named Trip: trip_title.

To view a shop­ping list, tap it. If you have added items to the list, the items on the list are dis­played. The sort selec­tor allows you to change the order­ing in the view; tap Seller to view all shop­ping items by seller, or tap Cat­e­gory to view all shop­ping items by category.

To add items to a shop­ping list, tap the shop­ping list, then tap  to add a new item quickly by just spec­i­fy­ing the item’s name, tap  to add a new item with details, or tap  to bring up a search win­dow which will let you find exist­ing items quickly. To mark an item pur­chased, tap the empty check box to the left of an item. To mark a pur­chased item as not pur­chased, tap the check mark in the box to the left of an item. To remove an item from a shop­ping list, tap the item, then tap  at the bot­tom of the view.

To edit an item in a shop­ping list, tap the item in the Shop­ping Items view and mod­ify the seller, price, unit, or quan­tity as necessary.

To mark an item off a shop­ping list, tap the check­box next to an item. This will add a check­mark to the box and indi­cate that you have acquired the item. (Hint: If you have trou­ble tap­ping the check­box, tap the box and swipe left.) If you leave the Shop­ping List view and then re-enter it, the checked items are moved to the bot­tom of the list.

Things to Sell

Tap Things to Sell to go to its view. All items you wish to sell are dis­played, pre­ceded by the total price of all items for all sell­ers in all categories.

The sort selec­tor at the top of the view allows you to change the order­ing in the view; tap Seller to view all items to sell by seller, or tap Cat­e­gory to view all items to sell by cat­e­gory. The view selec­tor at the bot­tom of the view allows you to change the con­tents of the view; tap All to view all items, tap Open to view only the unsold items, or tap Sold to view only the items already sold. For each seller, the seller name, total num­ber of shop­ping items, and total price of items for that seller are displayed.

To add items to the Things to Sell list, tap  to add a new item quickly by just spec­i­fy­ing the item’s name, tap  to add a new item with details, or tap  to bring up a search win­dow which will let you find exist­ing items quickly. To mark an item sold, tap the empty check box to the left of an item. To mark a sold item as not sold, tap the check mark in the box to the left of an item. To remove an item from the Things to Sell list, tap the item, then tap  at the bot­tom of the view.

Gifts for Others

Tap Gifts for Oth­ers to go to its view. If no gifts for oth­ers are defined, tap  in the title bar to cre­ate one. If there are gifts for oth­ers defined, the Gifts for Oth­ers view shows each gift, sorted by date given. Each gift dis­plays the recip­i­ent, the gift(s), and the date given.

Gifts Received

Tap Gifts Received to go to the its view. If no gifts received are defined, tap  in the title bar to cre­ate one. If gifts received are defined, the Gifts Received view shows each gift, sorted by date received. Each gift dis­plays the per­son who gave you the gift, the gift(s), and the date received.

Coupons

Coupons” pro­vide you some ben­e­fit for mak­ing cer­tain pur­chases, such as allow­ing you to buy things for less than full price or giv­ing you an item free when you buy some other item. Vouch­ers from Groupon, Liv­ing­So­cial, or other online-coupon sites, paper coupons clipped from your local news­pa­per, and elec­tronic dis­count codes emailed to you from a retailer are all exam­ples of coupons.

Coupons is a touch­point to the Coupons cat­e­gory in the Notes + Files topic. This means that coupons defined here will appear as notes in the Coupons cat­e­gory in the Notes + Files topic. Tap Coupons to go to its view which con­tains the fol­low­ing sections:

If you have not defined any coupons, there are two sec­tions in the Coupons view: All Coupons Notes and Sub­cat­e­gories for Coupons Notes. If you have defined coupons, a third sec­tion at the top of the Coupons view con­tains all coupons defined, includ­ing those defined in the Notes + Files topic. To cre­ate a new coupon, tap Add or .

Coupons are sorted alpha­bet­i­cally by default. Tap Sort to alter­nate between sort­ing coupons by date mod­i­fied, by Date Tag, and alpha­bet­i­cally. Each coupon includes the coupon’s title, its rat­ing, and either its cat­e­gory, update time, or Date Tag, depend­ing on which sort mode is cur­rently active.

Coupons:

  • If there are no coupons defined, this sec­tion will con­tain a but­ton titled Tap to add: Note (Coupons). Tap that but­ton or tap  in the title bar to define a new coupon.
  • If there are coupons defined, this sec­tion shows all those coupons, sorted alpha­bet­i­cally by default. Tap Sort to alter­nate between sort­ing coupons by date mod­i­fied (with the most recently mod­i­fied ones first), by Date Tag, and alpha­bet­i­cally by title. Each coupon includes the coupon’s title; its rat­ing; its descrip­tion; and either its cat­e­gory, update time, or Date Tag, depend­ing on which sort mode is cur­rently active. To define a new coupon, tap Add in the sec­tion header or tap  in the title bar. To edit a coupon, tap it, mod­ify the set­tings, and tap Save. To delete a coupon, tap it and then tap  at the bot­tom of the view.

All Coupons Notes: Tap here to view all coupons in all cat­e­gories and subcategories.

Sub­cat­e­gories for Coupons Notes: If you have not cre­ated any sub­cat­e­gories in the Coupons cat­e­gory in the Notes + Files topic, this sec­tion will con­tain a but­ton titled Tap to add: Cat­e­gory. Tap that but­ton to define a new sub­cat­e­gory in the Coupons cat­e­gory in the Notes + Files topic. If you have cre­ated sub­cat­e­gories in the Coupons cat­e­gory in the Notes + Files topic, this sec­tion shows all of them, sorted alpha­bet­i­cally. Tap Edit in the sec­tion header to edit, rename, hide or delete the exist­ing sub­cat­e­gories at this level; or tap a sub­cat­e­gory to dis­play the cor­re­spond­ing view for that subcategory.

Con­fig­ure Products

A “prod­uct” is some­thing you acquire from a store, com­pany, or per­son. Milk, video-on-demand movies, cloth­ing, elec­tron­ics, and gar­den tools are all exam­ples of products.

Tap Con­fig­ure Prod­ucts to go to its view which has the fol­low­ing sections:

All Prod­ucts: Tap All Prod­ucts to view all prod­ucts defined within Life­Topix. To add a prod­uct to Life­Topix, tap Add or tap  in the title bar. To mod­ify a prod­uct, tap that prod­uct, make your desired changes, then tap Save. To delete a prod­uct, tap that prod­uct and then tap  at the bot­tom of the view.

Cat­e­gories for Prod­ucts: Cat­e­gories are avail­able for use with prod­ucts. You can cre­ate, mod­ify, hide, or delete cat­e­gories via Life­Topix Set­tings or directly from the Cat­e­gories for Prod­ucts sec­tion by tap­ping the Edit but­ton. When a prod­ucts cat­e­gory is deleted, it is com­pletely removed from Life­Topix. When a prod­ucts cat­e­gory is hid­den, it no longer appears in the Cat­e­gories for Prod­ucts sec­tion, but it remains defined in Life­Topix and is still avail­able in the cat­e­gory list when you are defin­ing a new prod­uct. Note that prod­ucts cat­e­gories that are in use or serve as touch­points to another topic can­not be deleted or hidden.

To cre­ate a new prod­ucts cat­e­gory, go to the Quick Menu and tap , and then tap Man­age Cat­e­gories. Tap Prod­ucts in the list.

To mark a Prod­ucts cat­e­gory hid­den, or to mod­ify its name or descrip­tion, tap the category’s , then tap OFF for to tog­gle it to ON.

To delete a Prod­ucts cat­e­gory, swipe to delete in the Man­age Cat­e­gories view.

Tap a cat­e­gory in the Cat­e­gories for Prod­ucts sec­tion to go to the prod­ucts view for that cat­e­gory. If there are no prod­ucts and no sub­cat­e­gories defined in that cat­e­gory, help appears in order to get you started. If there are prod­ucts defined in that cat­e­gory, they are all shown in a sec­tion whose behav­ior is described in the All Prod­ucts sec­tion above. If there are sub­cat­e­gories defined in that cat­e­gory, they are all shown in a sec­tion whose behav­ior is described imme­di­ately above.

Con­fig­ure Sellers

A “seller” is a ven­dor, per­son, or store from whom you pur­chase a prod­uct or ser­vice. Your gar­dener, local gro­cery store, Costco, and Star­bucks are all exam­ples of sellers.

Con­fig­ure Sell­ers is a touch­point to the Seller cat­e­gory of Ser­vice Providers in the Peo­ple + Ser­vices topic. Sell­ers defined here appear as ser­vice providers with a cat­e­gory of Seller in the Peo­ple + Ser­vices topic.

Tap Con­fig­ure Sell­ers to go to its view which has the fol­low­ing sections:

Sell­ers: This sec­tion con­tains all the sell­ers from the Seller cat­e­gory of Ser­vice Providers in the Peo­ple + Ser­vices topic. Sell­ers are sorted alpha­bet­i­cally by default. Tap Sort to to alter­nate between sort­ing sell­ers by date mod­i­fied (with the most recently mod­i­fied ones first) and alpha­bet­i­cally. Each seller includes the seller’s title, its rat­ing, its con­tact infor­ma­tion, and either its cat­e­gory or update time, depend­ing on which sort mode is cur­rently active. To define a new seller, tap Add in the sec­tion header or tap  in the title bar. To edit a seller, tap it, mod­ify the set­tings, and tap Save. To delete a seller, tap it and then tap  at the bot­tom of the view.

Ser­vice Providers: Tap Ser­vice Providers to view all sell­ers defined within the Seller cat­e­gory of Ser­vice Providers in the Peo­ple + Ser­vices topic and all of its sub­cat­e­gories. To define a new seller, tap Add in the sec­tion header or tap  in the title bar of the Seller view. To edit a seller, tap it, mod­ify the set­tings, and tap Save. To delete a seller, tap it and then tap  at the bot­tom of the view.

Sub­cat­e­gories for Seller Ser­vice Providers: Cat­e­gories are avail­able for use with sell­ers. If there are no sub­cat­e­gories for sell­ers defined, this sec­tion will con­tain the Tap to add: Cat­e­gory but­ton. If there are sub­cat­e­gories for sell­ers defined, you can cre­ate, mod­ify, hide, or delete cat­e­gories via Life­Topix Set­tings or directly from the Sub­cat­e­gories for Seller Ser­vice Providers sec­tion by tap­ping the Edit but­ton and then tap­ping the category’s . When a sell­ers cat­e­gory is deleted, it is com­pletely removed from Life­Topix. When a sell­ers cat­e­gory is hid­den, it no longer appears in the Sub­cat­e­gories for Seller Ser­vice Providers sec­tion, but it remains defined in Life­Topix and is still avail­able in the cat­e­gory list when you are defin­ing a new seller. Note that sell­ers cat­e­gories that are in use or serve as touch­points to another topic can­not be deleted or hidden.

To delete a sell­ers cat­e­gory, swipe to delete in the Man­age Cat­e­gories view.

Tap a cat­e­gory in the Sub­cat­e­gories for Seller Ser­vice Providers sec­tion to go to the sell­ers view for that cat­e­gory. If there are no sell­ers and no sub­cat­e­gories defined in that cat­e­gory, help appears in order to get you started. If there are sell­ers defined in that cat­e­gory, they are all shown in a sec­tion whose behav­ior is described in the All Sell­ers sec­tion above. If there are sub­cat­e­gories defined in that cat­e­gory, they are all shown in a sec­tion whose behav­ior is described imme­di­ately above.

11 Comments


  1. Alyix
    Jan 30, 2013

    Hello! I have set up a check list for each day of the week with that par­tic­u­lar days chores on it, ex. Thurs­day has a check list for shop­ping. I have also set up tasks with the name of each day of the week, recur­ring, to show up on the home page under today, tomor­row, next 7 days. I have tried and tried to attach that weeks gro­cery list to both the check­list and tasks for Thurs­day. I have asso­ci­ated and con­text every­thing under “me” and “shop­ping” but I can­not get the check­list or the task to asso­ciate with that weeks gro­cery list. I tried set­ting up the task as a project, House­hold Chores, but that didn’t work either and started to get con­fus­ing. I was able to get the check list and tasks to merge together, now if I could just get my shop­ping list onboard. What is the best way to do this? Also, I can choose more than one con­text such as “me” and “shop­ping”, but I can­not choose more than one asso­ciate such as “shop­ping” and “chores” together. Is there a way around this?


    • LifeTopix Support
      Jan 30, 2013

      Hi Alyix,

      Thank you for reach­ing out to us with your question.

      You are cor­rect that cur­rently there is no direct way to asso­ciate a shop­ping list with a task or check­list. This is some­thing we plan to work on in the future. For now you could use a project to han­dle your sce­nario as a project sup­ports tasks, check­lists & shop­ping items. For exam­ple from the home Agenda view you can tap on a task and, from from the right panel in the task details, tap on the asso­ci­ated project that has the shop­ping list. Each of your recur­ring tasks will point to the same project and to the same shop­ping list (A project only allows for one shop­ping list).

      Best regards,
      Team LightArrow


      • Alyix
        Jan 30, 2013

        Thank you for your quick replies and help to all of my many questions…you all are the best!


  2. Dave Brown
    Jan 26, 2013

    Yuck, what hap­pened to Gifts, I was frus­trated pre­vi­ously, because of the way it worked. Now I can’t edit the Gift received or given at all. For exam­ple, my wife gave me a t-shirt, which I had con­fig­ured pre­vi­ously. Now it show as gift received, but when I look at details, I can’t find the entry for t-shirt. If I add a new gift received, they’re is no way to select the prod­uct, seller etc. All I can do is add it in the descrip­tion. Wow becom­ing more frus­trated with this aspect. It wasn’t good before, now it’s com­pletely use­less. What good if I can’t add a prod­uct, seller, except as a shop­ping item and then at that it never saves it, never shows up.

    Totally frus­trated, can you pro­vide instruc­tions as to how to Add a Gift, from some­one, prod­uct t shirt, seller LL bean, and have it show up.


    • LightArrow
      Jan 27, 2013

      Hi Dave,
      We apol­o­gize for the con­fu­sion. Here are the steps:
      In Gifts for Oth­ers or Gifts Received, please tap on the + to add a gift, select the “Recip­i­ent” or “From”, and then tap the Cre­ate and Add More Data cell.
      You can now add one or more shop­ping items to the gift by tap­ping on the “Add Item” but­ton at the bot­tom (you can also add tasks, reminders, notes, check­lists, etc. to the gift).
      Once you have added a shop­ping item to the gift, the empty “Add Item” cell area will now show a shop­ping list icon with the num­ber of items you have, for easy access directly to the shop­ping items.
      You can fully con­fig­ure prod­uct, seller, etc. You can also select your exist­ing shop­ping item and reat­tach it to the proper gift.
      Ear­lier, we did not have a direct con­nec­tion between a gift and its shop­ping item, and only sup­ported one prod­uct. Now, we sup­port a full shop­ping list for the gift. if you have a due date fot the gift, the shop­ping list picks that up, and allows you to see the gift shop­ping list in your Agenda view based on its due date.
      We made the gift fea­ture more pow­er­ful and flex­i­ble — we apol­o­gize for not mak­ing the shop­ping items part more obvi­ous.
      Team LightArrow


  3. Emiro Molina
    Jan 23, 2013

    Hi, great app. I am using an iPad 2. I would like to email a list but there is no but­ton to do it, nei­ther in shop­ping lists nor in any task list! Surely Imam doing some­thing wrong. How can I copy or email a list, e.g., a shop­ping list?. I updated the app today.
    Thank­ing you in advance,
    Emiro Molina


    • LifeTopix Support
      Jan 23, 2013

      Hi Emiro,

      Thank you for reach­ing out to us with your ques­tion and for your kind comment.

      You can email the shop­ping list by open­ing the details of the shop­ping list and from the right side panel tap­ping the email icon under the “Dis­cuss” section.

      The fol­low­ing steps will show how this can be done:
      1. From the Life­Topix dash­board tap on “My Top­ics” from the left side.
      2. Tap on the “Shop­ping” topic
      3. Tap on “Shop­ping Lists”. You will be pre­sented with a list of your shop­ping lists.
      4. Tap the down­ward fac­ing green arrow to the right of the shop­ping list you wish to email. You will be pre­sented with a few options for the shop­ping list.
      5. Tap on the “Details” options to view the details of the shop­ping list.
      6. On the right side of the detail view you will see a panel with a sec­tion named “Dis­cuss”. Tap on the icon to email the shop­ping list.

      Alter­na­tively, you can email the items of a shop­ping list by open­ing the details of the shop­ping list and from the right side panel tap­ping on the email icon under the “Export” section.

      Best regards,
      Team LightArrow


      • Emiro Molina
        Jan 25, 2013

        Thanks very much for the prompt replay! Great ser­vice! I would like to sug­gest the addi­tion of an item in the menu that dis­plays on the bot­tom left hand cor­ner so that you can copy or send any list you are look­ing at: a project list, a task list, a shop­ping list, etc. Any way, thanks very much for your answer. I sent the list to my wife and now she has the list in her life­topix! Great.


        • LightArrow
          Jan 25, 2013

          Thanks, Emiro! We’ll take the sug­ges­tion to the devel­op­ers and we’ll inves­ti­gate ways to sup­port that.
          Best regards,
          Team LightArrow


  4. Brian
    Dec 30, 2012

    Hi,
    Great app! For shop­ping, I have both house­hold and gro­cery items I want to get at Costco. I’ve iden­ti­fied Costco as the seller for the items. How do I view by ven­dor so I just have a Costco list and not have to look at a Gro­cery list and House­hold list?


    • LifeTopix Support
      Dec 30, 2012

      Hi Brian,

      Thank you for reach­ing out to us with your question.

      To view your shop­ping items by seller go to the Shop­ping topic and tap on “All Shop­ping Items”. In this view you will be pre­sented with all the shop­ping items you have entered into Life­Topix. Tap on “Seller” on the fil­ter con­trol located right above the list. This will present you with all your shop­ping items grouped by their seller.

      Best regards,
      Team LightArrow

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