SpecsyShopping lists
Share a shopping list with people outside your household
Housemates, a group holiday, a party where six people are bringing things. One invite link, and everyone sees what is already covered.
- Ice, 4 bags
- Taken by Kate
- Prosecco, 6
- Taken by Tom
- Cups and plates
- Still needed
- Playlist speaker
- Taken by Dan
- Total so far
- £112
The group chat is a bad shopping list
Organising who brings what usually happens in a group chat, which means the current state of the list is scattered across forty messages and three people have all said they will bring ice.
The real problem is visibility rather than organisation: nobody can see the current state of the list without scrolling back through the chat.
One shared list fixes that. Specsy sends an invite link in any messenger, and opening it puts that one list on the other person phone, live.
Where a link list works better than a group chat
- Parties, where the question is what is still missing
- Group holidays, where a shared shop is split between several cars
- House shares, where the list belongs to the flat rather than a person
- Helping a parent shop, where they need the same list rather than a screenshot of it
- Office or team events, where the participants change every time
Who owes whom, without the awkward conversation
When several people buy things for a shared event, someone always ends up out of pocket and nobody wants to raise it.
Specsy adds up what each person spent against a shared list and shows the balance, so the settling up is a fact on a screen rather than a conversation someone has to start.
Practical notes on sharing by link
- The invite link works in any messenger, no group chat needed
- It opens that one list in Specsy and nothing else from your account
- Invites expire, and you can stop sharing at any time
- Sensitive cards stay private, only the list you share is visible
- A finished event list can be kept as a template for next year
Questions people ask
Does the other person need the app?
Yes. The invite link opens the list inside Specsy, so it has to be installed. If it is not, the link points to the App Store and works again as soon as they open it a second time.
Does the invite expire?
Yes, invites are time limited, and you can stop sharing at any point. After that the link no longer opens anything.
Can I reuse the list next year?
Yes, copy it and edit. Party lists repeat more than people expect.