Dive Brief:

• The ShopSavvy mobile app has been updated with a new feature that enables product recommendations from more than 450 product categories, according to a ShopSavvy press release.

• The newly-upgraded app also includes a discovery section where consumers can browse for gift ideas and find deals, the company said. The company is also launching a new website with similar capabilities.

• The app, which has been owned and operated by digital marketplace firm Purch since that company’s 2015 acquisition of ShopSavvy, already included features such as a price scanner, reviews for best picks and a finder for deals and cash back bonuses.

Dive Insight:

The days before Black Friday aren’t just a time for pre-Black Friday sales. They also now serve as a spotlit platform for launching the latest in e-commerce and mobile shopping apps and features for consumers to try out as the holiday madness begins.

In recent days, we've seen a gift-themed Messenger chatbot from Saks and adoption of an e-gifting service by Athleta and Banana Republic. And now comes an update to one of the most popular shopping apps (according to its 30 million downloads to date) not operated by a retailer.

ShopSavvy has been complicating the lives of retailers and brands for awhile — allowing shoppers to scan barcodes in-store to see if they could find a specific product elsewhere with a cheaper price tag. It's popularity grew on the notion that shoppers were already using their mobile phones to search for product information and prices in a somewhat looser, less organized way. ShopSavvy made that process easier and clearer, and retailers certainly benefited, especially those who also had their online and in-store deals featured in the apps. Still, at times, retailers have likely had to grit their teeth and understand that you win some, and you lose others.

Offering up product recommendations from a variety of categories immediately brings greater value to the ShopSavvy app. Also, it should only further complicate retailers' feelings about the app, as it helps deliver on the sort of personalized shopping experience that retailers and brands are trying to enable in their own apps and on their own websites.

This holiday shopping period is expected to be a massive one for mobile shopping. ShopSavvy's tool helps bring shoppers closer to a purchase, and retailers will take those sales however they can get them. But, retailers looking to beef up their own mobile app features this holiday season may need to accept the possibility that an independent shopping app is stealing a little bit of their thunder.