Be more organized. Burn less fossil fuel. Spend more time with family and friends. All good goals as we enter the New Year. Two shopping apps in Ovi Store address all three: organize your shopping trips better and you’ll feel more organized, consume less fuel returning to the store for something you forgot, and spend less time on errands and more time with the people you care about.

Shoppy from Inova IT lets you share shopping tasks with friends and family, while Shopping List from INdT is a bit easier to use and requires no data connection. Both apps are compatible with Nokia’s touch-enabled smartphones. I tested them on my Nokia N8.

The first release of Shoppy won honors in the 2009 Forum Nokia Hackathon, so let’s start by looking at how the app helps you manage and share shopping lists. The process begins with a quick registration to the Shoppy web service so you can access your lists anywhere and share your lists with friends and family.

Free registration allows you to share lists with family and friends.

Registration requires minimum information.

With registration complete, you log in once and the Shoppy app remembers you. Now you can create shopping lists. One screen creates lists with whatever names you choose, then the next screen allows you to populate the lists with whatever items you need to purchase.

Create and name lists anyway you choose.

Then populate the lists with whatever items you need.

Now it’s time to shop. Check off items as you put them in your cart by touching the check box. If, for example, your partner decides you put the wrong red wine in the cart, just touch the check box again to uncheck.

Note that there is no easy way (that I found) to note a partial purchase. So, for example, if you need 5 stalks of celery and there are only 3 good ones in the shop, you only have the option of marking “celery” as purchased or not.

Check off items as you place them in your cart.

A quick check of your lists shows how many items are on the list and how many have been purchased.

Quick view shows what you have and what you need.

Because your lists are stored on the developer’s web service, you can access your list from anywhere with a web connection. Point your desktop browser to the Shoppy web site to see, update, or create your lists anywhere you have Internet access.

Access your lists from anywhere with an Internet connection

The web service allows you to share lists with friends and family: you pick up the wine and let your partner buy the steaks. While you are shopping you work with data on your Nokia smartphone, so you don’t need a constant web connection just to shop. When you choose, sync your data with the web site.

Sync your data with the web service or invite friends to help with the shopping chores.

Inviting friends to share your lists is easy. Ask them to sign up for the free service, then search for their name from the Friends tab.

Invite friends to share your shopping chores.

I like Shoppy because it gives me complete list flexibility: I add what I want and call items what I choose. Once I set up a list I recycle it: for example after I put the groceries away I can return to it (in Shop mode) and merely uncheck items as I consume them.

In reading the Ovi Store reviews of Shoppy, I notice that some people don’t like the required registration with the Shoppy web site, usually because they don’t care about the sharing features. If that sounds like you, then I can suggest Shopping List from INdT.

The first screen in Shopping List 2.1 gets right to the point: one tap and you’re adding items to your list.

One tap from the opening screen and you're creating your list.

In keeping with the “get right to the point” design of Shopping List, you start building your lists by selecting items from their pre-loaded categories. All the basics are there, though they may not be called what you call them. Any items you don’t see in the category you can add.

Select items from the pre-loaded list, or create your own.

Any items you add to a category you can remove from the category, but you cannot remove pre-loaded items. You also cannot edit items, which I find a problem. If you don’t like what an item is called, or if you misspell something, your only choice is to create a new item and either delete the previous one you created or ignore the one that came with Shopping List.

You can delete any items you add to a category.

Your shopping list does not distinguish between items you created and items that come pre-loaded.

Looking at this review I’m a bit surprised at how much I wrote about such a simple task. But then, putting food on the table is a highly personal process. I like the way Shoppy works: it’s flexible and collaborative. I find Shopping List too restrictive: I can’t edit items, I can’t specify quantities, and I can’t manage more than one list. Some reviewers commenting on Ovi Store obviously feel exactly the opposite: they don’t like the way Shoppy requires a registration and an Internet connection.

That’s the great thing about Ovi Store and your Nokia smartphone. You choose the apps that work (or play) the way you want.

If your New Year’s resolutions can be helped by a shopping app, you have two great free choices in Ovi Store. Shoppy if you want control and collaboration; and Shopping List if you want super easy.