British retailers are “failing to follow the digital lead” set by US counterparts and are wasting £32m every year by dispensing paper receipts.
By contrast, increasing numbers of US retailers, including Apple, Sears, Kmart, Gap, Banana Republic, Best Buy and Old Navy, routinely issue digital receipts to their customers, an approach that is said to save money while simultaneously opening new marketing opportunities.
Research by receipt processing and management service ExpenseMagic discovered that approximately 11.2 billion paper receipts are generated every year in the UK, at a cost of £32m.
“The use of e-receipts here in the UK is still in its infancy – compared to the US our retailers look Luddite,” said Adam O’Kane, co-founder of ExpenseMagic. “There, the paper receipt is rapidly coming to the end of the roll, yet British companies are wasting millions of pounds and iissing out on valuable marketing opportunities by using them.
“Strategically, consumers are changing the way they’re shopping and are using technology like their mobile phone to pay for purchases.
“Increasing numbers of retailers are looking into mobile payments, and inevitably this practice will drive the convergence to digital receipts.”
Beyond the cost savings and environmental benefits, digital receipts stored on hard drives can significantly improve accounting standards and the management of expense claims.
“Paper receipts can be annoying, burrowing into the bottoms of wallets and purses or getting lost in cardboard boxes and filing cabinets, only to be pulled out and puzzled over long after their usefulness has expired,” said O’Kane.
“Last year, British SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) missed out on claiming £2bn of legitimate expenses simply because of the sloppy and haphazard way they manage and process them.”
Digital receipts also present digital marketing opportunities for retailers. “Many stores in the US add the customer’s e-mail address to a mailing list for follow-up offers,” said O’Kane. “All this data can really help retailers generate and retain a sense of loyalty with their customers – something no retailer can take for granted in the current economic environment.”
Source: ExpenseMagic
REALLY????
UK RETAIL INDUSTRY = APPROX £300 BILLION
£32 MILLION = 0.01% OF TURNOVER
one hundredth of a percent!!!!
INSIGNIFICANT
Terry O’Brian – sometimes, focusing on 100 things that save us £1 each is better time spent than searching around for that one allusive thing to save us £100.
Electronic receipts is happening and it’s one of the many small baby steps to moving away from traditional over the counter shopping altogether; not now for sure, but it’s coming.
The real challenge for businesses, in my opinion is marketing the service correctly. Consumers are scared of giving away their personal details, so businesses must be transparent, talk about tailored and relevant offers that by its very definition minimizes spam, talk about data security with independent bodies, etc.
Whilst one can argue that paperless receipts save tress and save money. That is cause for debate. I think the biggest saving is in hardware. But one must consider that if the world uses digital storage for receipting that is an enormous amount of data-traffic requiring huge data-centers and ultimately power to run them.
On the other-hand:
Digital receipts are key to the evolution of retail. They open the doorway to the consumer opting in on a number of service channels that both the service provider and the merchant can offer the consumer.
I am founder of a new start-up Tillify.com. We are launching web-based-point-of-sale for smart devices such as Ipad and Android Tablets, for stores and restaurants. We see the digital receipt as key to our platform succeeding and for our merchants to succeed as well. The entire transaction process is under the microscope and our platform looks at new ways consumers and merchants can interact. The transaction receipt is a large part of that.
The key to consumers welcoming digital receipts is the process that they opt in to receive them each time they make a transaction.
Martin Webb