Need to exchange that sale item but don't have the receipt?

An ingenious application of the humble transactional email is the electronic retail receipt. How many times have you wanted to exchange a purchase, only to find that the receipt has disappeared into the black hole that is your wallet?

Enter digital retail receipts

Picture yourself at the checkout point in your favourite department store, arms full of January sale items or unwanted Christmas gifts...

Sound crazy?

Not to the big brand stores that are already operating a paperless receipt service. According to the New York Times , you will be offered an electronic receipt when you shop at stores such as Apple, Sears, Kmart, Gap and Banana Republic. And it's not the first time this concept has made headlines. But what's driving this renewed interest in electronic till slips?

For the retailer:

• Going paperless - digital receipts bolster a business's environmental efforts
• Cost reduction - reducing paper and printing costs is a major benefit for margin-sensitive retailers
• Future view - coupled with cellphone payment processes, the digital receipt rounds off a totally mobile, electronic process
• Marketing – perhaps the most attractive benefit is that the retailer now has your email address

For you, the consumer:

• Easy storage – no more wads of paper slips stuck in the zip pocket of your handbag or stuffed into a drawer in your study
• Searchable – no more rifling through said handbag and/or drawer to locate a receipt
• Sendable – bought a gift for a friend who wants to exchange it?
• Easy – send them the digital receipt (make sure there are no embarrassing purchases on the same receipt!)

Of course there are challenges and concerns around queue delays, fraud, data errors and privacy, but none of them compelling enough to offset the obvious benefits. As consumers store more and more of their daily interactions electronically (bills, policies, contracts, payment confirmations, paystubs), it makes perfect sense that retail receipts should follow suit.

And think about the convenience when it comes to filing your tax return. Instead of rifling through the shoebox of till slips, you have a folder in your email application in which you have stored all of your deductible expense receipts. What a relief.

Just remember to back up your email records!

Alison Treadaway
striata.com