Sunday 19 July 2009

Digital receipts: Why don't stores offer them

I just had a problem returning a few items I bought from a store all because I didn't have the paper receipt. Part of life you'd say. Well normally you just get vouchers or something right. This store didn't do that. Oh the pain.

Anyway I realised what really erked me. On the web this doesn't happen cos I get a receipt mailed to me. I just store it somewhere. Search for it when I need it and email or print as needed. None of these problems.

So why don't stores do something like this. I get that they'd be worried about forgeries or something but I feel it's easy enough to fake a paper receipt so I'm not sure that's a good reasson. There are probably valid reasons why this isn't is in place but my point is what are stores doing to make it easy for me to prove my purchase. What are these high street stores doing to compete with web stores on this front.

Now I actually feel more confident with a web store cos I have definite proof and I can just archive the recepit and search for it. With paper stuff I just find it burns a hole in my wallet and gets ruined.

It's just so out dated.

So what could stores do to help. Maybe text me the main details. Send me a mail. I don't know. But these are ideas

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Col,

I feel your pain! I work with a company called alletronic and we offer exactly what you were referring to in your blog post - a digital receipt service for retailers.

Here's how it works. First, you create a free account with us www.alletronic.com. Then, you can "link" a debit/credit card or a phone number to your account (we only require a partial credit/debit number, which eliminates security issues). The next time you pay for an item using a linked card (or phone number if you pay with cash), your digital receipt will instantly appear in your account at www.alletronic.com. From here, you can sort your receipts into specific categories (e.g. groceries, clothes, medical, etc).

As far as returns, you wouldn't need to bring any kind of receipt back to the retailer. They can pull up your receipt on their end and perform a paperless return. We offer a bunch of other services as well that I won't go into since it doesn't pertain to your post.

Anyway, if you want to check us out visit www.alletronic.com. We're also on twitter (www.twitter.com/alletronic) and facebook (www.facebook.com/alletronic). Feel free to contact me at mike@alletronic.com if you have any other questions.

-Mike

Colin said...

That's fantastic Mike. Sounds exactly what I want. So I tried signing up. Problem is I'm in the uk so it didn't recognise my postcode. Do you guys support the UK or do you know of any one who does?

Many thanks

Col

alletronic said...

Hey Col,

I apologize for the delayed response. Thanks for checking out our site. Yes, we do have the capability to support UK retailers and are working to resolve the postal code error. I'll be sure to let you know when we have a solution.

Cheers,

Mike