Are You Cool With Electronic Store Receipts?
SodaHead News
2011/08/09 14:10:56
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How many hours have you wasted rifling through your files in search for that receipt you know you put in the August folder so you can return that stupid shirt you bought that seemed like a good idea at the time? Sometimes you catch a break and the store will give you credit, but what if there was an easier way to keep track of your proof of purchase?
There is, actually, and a lot more retailers are using it. Following in the footsteps of Apple stores, The New York Times reports that major retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Nordstrom, Gap Inc., Anthropologie, Patagonia, Sears and Kmart, have started offering electronic receipts that are either e-mailed or uploaded to password-protected Web sites.
And more and more customers are agreeing to go paperless because searchable e-receipts are easy to keep track of on a computer and come in handy during tax season. While e-receipts were a brief fad in the 1990s, the dot-com crash snuffed the trend out, but Apple's success has inspired others to follow suit.
And some retail experts think that once cellphones are used more widely for payments, e-receipts could make the old paper version go the way of CDs and old-fashioned folding paper maps.
In addition to the cost savings and environmental benefits – nearly 9.6 million trees are cut each year to make receipts – the e-receipts are also a marketing opportunity for retailers to add a customer's e-mail address to a mailing list for follow-up offers. Using their purchasing history, retailers can then send customers customized coupons.
There is, actually, and a lot more retailers are using it. Following in the footsteps of Apple stores, The New York Times reports that major retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Nordstrom, Gap Inc., Anthropologie, Patagonia, Sears and Kmart, have started offering electronic receipts that are either e-mailed or uploaded to password-protected Web sites.
And more and more customers are agreeing to go paperless because searchable e-receipts are easy to keep track of on a computer and come in handy during tax season. While e-receipts were a brief fad in the 1990s, the dot-com crash snuffed the trend out, but Apple's success has inspired others to follow suit.
And some retail experts think that once cellphones are used more widely for payments, e-receipts could make the old paper version go the way of CDs and old-fashioned folding paper maps.
In addition to the cost savings and environmental benefits – nearly 9.6 million trees are cut each year to make receipts – the e-receipts are also a marketing opportunity for retailers to add a customer's e-mail address to a mailing list for follow-up offers. Using their purchasing history, retailers can then send customers customized coupons.
plus, considering how easy it is to steal data off a cell phone, this is just an open invitation to identity thieves
Keeping financial records on a digital only format will make things easier to defraud. Once that's "discovered" there will be a nice big ass chunk of aggression towards the "problem, and that will create more control over everybody's financial records.
Lazyness leaves the door wiiiiide open for freedom suckers.
Don't you hate caring a wallet, my wallet get so fat that it looks half my behind is large than the other half . I carry business cards, receipts, let not forget the credit cards sometime cash wish I hate to carry because I use credit card to pay for everything.
We're becoming too reliant on digital technology.
As I pulled up to the air hose I noticed the end of it was missing, so I drove on by and out of the station without stopping. I didn't get two miles down the road before being pulled over by a police officer as the gas station attendant had placed a 911 call to the police and said I had filled my gas tank and fled. I luckily had a tank of gas that was almost on empty, because I had no other way to prove my innocence. I now get receipts for every gallon of gas I purchase and keep them in my vehicle.
This scenario is not likely to happen the same way today as the pumps here are now pre-pay but, I could see it happening at a retail chain.
Imagine leaving the store with merchandise you just paid cash for and being detained by security and/or arrested because their computer doesn't show a record of the purchases you just made due to a glitch or human entry errors and the store was so busy that the clerk cannot make a positive ID. Think about how many times the clerk was staring off into space or talking to someone else while scanning your items.