Retailers Go Green: Ditching Paper And Emailing Receipts

Apple customers have been used to it for years, but now more retailers are following in the tech giant's footsteps by emailing receipts to their customers.

Big chain stores including Nordstrom and Gap have started offering e-receipts over the past few months and even small business are starting to embrace the environmentally friendly option as well, reports USA Today.

In five years, up to 60 percent of retailers will go paperless, a Nordstrom spokesman told The Boston Herald.

Those who can't stand keeping a wallet full of receipts will be thrilled, but some consumers won't see this as a good move. It takes more time as cashiers have to ask each customer for their email address and some view it as a ploy to market online directly to customers, says USA Today.

It's part of a growing effort by retailers to electronically reach out to consumers via their smartphones and computers. They send emails and text messages alerting consumers to deals. They have websites and Facebook pages and smartphone apps --all aimed at making the store more than just a bricks-and-mortar shop. Typically, emailed receipts will contain offers for consumers to receive coupons and other deals from retailers in the near future.

But customers shouldn't worry about stores abusing their email addresses, as it's a service that's more about offering something the customer will appreciate, John Talbott, assistant director of Indiana University's Center for Education and Research in Retailing told USA Today.

In 2008 Best Buy and Target began testing AllEtronic to provide customers with emailed receipts. The company boasts their service as "green" for helping to save the trees felled for about 600,00 tons of thermal receipt paper used by stores each year. And it takes 15 trees, 19,000 gallons of water and 390 gallons of oil to make one ton of paper, the company told CNET.

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Comments

[NewHope360]

05:25 PM on 08/29/2011

Everything's got a downside. Save on paper, risk angering a customer who would rather not have more inbox clutter (isn't pressing delete easier than finding a recycling bin for your paper?). This wasn't on our list of 12 budget-friendly, sustainability tips for natural retailers. (http://newhope360.com/sustainability/12-budget-friendly-sustainability-tips-natural-retailers) Austin-based in.gredients is doing this, but then again it's aiming to be the first package-free and zero-waste store in the U.S.

[loki]

04:47 PM on 07/11/2011

considering most receipts are printed on thermal paper, and since you need your original receipt to return and turn in for warranties, even extended warranties, its a shock when you pull out your receipt a year later and see all the printing is gone! I discovered this after a walmart employee told my oldest daughter who just bought a PSP with extra warranty, that she'd best xerox her receipt as it will be gone in a few weeks.
Personally, most extra warranties are jokes, but Ive had a few that made it worth while. But you have to read the fine print to make sure first. Which I admit I have not always done and have wasted money.

[StuffMoreStuff]

01:24 PM on 07/11/2011

I'd love more spam, don't get enough of it as it is...

[Subsoil73]

11:33 AM on 07/11/2011

So when the beeper goes off at the door - how do you prove you paid for the merchandise?

[justduckygal]

06:11 PM on 07/11/2011

I asked someone I worked with (in a retail store, where we email receipts) this very same question. He didn't have an answer.
If you paid cash and had your receipt emailed, there's gonna be trouble.

[ArnoldZiffle]

10:21 PM on 07/10/2011

I have no problem with this.

[LightShadow62]

08:29 PM on 07/10/2011

This provides a way for these companies to collect contact data on their customers and gives them a cheap advertising pipeline. Not to mention, though I will anyway, the money they can make selling the data they collect.

[plaidsportcoat]

12:23 AM on 07/12/2011

I know, huh?
No thanks, not till they fix that. It can be done, if everyone has an anonymized receipt-receiving email account.

[Jake Green]

07:17 PM on 07/10/2011

I love the new emailed receipt option! It's a much much easier way to stay organized.

[vaygollybum]

04:34 PM on 07/10/2011

When I was young and went to the grocery store, I got a little receipt a little over an inch wide and how ever long was needed to list your groceries. The other day I got 4 items and the receipt was 4 inches wide and 20 INCHES long. Then they started printing coupons and printing, and printing and printing. I literally ended up with 17 FEET of paper. Most of the coupons were for things that I never use. It was one of those stores that you run their special card and you get a discount on their special items anyhow. The coupons were the MANAFACTORS coupons.

[loki]

04:49 PM on 07/11/2011

citi mortgage is putting ads in their monthly statements mailed out now too. Its ridiculous.

[demilieu]

03:37 PM on 07/10/2011

Green is natural once business finds it can save some green by doing it. So, it's encouraging.

[dadw5boys]

01:51 PM on 07/10/2011

But you have to print out the coupons to use them or the reciept for exchange.

[Jake Green]

07:16 PM on 07/10/2011

Not true. If you have a smartphone, or any phone where you can access your email, you can just pull it up on screen for them.

[Howmanyreally]

01:17 PM on 07/10/2011

Tell them you don't have a computer.

[Jacquel Chiraco]

11:30 AM on 07/10/2011

Just another marketing ploy to reach the customers that only benefits the stores. The "savings" do not got to the customers. My advice: create a receipts only email address that has no contacts, phone number, etc... to give the stores that ask for it.

[mzrecycle]

02:17 PM on 07/10/2011

I use an old email address just for companies who insist they must have one (and intend on sending regular emails with "offers". I've done my part by giving a real email address, then I never open it.

[plaidsportcoat]

12:25 AM on 07/12/2011

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Anonymize it somehow provable.

[Bluesue]

11:27 AM on 07/10/2011

I shop at one store that is phasing these in - you still get a paper receipt and an electronic receipt shows up in your email. It came in handy one time when I wanted to return something and couldn't find the paper receipt.

[jdwlor]

10:53 AM on 07/10/2011

I can see it now every time you use your phone or go to the internet it will take a half hour to go through all the useless adds that you will never use And if anyone thinks it's going to be any other way lol

[AZLibDem]

10:29 AM on 07/10/2011

Paper receipts are can be recycled, are difficult to forge for the average person, and once printed, is permanent for the necessary time period.

Electronic receipts use energy every time they are accessed, and are simpler to forge which means more need for verification at time of return.

While it might be cheaper for the retailer, I would need to see better numbers before I accept that it is better for the environment.

[justduckygal]

06:25 PM on 07/11/2011

I don't see why electronic receipts would be easier to forge- they still contain a barcode like the standard paper receipt.
Another thing to consider before you swear off the e-receipts: Paper receipts often contain high levels of cancer-causing BPA. Some of these cashiers are getting exposed repeatedly to toxic chemicals just by touching paper all day.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20011903-10391704.html

[AZLibDem]

11:22 PM on 07/11/2011

No doubt; however, how many carcinogens are produced powering all of the cellphones and computers needed to maintain all of the "paperless" initiatives?