Digital Receipts via Email

Some merchants allow customers to receive digital receipts via email. Why can’t everyone?

The Benefits of Digital Receipts

Toys R Us is a surprisingly tech-savvy store chain. They allow NFC tap and pay, and you can even have receipts sent to your inbox instead of getting a paper copy. For me, this is amazing. First and foremost, it gives me something that I’m far less likely to lose. If I get a paper receipt, I usually just throw it in the bag with my merchandise. For items that I may need to return, I’ll put the receipt in my wallet. Either way, it usually gets lost or thrown away within a day or two. By opting for an email, I have a semi-permanent record of my purchase that I can’t exactly lose, and I can even search my email for later. Unless I delete the email, which I rarely delete emails, I have records of basically any purchase I’ve made at Toys R Us within the past few years.

In addition to giving me a digital record of my purchase that I can easily find later, email receipts are more private and secure. While there isn’t much valuable information on a receipt, keeping them exclusively in my inbox means nobody can access any of the information except for me. Where I might leave a paper receipt on the dash of my vehicle or drop it in the parking lot, an email receipt is kept behind my login credentials in a place that only I will see.

As an environmental benefit, digital receipts reduce the amount of paper used for a transaction. No, a single receipt isn’t going to make a huge difference. However, if larger stores like Toys R Us were to eventually migrate all receipts to digital, I’m certain it would have a fairly large impact on environmental conservation. If other chain stores follow suit, it could add up to a potentially huge reduction of paper, and thus fewer trees chopped down for paper. Not to mention, the merchants themselves would save money on the cost of paper.

The Problem with Digital Receipts

So, how does Toys R Us know that I want an emailed receipt? I have a Toys R Us account, and my preferences indicate that I want a digital receipt, and where I want it sent. When I get to the register at Toys R Us, I give them my phone number to look up my account, and then they know what to do.

Not all merchants allow digital receipts. In fact, I would say that more probably don’t than do. Even if more merchants did offer digital receipts, I need an account with each store to have my email and preferences indicated. The alternative would be to physically input my email address for every single transaction, everywhere I go. That’s not going to happen, especially with a line of impatient people behind me.

Even if I could open an account with every store that I regularly shop at, do I necessarily want them to have my email address? Toys R Us is bad about sending deals and junk email, but I can fortunately turn that off. What about stores that make spam emails harder to opt out of? Even worse, what about merchants that might sell my contact information to advertisers? I don’t want an inbox full of advertising just to get receipts by email rather than paper.

The Solution for Digital Receipts

While it doesn’t cover all of the logistics around implementation, I do have an idea for a solution to get digital receipts at every store: handle it at the credit card level. While many consumers do still use cash, I would wager that the majority of transactions in the United States are probably paid with credit or debit cards. If every major credit card company would allow users to receive receipts in their inbox, rolling this functionality out to each individual merchant would probably be feasible.

Most credit card users likely have an online account with their company to pay their bill online or check statements. With this account, users could indicate a receipt email, possibly not even the same email that the account uses. Additionally, users could select a preference for digital receipts, paper receipts, or both. This central hub would mean that anywhere I use my credit card, merchants would automatically know what I want.

Since there are only a few credit card companies in the United States, it shouldn’t be difficult to implement a standard and universal system. I say that, but xkcd has a good example of how standards in technology normally go. In any case, if there were a single standard, only a few companies would have to adopt it.

How would this take place? The customer goes to a merchant, be it retail, restaurant, professional services, or anything else. Merchant opens up a transaction for the customer to pay. Customer swipes or inserts credit card, exactly as things work now. When the merchant bills the transaction to the credit card company, they would send payment as well as the customer’s receipt preferences. At this point, the transaction is paid like normal, and the merchant’s point-of-sale system would know whether to print or email a receipt to the customer.

An added benefit of this system is that the user’s email address can be decoupled from the transaction. The merchant can send the digital receipt to the credit card company, linked only to my credit card number. The credit card company could then send my receipt to the email on file. This gives added security, since the merchant never sees my personal information. Merchants can’t send spam emails, or sell customer data to other advertisers.

If this caught on with most merchants and credit card companies, receipts for any credit card transactions would be available in a single place. Any sort of tax deductions, reimbursements, or anything involving receipts would be far easier. Instead of filing receipts away for every purchase you make, your credit card company and email service do it for you.

Yet another benefit would be fraud notice. If every merchant sends digital receipts, then an unexpected purchase email would be a clear indicator of credit card fraud. Instead of looking over statements each month, users would immediately know when a thief used their credit card. Inevitably, this would reduce the time and hassle around reporting a stolen credit card, or the risk of not noticing the stolen card.

Obviously, this would require work from several different parties. Merchants and credit card companies alike would need to agree on a standard and work on developing the hardware and software to accompany it. However, I feel like the benefits significantly outweigh the costs. While I don’t know of a way that I could personally help bring this into practice, I definitely want it to become a reality. Paper receipts are an old practice, and I genuinely believe digital receipts are the all-around superior option.