Written By: eyos Marketing | Last Updated: January 2023
Today, businesses are ensuring that they consistently innovate to ensure their customers are satisfied, especially when it comes to sustainability.
Businesses are now looking at paper receipts and the many disadvantages they bring. Paper receipt production uses an estimated 12.4 million trees and emits 4 billion pounds of CO2 annually.
Additionally, 90% of paper receipts are coated in BPA or BPS, contributing to a range of health implications including disrupting hormones and nerve signals.
Eliminating paper for receipts has never been so important and that’s why businesses are now adopting a digitalised approach.
Let’s dive in and see why.
Will Paper Receipts Be Phased Out in the EU?
As of 1st January 2023, shops in France will stop handing out paper receipts, unless customers ask for one.
The anti-waste law for a circular economy aims to reduce an estimated 10,600 rolls of thermal paper that are used for receipts.
In the UK, retailers are not required to provide paper receipts. However, customers can still request one or a digital receipt – which is environmentally friendly.
The Netherlands has a similar standpoint to the UK. More stores are now using paper receipts as customers want dematerialised solutions if they request one, such as a digital receipt.
What Are the Benefits of Eliminating Paper Receipts?
The benefits of eliminating paper receipts extend beyond sustainability reasons. With businesses now adopting digital receipts, ditching paper receipts has never been so appealing.
Digital Receipts Increase Efficiency and Save Costs
Sorting through paper receipts and ensuring they’re not lost can be time-consuming and inefficient. Businesses relying on paper receipts are billed for these regularly, as there’s a cost every time a receipt is printed.
A paper receipt costs between five and ten cents to print. This might not sound like a lot, but these costs increase over time. Particularly if the business is doing well and you’re printing receipts all day.
Paper Receipts Are Not Recyclable
Paper receipts might not sound like a huge problem in environmental terms, but they really are. These pieces of paper are printed using harmful chemicals, which means that they can’t be recycled.
They also have a significant carbon footprint, particularly when we consider there are enormous volumes of receipts being printed all the time.
Reducing BPA/BPS Exposure
A chemical called Bisphenol-A, or BPA, is used to print most paper receipts, and when mishandled this chemical can be enormously harmful to both aquatic and human life.
Because of the presence of BPA in paper receipts, billions of receipts now make their way to landfills every single year. And that figure has been rising annually, with seemingly no end in sight.
Improving the Customer Experience
Ditching paper receipts also offer businesses the chance to improve the customer experience. As the results of paper receipts can’t be measured, digital receipts offer a range of opportunities for continuing the customer journey.
More specifically, communication channels can remain open once a purchase has been made. Businesses can use digital receipts to entice customers back to the shop with exclusive deals and promotions.
Digital receipts also make it easy for customers to see which items they purchased before searching for complementary products such as tailor-made accessories or add-ons.
Customers who can easily find out what they need will be far more likely to return for a second purchase, ultimately improving customer retention.
Why Are Top Companies Using Digital Receipts?
Digital receipts can offer a range of benefits for businesses of all sizes. Customers like digital receipts because they can be easily stored in cloud software, unlike paper receipts.
Businesses can use digital receipts to understand the buyer’s behaviour and personalise each touchpoint of their journeys. By personalising a customer journey, businesses can build trust with their buyers and in time, loyalty.
By using offline conversion tracking as a result of digital receipts, New Look were able to boost their in-store sales to £34Mn. This also allowed them to increase their loyalty membership by 60%, so the benefits for businesses can be far-reaching.
Companies can also offer promotions to past customers to make sure every sale is as profitable as possible.
Digital receipts can help businesses can boost their online traffic and strengthen their social media presence. Call to actions can be used on digital receipts to drive interaction links to websites, social media platforms, exclusive events and loyalty programs.
Get Advice on Switching to Digital Receipts
At eyos, we provide retail software solutions that enable brands to identify in-store customers through digital receipts, connecting 100% of in-store transactions to any platform they use in real-time.
Connect in-store transactions to a platform with digital receipts. And that means huge amounts of valuable data at your fingertips – ready and waiting to be put to great use in your next marketing campaign.
If you’d like to find out more about digital receipts and how they work, get in touch with our team.
Additional Reading
The Environmental Cost of Paper Receipts
