The Daily Ping

The 5,000th Ping will be published on September 14, 2013.

June 30th, 2009

No Receipt II

Several years back I talked about the trend of not getting a receipt by default at some stores. This still happens to me, largely at coffee shops, but I wanted to mention a place where it actually works out well: the Apple Store.

The truth of the matter is that having a receipt of some sort is a part of my financial workflow. The Wife and I track our purchases in a budget program (Budget) and adding purchases on a daily or weekly basis requires receipts. Some are actual paper receipts and some are electronic, but having an actual person do the input adds a nice check-and-balance to the system versus trusting Quicken, Mint, etc. to the data.

But if I have the option for an electronic receipt… that’s pretty nice. And that’s what Apple does.

The whole system is really about what you would expect from Apple: high tech enough and maybe a little flashy. The Apple Store doesn’t have a cashier station anymore; individuals have handheld devices that allow them to take debit/credit cards and do receipts on demand. But when checking out one has the option of getting an email receipt.

This, I like. It means I’ll still get the proof of purchase from the retailer, and I don’t have to worry about waiting for it to show up on my online banking record… and not a shard of paper is wasted.

It’d be ideal if this were an option everywhere. And just think, marketeers: you’re getting my email address! For free! How can it be bad?

Posted in Consumer Commentary

What is this then?

The Daily Ping is the web's finest compendium of toilet information and Oreo™® research. Too much? Okay, okay, it's a daily opinion column written by two friends. Did we mention we've been doing this for over ten years? Tell me more!

Most Popular Pings