How Retailers Can Leverage Existing Tech to Offer Digital Receipts to Customers

Given that modern consumers seek convenience yet want their private lives not interfered with, receipt delivery is where improvements should be made in retail today. The standard paper receipts get lost all too often, trashed, or are unwanted. While digital receipts offer not only convenience but also an eco-friendly alternative, a lot of people are still uneasy about giving out sensitive personal information at checkout, like email addresses.

How does it work? A frictionless and fast opt-in for digital receipts without forcing the customer to share any personal information. At ReceiptHero, we believe card-linking or a purely QR code-based solution has the potential to give just that. Below, we’ll demonstrate how major retailers can offer digital receipts with just a QR code after payment at the point of sale using existing technology at the POS.

Why digital receipts matter

Before getting to the how, let’s briefly consider the why. Digital receipts have a lot of advantages:

Convenience: Away went pieces of paper juggling. These could be accessed at any time via devices by your customer.

Sustainability: Paperless results in less environmental waste and fits the recent consumer preference trend for being ‘green’.

Customer Experience: Digital receipts make the return activity, expense tracking, and warranty claims smooth after purchase.

Well, the thing is-a catch-most customers are not willing to disclose personal information, such as their e-mail addresses, for an issue as trivial as a receipt. This is where the employment of QR codes and other innovative solutions comes in.

QR Codes: Fast, Easy, and Powerful

Indeed, QR codes are a lot more effective and privacy-aware in terms of providing digital receipts. Working: On payment by the customer, the retailer flashes a quick response code that one could scan to retrieve the digital receipt inside the web browser. Fast and secure, this is a great method of providing receipts to customers with them not having to give away any private information.

Consequently, the advantages of this technique are obvious:

No personal info required: Customers aren’t required to sign up with an email address, which reduces friction and preserves privacy.

Quick, smooth, and fast: via rapid scanning, the receipt will be at one’s fingertips.

Universally usable: Almost every customer nowadays has a smartphone that can read QR codes; hence, it is highly universal to use.

Using Customer-Facing Display to Present the QR Code

It would be best applied via a customer-facing display at the point of sale. It is quite normal for a number of retailers that already have them at checkout, showing itemized basket details, promotional content, and even dynamic ads. That makes them a perfect spot to show a QR code for digital receipts.

Why this customer-facing display is ideal:

Optimal placing: Usually set at eye level, just beside the clerk hence quite easy for any customer to notice and scan the QR right after he makes a payment.

Nothing more would be needed; the retailer should only use his in-store displays, not deploying any new device.

Improved customer engagement: The same screen can also be used to deliver promotional information, loyalty programs, and any other form of marketing promotion while offering the receipt option.

These can easily be repurposed for dual use in advertisement and delivery of digital receipts at the point of sale, with only slight adjustments in content on the displays.

Payment Terminals: From Starter to Quick Response Display

For retailers without displays facing the customer, the terminal is itself a pretty good medium. Every retailer performs card payments, and many of the new terminals-particularly the Android-based ones-can show a QR code right on the terminal, post-payment.

The advantages of implementing payment terminals:

Universality of the deployment: Even merchants with only one payment terminal, not connected to any external electronic cash register, can install this solution. SMEs can thus benefit wherein small and medium-sized enterprises may not have the extensive POS infrastructure in place; they can offer digital receipts with minimal investment.

Reduced friction: It is where the customer expects to complete the transaction; thus, intuitive and an extension of the checkout.

Therefore, it would allow companies-from small boutiques to large retailers-to enable digital receipts without the need for any supplementary hardware.

Card-Linking: the Complementary Solution

While QR codes are immediate, one-time solutions for digital receipts, frequent customers are better suited to the integration of card-linking. Card-linking will have customers sign up-usually enrolling their payment card in the app of a retailer so that every time they use that particular card at the retailer, the receipt gets automatically linked to their account and digitally delivered.

Benefits of Card-Linking:

Repeat customers: Once signed up, it automatically sends a receipt for every purchase a customer makes-without having to scan a QR code.

Incentivizes app adoption: Card-linking will spur consumer downloads of a retailer’s app and drive purchases from it, unlocking a future potential of deeper engagement through loyalty programs, personalized offers, and experiences.

Data Privacy: Just like QR codes, customers do not have to reveal personally identifiable information in case of checkouts. In other words, everything from the QR-code-based receipt for the casual customer to card-linking for the loyal-all to meet very consumer tastes while having security at the forefront of their minds. Leveraging existing hardware-so costs can be contained. Much of the appeal to this solution is in leveraging an infrastructure that’s more than likely in place for most retailers. Whether through customer-facing displays or via a payment terminal, digital receipts are able to be deployed through a retailer without major hardware investment.

How ReceiptHero Can Help:

ReceiptHero is a flexible technical partner whereby retailers will be able to deploy digital receipts with their existing POS systems and displays, keeping deployment costs as low as possible. By offering a truly modern solution for today’s tech-savvy shopper, our platform integrates into existing hardware to make this experience seamless for both customers and staff alike.

In the future, digital receipts will be highly relevant, especially when it comes to convenience and privacy of consumers. Digital receipt solutions can easily be introduced by the retailers through already existing hardware: customer-facing displays and payment terminals. Whether using QR codes or through card-linking, ReceiptHero is ready to support the retailer in offering their customers a frictionless and state-of-the-art checkout experience. If you’re a retailer looking to understand more about digital receipts for your customers, reach out to our team for an introductory call and learn how you can deploy this solution with minimum development effort and at low cost. Contact the team