“Only together we all succeed” - Afterwork Event in Zurich

„Nur zusammen wird das was werden.“

The ReceiptHero motto at the afterwork event in northern Zurich’s Oerlikon on Thursday 17.03. translates to “only together we all succeed”. The digital receipt, i.e. post-payment data for mass-market retail payment methods is a hotbed of innovation and requires collaboration and value sharing to many parts of this ecosystem. In order to build trust and introduce the various parties to another, ReceiptHero invited in collaboration with the payment service partner Worldline to a physical-only event in the NOERD business complex and in its eatery the Noerd Kantine. Around 45 participants from merchants, banks, card issuers, payment and POS system providers, and academia joined in.

A first take-away from the event on digital receipts is that trust is key-requisite for a data service such as ReceiptHero’s to succeed. This translates to transparent end user terms. The Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) provided insights into the end users‘ attitude towards digital receipts. They understand the data implications, but the use-cases that digital receipts provide would convince the majority of end users to opt for digital receipts.

Further, building trust means for ReceiptHero to partner with known players in the market that end users and merchants alike recognize and approve. Banks and payment provider Worldline are among the top group of businesses that Swiss people trust with their data, according to an October 2021 study conducted by comparis.ch.

And thirdly, ReceiptHero wants to actively build trust with data guidelines and controls on the platform for merchants to contribute and enable partner apps to commercially utilize receipt data.

A second take-away from the evening was that people like a free-drink offer in a receipt. With the visually attractive representation of such a drink directly on the receipt in the demo of the evening, the receipt become interesting to look at. All participants could use digital receipts at the activated event location, get the receipt and the drink offer right away onto their phones. Of course, a third of participants paid with Apple and Google Pay, which ReceiptHero will support as quickly as possible, “before the summer” as mentioned in the evening.

And a third take-away from the various speaking contributions was that the post purchase process needs to be made connected, as it currently is interrupted as ReceiptHero’s CEO Joel outlined. For companies all manual steps to manage expenses after card and wallet payments are an unnecessarily high cost. Countries in Europe and their treasuries become more digital and actively support post purchase data availability of merchants and businesses in the market. Partner Apps such as Bitsabout.me, helping consumers to keep control of their digital life, see a significant difference in end user adoption of receipt digitalization if the user needs to take a picture of it vs. that step being automated and happening in the background without the user even pulling out the smartphone of her pocket.

ReceiptHero’s event ended with social networking including a tasty buffet and drinks. This was a welcome change from webinars and online meetings. Thanks to our partner Worldline and the Noerd Kantine that made it work!