Your receipt is in the e-mail
Shoppers who want to save some trees soon will find a new option for rejecting receipts at the checkout counters of major retailers.
A service that will enable consumers to receive digital receipts through big box stores, such as Best Buy and Target, is set to launch May 16.
AllEtronic is an add-in for digital cash registers running popular point of purchase applications. When it recognizes a customer as a sale is rung up, allEtronic blocks the receipt-printing process, triggering details to be sent to its servers instead.
Consumers can visit allEtronic's Web site to view and export receipts to personal accounting software. First, they have to enter the first six and last four digits of a credit card number when they sign up for the program.
To drive home its tree-hugging angle, allEtronic displayed a receipt tree at the Eco City conference April in San Francisco.
(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)Participating retailers will likely display an allEtronic decal near the usual lineup of credit card logos. Some shops may add allEtronic kiosks or tout the service in their TV commercials.
Retailers that still use paper receipts for internal records could continue to do so, but without printing a customer copy.
AllEtronic won't give users' e-mail addresses to third parties for advertising, according to CEO Isaac Lay. It will share with stores the names and addresses of users, but a contract will prevent retailers from snail-mailing people coupons and ads.
The company is seeking a stamp of approval from Trustwave, which would mark allEtronic as a secure service for storing partial credit card numbers.
AllEtronic touts its product as green for helping to save the trees felled for some 600,000 tons of thermal receipt paper used by stores each year. It takes 15 trees, 19,000 gallons of water, and 390 gallons of oil to make a ton of paper, according to the company, which is based in Fullerton, Calif.
GreenPrint is another free service built to attract treehuggers. The free utility shaves off extra pages when people print from a personal computer.
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Green IT,
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Waste and Recycling
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Thumb drive is nice idea, but then I have to get it out and use it.... Same reason I rarely use 'club cards'.. it's an extra thing to juggle while trying to make a purchase. Not enough hands. (one hand on my wallet, one hand on debit/credit card, one hand on what I'm buying, one hand holding a bottle for my 11month old, one hand on my 3yr old, one hand holding the cart/stroller that my 3yr old is trying to push into the next row of customers....ect)
I wish more places simply asked if I even wanted a receipt..... if there's no single item worth more than 50 dollars(your number may vary) on a receipt, don't print one unless I ask for it...
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