e-Receipts

Who is going to be the first major retailer to allow you to enter the barcode on a receipt and download a file of what was purchased?

My wife and I are constantly digging through the receipts as we do our budget. This is NOT something that’s been procrastinated and done in a flurry of worry, but an effort to categorize what we spend throughout the month. Obviously one cannot just take the receipt from Kroger and say, “Oh, groceries: $83.49” because on that receipt are paper products, greeting cards, shoe strings, cleaning supplies and those kitchen tools that had to be replaced. We also like to be able to substantiate our gut feeling of what we buy regularly. We have a good idea: so much toilet paper every two months, x rolls of paper towels, so many cans of corn, bags of pasta and so on. Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly what our consumption is and manage our purchases?

In a perfect world you would have several columns that would include:

1.  the date of the transaction
2.  the item description
3.  the amount you purchased (in units that are appropriate for the item)
4. the price per unit
5. the amount paid
6. its ANSI classification (at least the major classification)

Most retailers already have this information readily available. When you take your receipt to customer service, they enter the bar code and voilà your purchase details appear in front of them.

Sears has already taken the first step; you can ask for an electronic receipt of the detail which will show up in your email while all you take with you is a piece of paper with the total paid and your source of funds. It’s still a little messy parsing this into Excel, but even I can do it. Amazon allows me to download a file with most of this information (they don’t include the ANSI classification) and this has been a tremendous influence in where I buy things.

I generally buy groceries as Fred Meyer (Kroger), Safeway and Albertson’s. Whichever retailer gets there first will bias my shopping habits in their favor.