A good idea. I use a VISA check card and lose receipts all the time and it makes balancing the check book difficult. Now if the receipt could be emailed to me - that would be cool.

Emailed receipts. Great idea. I still can't believe this isn't being done. Maybe we could do it. Thanks for the comment.

The marketers would certainly love this. The customer for this product needs to be the store accounting system, probably not the point-of-sale terminal or credit card company since they're not equipped to handle this data.

The store accounting system is already collecting this data and, in the case of loyalty cards, indexing by user. Offering emailed receipts would seem like a great feature for the customer but mainly it's allowing the store to put a real person on that collection of marketing data.

Still, what's the entrepeneurial or crowdsourcing opportunity? You're unlikely to succeed by producing a new back-end system with this feature as your differentiator. Maybe you could sell the idea to existing vendors, but I don't see how you could compete with them without developing a whole system from the ground up.

The idea is to have the data centralized in one location and made available online. There would be one card that a consumer could use for any merchant. The trick is to find a way to get the information processed at the point of sale, we would need to get the information from the accounting systems to our database for sorting, printing, retrieval, or emailing by the consumer. Getting the information may prove to be difficult but then again there may be a standard (that I am not aware of) that may send this information like a simple csv.

Entrepreneurial opportunity? Sell it to every merchant-probably a small monthly fee based on useage. Also, sell the data collected as far as buying habits and products purchased.

Crowdsourcing? This would be a huge undertaking so therefore we would need a huge crowd.

Thanks for the comment.

I think this would take a lot of infrastructure, and would be hard to get good coverage. I'm not sure people would be willing to have only a small number of receipts available. I think an essential tie in to help with would be a partnership with a receipt-scanner company. Then, if the company in question supports the receipt-id card or whatever identifier you are using, they don't get a paper receipt. But if they don't, they can scan the receipt using a receipt scanner or a cellphone, and have it automatically added to their online repository.

Another tie in might be some simple budget software, and an export system that is compatible with quicken and other account software.

Getting the information form POS to the database is the hard part. After that its all gravy. You make some good points. Thanks for the comment.

interviewables: "Getting the information form POS to the database is the hard part."

That's exactly right, and that's the only reason I questioned the entrepreneurial and crowdsourcing aspects. Either you need to partner with a company that's already handling the stores' back-end data, in which case you're doing little more than selling your idea to them, or you need to build complete competing systems.

Shop at apple, your receipt is in your inbox before your CC in in your wallet.

I named this a Ceipt on another site

I like the idea, but implementation poses some challenges.

I think, though, the only good way to do it would be to create partnerships with POS manufacturers. It could either be done by licensing software for the POS terminals and/or selling add-on appliances (this would be the revenue). As for moving the "e-receipts" to the users (by email or via a web site or better yet both) very few businesses these days operate without some sort of internet connectivity.

As I said above, there are engineering challenges here, but nothing that could not be overcome.

It would certainly help me around tax time.

I think that indeed you can not do this as a small intrepreneur. Everybody would have to cooperate and then there is a security isue, everbody can read your e-mail and see what you buy:
Ah: you just bought some silverware, maybe we pay you a visit...

I don't see security as a problem. Yes it's an issue, but all the security/privacy issues are solved daily by every ecommerce and banking site.

Re-thinking this especially based on Surt's comments, I think it would be possible to build an add-on for the store's accounting system that didn't require direct partnership with that software's vendor. Most systems provide at least some interconnect with other systems. I'd be very surprised if the store-side of the POS/accounting software didn't provide at least some database connectivity (e.g. ODBC or similar). This would allow you to read the data they were storing and add your own as needed.

Finishing that thought...

I think the next step (from a technical standpoint) would be to identify two or three vendors of these systems that had significant market share and see if the assumption that they provide some sort of interface is true. If so, and if you can get a test system, it should be simple to mock up a prototype that would allow the business side of the project to start marketing or seek funding.

I've been doing some research and the best way to accomplish this is to add a software program to the credit card processing terminals.

For instance, companies that want to start a loyalty card program or offer gift cards don't get extra equipment, they get an addon to thier CC processing terminals.

I could see being able to retail these cards for .99 cents or so and then giving the software to the merchants. If you start with a program for the top 3 selling POS machines we could get a majority of the merchants covered.

Just found several big players and they offer Developer toolkits. They actually want programs written to do this sort of thing. So, we now have another option, build the software for sale to the POS companies themselves.

Further research. Seems programming these terminals is pretty straight forward. One reason why this idea may not have been done is the fact that each merchant(and there are hundreds of thousands) would have to have a way to store the receipt information in a database and then have a web interface for each person to go to and retrieve that information.

If we build the site and the back end to store and serve the info then the pos companies and their developers (or ours) could easily build the software to get the information to us. Quite an undertaking to secure and store this information (no credit card information needed).

So i guess what I'm saying is that if we build it they will come.

Great to see you doing so much research on this! It's looking like you've got a really good grasp on the potential market.

Laura its huge. i just couldn't figure out why no one has done this and now I know. There are so many different merchants who use different types of POS machines and software. However, there are only a few big players in the POS market and they really haven't had a way to bring this to the merchants. They would have to tell each merchant that yes they can do paperless receipts but the merchant would have to store the info and then provide a way for the customer to retrieve it. Too much trouble. That's where we come in. If we provide the storage and interface then all that is needed is for the merchants to get the software installed. They can cover the costs by selling the receipt cards (One standard unbranded card for all merchants) to the customers who want this convenience. It would be set up as an impulse buy. I mean who would ever thought that gift cards and prepaid phone and credit cards would be so huge?

So a typical transaction would go like this. You go to a store and purchase a card for say 99 cents. Go home, sign up online. Now when you go to make another purchase instead of getting a paper receipt you swipe your card at the credit card terminal and your receipt is stored online. Its convenient, you don't have a pocket full of receipts, the store saves money on receipts, the environmentalist are happy that less trees are being cut down, and the world is a better place.

that would be good ya but then it would be easier for someone to hack into it and take all your purchasing info

Sufficient security mechanisms could be used to prevent "hacking". I do this sort of stuff every day and would be happy to get on board this project.

Excellent idea. Every tax season I am struggling to find the receipts for deductions. I would also love user defined ways to slice and dice the data online so we can be better organized to submit them for deductions. It could be predefined categories but it would be really cool to somehow find a way for the user to tag the transaction as "something" so it is easier to find them online later.

Welcome aboard Surt! If you go to Veriphone's website you can get a developer's kit I believe. Take a look and make some recommendations.
They also have developer's forums and all that jazz. I think this could be pretty easy programming. Also, veriphone is looking for applications like this so maybe it will be smooth sailing.

Anyone want to volunteer to get a frontend website and backend database started? We can push this on through this round. Start it as a business and go from there. I'm willing to split up the company with some early adopters.

Yes Carpe that would be great. It would also be cool (and pretty easy) to alert you when something you buy has a recall or maybe even a mail-in rebate, or even coupons from the company that you can print and use. There are so many ways to make money with this deal. Come on board, there will be plenty to do!

Getting even one POS vendor to integrate something to export "their" data to an external application is a tough call.
Their idea of a development kit is to add value to their product, without releasing any of that data to the outside world. (other than summary reports)

please also consider the sheer volume of transaction data, if you intend to implement in an supermarket type environment.

Also this needs to be funded by a marketing organization or promoter. Neither the shops nor customer will pay what it costs to run.

Gzep, First of all its not "their" data, it belongs to the merchants and customers. Second, the vendors that sell the software and hardware want value added software even if they sell it for us. What our company will provide is the frontend website and backend database to house the info. It will be huge no doubt. As for funding, the pos vendors will probably purchase the software from us if they have the front and back end to handle the transactions.

Do you honestly think in this day and age that we will always have paper receipts? Everything possible is going paperless.

Well, the data is quite small actually. Since, it is mostly text data.

Receipts make a lot of sense for the most part. Hard copy of data, easy to check if there is security problems at the door, easy for customer to check at time of purchase to verify everything is right, no additional systems required by the customer.

Why should I want to give out my email address to all of these company's? What if the customers don't have email or online access?

Kevin, If a customer such as Walmart would like to check a receipt, the customer would simply scan the card again at a terminal at the door, same thing for customers that want to make sure everything is right. They already have those terminals on the walls that allow you to check prices by scanning the item.

Next, it was mentioned by someone on this tread about having receipts emailed but no company but ours would have access to emails and then only if the customer gave it to us.

As far as what if customers don't have online access, well they could still get a receipt. I never advocated getting rid of them totally at first, that's not going to happen.

Please remember that eventually America will have to give up the VHS tape and move on to DVD. I know it will be an uphill battle since we've always had VHS and they stack nicely and we really like watching movies rewind in fast motion. But its time to start thinking ahead. Oh and by your line of thinking, HD TV manufacturers will need to stop producing because not everyone can get HD signal...but its not gonna happen.

Interviewables is right about there being gazillions of different POS terminals and software. It seems to me that the networks to use for this are the credit card networks if one can work out a deal with them.

In canada, most credit card terminals are owned and run by a third party service called Moneris. They hook into the Visa and Mastercard networks for all credit card purchases. These networks already collect all purchases for their respective credit cards. What if they modified their system to collect all purchase information using the card purchased as mentioned earlier. This uses technology already in place.

That may be an insurmountable chalenge. Who knows

Thanks for the comment Tidewater,

This idea is no different than a restaurant that decides they want to start offering gift cards. They don't go to the POS manufacturers or the credit card companies. They find a company that has the software that is installed on their pos terminal that accepts their gift cards. This company has written a custom program that interfaces with the pos terminal to take gift cards. (However, Some POS manufacturers and sellers have their own Gift card and loyalty card programs in place, but follow along) We need to get with them and either hire someone to write our custom program to sell to them or either do it ourselves.

Our service will really be to them once we build the front and back ends.

In the systems I've dealt with (a very limited sample), the credit card terminals only dealt with the payment phase and only had data on the transaction total, not the line item details of the sale. You'd have to make sure you're hooking into the system at a point where all the product data is available, not further down the chain where only total payment is being handled.

From what I have seen, the same companies that sell the pos terminals also sell the printers that print the receipts, so the data is getting from the terminal to the receipt printer. We just need to hijack the data from pos to the printer, that would be all we would need.

I like this, and I like the idea to coordinate with the credit card companies. They do itemize most credit purchases.

There is no need to email individual receipts, as they can (and are with credit) aggragated online, and one can elect monthly statements.

Consumers will be giving up and/or risking some privacy, while making themselves marketing targets. I am interested in an extension that will give them some value in return for the 99 cents proposed above: Namely, database purchases and enable consumer shopping of the lowest prices in their respective area. Supermarkets are probably the most technically challenging entity, but that is my specific target. See "mygrocerydeals.com" for a weak attempt at this idea (it doesn't work and is not progressing). Supermarkets don't really cooperate with the mgd group, but the credit companies might be different. The little farmers markets sometimes don't identify the purchase items on the receipt next to the price. This is where consumer scanning and tagging functions will really help. Is 99 cents the right price for this? I don't know, but it would help the most people, if they could buy into user ownership of the bussiness somehow.

I agree with Summer this is similar idea to mine indeed, only focusing on the retailers benefit and suddenly people do not mind about their privacy.

The system I propose considers growth in technological ability and awareness of the users (and intuitively solved interfaces of hand-helds).

In the end all you need to do is save data into purchaser's device (so links to purchased products is "call-back-sms"/bluetooth v-card/wi-fi -ed to the customer.

Summetime, all of that could be done in the future. I think for now we should concentrate on paperless receipts. As for security issues, no one would have access to the information except us and the consumer. Its about making things easier for them.

As to marketing, If this system were in place and the data showed that my wife purchases Brand A shampoo every month, I would appreciate a coupon every month for that particular brand. Also, if I purchase a new TV, I would appreciate a note that let me know that there is a $250 rebate available, or if I buy a car seat and there is a recall, i would appreciate that also. Its about permission marketing. Each consumer could opt in for this information.

We could give the cards away or sell them to businesses to give away. But I think that by purchasing the card for that nominal amount will let the customer feel as if they are getting a really great deal with the amount of information they will be given.

Thanks for the comments.

So all you saying is they should have a loyalty card (club) and share information on discounts?

Nice idea - usually by the end of the week all my pockets and my bags have random receipts everywhere. And when I go to balance my checkbook I inevitably have lost one or two. This would be nice to have it all in one location and paper free.

No Wiz4rd, that can be a great byproduct of collecting the receipt information electronically. The intent is to have a card (looks like a loyalty card) that is scanned at checkout (like a loyalty card) and your receipt information is stored on a database that you can access online. Now, since the receipt information contains UPC codes, it would be simple to match the UPC with a database of recalls and rebates, and then send the information to the customer (if they so choose). Also, the money maker for us can be the fact that Gillette can now send coupons to people who actually have bought their products or another razor manufacturer can send coupons to Gillette's users. This is a simple concept and shouldn't be over=thought too much.

I just went to the grocery store and the printer ran out of paper. I guarantee this has happened to everyone several times. Had this idea been in place I simply would have scanned my receipt card and left.

I agree its a great idea, but how do you plan to implement this ? It's just an idea that you can get funding on and be up and running. Even if you could find millions of dollars from investors, you would still need to get many, if not all retailers to get involved, as well as the credit card companies.

What plan of action do you have to build this up ?

First off we will need to get a programmer/programmers to start developing the software. I would say choose the main player to begin with, develop the software for their machines, get a database and frontend website working, and go from there. I would say we also approach it from the retailer end and try to get several big players onboard. Once we can get 10% interested the rest should follow.

Also remember that the cards we will hold will be the database and front end website holding this information. That is what the company will be about. Someone else can and will build the software for other POS manufacturers and the retailers themselves. All we need to do is to get the ball rolling by showing that it can be done and then let others take over. Our money will come from POS manufacturers who want their systems tying into our website. We need to be the first because people will not want to go to 2300 different websites just to see a receipt. There needs to be one place to go and that will be us.

Hi,

I like this idea, and feel that it can be implemented quite quickly, very profitably and cheaply, and by using 90% "off the shelf" technology most of which has been used successfully for more than 10 years, that I am aware of in Europe.

The only missing element appears to be an accounting package which meets local Tax compliance standards.

I am assuming that the focus of this project is in producing and assembling, accounting receipts which are to be used for Tax compliance purposes' ?

I shall use "ACME" Oil for demonstration purposes'.

ACME Oil, has a few thousand Petrol Stations, and wants to increase its market share. It decides to develop a product which shall be attractive to
Trucking Companies and Mobile Sales Reps.

1. It decides to issue its own LOGO Credit/Debit Card.

2. It does a deal with a medium size Local Bank which will act as Intermediary in the issuance of Credit/Debit Cards(Visa)

The Bank was chosen on account of ability to meet ACME's accounting requirements. Basically the Bank delivered Detailed statements, both electronically and in Hard Copy to ACME's Card Holders.

3. Acme negotiates EU15/20 payment by the Bank to ACME, per Card issued. (This is standard in Europe)

4. Acme, negotiates 1.5% to 2.5% interest on all of the Debit balances to be paid monthly in arrears to ACME. (Again this is standard in Europe, Banks charge 15%/20% on Credit Card Debit Balances).

5. Since ACME was in this instance dealing with Trucking Companies and Sales Reps. ACME went into the GPRS Monitoring Business. Monitoring charges were based on client purchase volumes.

GRPS Tracking was used both to monitor Salesmen's/Truck Drivers movements, and to meet local fiscal requirements. Salesmen used Company Cars for both business and private usage.

6. ACME had a software package written, which met both the Internal and Fiscal accounting requirements of The Trucking and Sales Rep Clients.
The package in this instance allowed the clients to manipulate both Bank and GPRS data, in order to meet their individual requirements.

7. ACME now had an attractive package, to offer its Target Clientelle.

This model has been adjusted to meet the requirements of a large Trade Union in Europe.

The revenue from the Card issuance fees and the monthly Cash Flow from Interest charges help keep the bottom line healthy as overheads are low.

I feel that it would be very easy to adapt a similar model, to meet your local fiscal requirements.

Good Luck

CharonV; This sounds good, but can one account work across industries and companies (and regions)? In other words VISA or MC style >> Sears and Shell cards, and the bank needs a presence beyond the local area.

Wiz4rd & Interviewables; If a mom and pop retailer uses paper reciepts, can the consumer scan it with their cell phone and tag/describe the item if necessary? Also, could a consumer scan a bar code or rfid tag to subscribe an item into their periodic shopping list? [Then competitive prices from all local stores could be applied to the shopping list]

The various functions could be modular, but will paperless reciepts be the quickest to implement? If consumers can can scan items in the isle and paper receipts at home, we have all the time in the world to work a deal with the creditors for some of the other functions (paperless receipts.

Scanning to the database shouldn't be too hard to implement. I just don't know about reporting functions for scanned receipts. With the information coming from the POS (Point of sale) terminal we can database and classify the information by UPC. If an individual item is scanned then yes it can be implemented.

In Response to Summertime:

Quote"CharonV; This sounds good, but can one account work across industries and companies (and regions)? In other words VISA or MC style >> Sears and Shell cards, and the bank needs a presence beyond the local area."

Hi Summertime,

Yes, we have successfully developed programmes for various un-related entities. For example the Oil company required a package which would assist it in both attracting more "High Net worth Clients", and at the same time have a positive effect on the bottom line.

A Charitable Institution, on the other hand was more interested in the cash flow from the monthly interest charges and the fees for each Card issued.

Basically, each industry will normally require a slightly different software package. BUT this is the Crowdsourcing Bit ?

With regards to regions: Tax regulations may be different depending on the "regions" again this will require modifications to the local software package.

Banks only require a presence in areas where they are giving UNSECURED Credit. This does not prohibit Banks from issuing Credit Cards (VISA/MC) to non resident clients who use other accounts as collateral. For example "The Amex Red Card" is widely available from International Banks.

The KEY to this model, is the Monthly CASH Flow, derived from the debit interest.

CharonV,

"each industry will normally require a slightly different software package"

I don't get this because it sounds like you would be forever inventing the system when members shop in new places. I was thinking of something as universal as your checking card doubling as a major credit or debit card that you can use around the world. I think banks already load more functions. If not, we would be adding a third base-function (don't really like the idea of yet another card).

The consumer tracking company ("Consumer Track" might be a good name) could filter shotgun marketing campaigns into targeting/matching to real consumer activities. Further, consumers might even log onto the web to match their shopping needs to current deals; thus, they could could better control the constant flow of commercial information (not subject to ads direct from retailers) and tune-in to relevant sales offers.

"Monthly CASH Flow, derived from the debit interest."
It seems that a consumer could maintain an account without paying ahead (debit), and with little or nothing in the way of ongoing fees. By the model I am describing above, companies have to target consumers through "Consumer Track". They don't have direct control to target ads, coupons, incentives, and the like, but "Consumer Track" would serve up these target markets. This is where "Consumer Track" could earn their money. If they were consumer owned, they should be able to gain a commanding membership of consumers.

Summertime, I would like to hear more about the "Consumer Owned" part. Explain how that would work exactly.

I am not an expert, but I have an example. Bear with me, as it is in the US (probably are other examples): Vanguard mutual funds are the only investor owned funds. They pay the employees, and the funds earn money for investors, but they don't issue stocks and have to keep them performing for stockholders. This keeps their fees lower than just about everyone else, and it keeps the performance focus on all their investors, and not divided to special groups that buy one company-issued stock.

Another example might be like your credit union. Most of them have the members elect the officers. Members can be passive and enjoy low cost services, or they can be more active and develop more influence. I think members are part owners; though, their "gains" tend to come in the form of additional and or cheaper services. Some degree of merging the members' and professionals' interests could go a long way to attracting more and more members.

Members could earn some rebate (small percentage maybe) on marketing contracts between retailers and "Consumer Track". ?? We would need to flesh out some more detail, of course.

This is a fantastic idea!!!!!

Summertime, so you're saying instead of offering coupons to those who have purchased an item, the companies would give back a small % to the consumers? That is interesting.

So to recap since this is such a long string of posts, we so far have...

A card (something like a loyalty card or maybe even just use visa/mc?) that consumers carry and when they make a purchase, instead of receiving a paper receipt, they swipe this card at the same terminals used for Credit and Debit cards. That receipt information is stored in a database by us and the consumer retrieves the information by going online and logging into their account that would have the same security features as a bank's online portal. This information would be able to be manipulated by the consumer in order to give them a better idea of their spending habits and for tax purposes.

We would collect this information and would be able to give real data on spending habits of consumers and would be able to provide real data to companies whose products have been purchased. Extremely valuable.

Another source of possible income would be to send coupons and sales data to individual consumers based on the products they have already purchased. Each consumer would be able to decide whether they wanted to receive this information in a list on their personal receipts page. So for instance, Betty buys a bottle of Clorox and when she goes home to check her online receipts page, she has a coupon for the next bottle of Clorox she buys.

How does this happen? We would build a database and frontend site for consumers. We or someone else would build the software that is needed to send the receipt information to the database after a consumer swipes her card.

Any more suggestions?

The reason I mentioned the use of credit card/debit card systems is that it would eliminate the need of engaging thousands of POS manufacturers in building software for their POS terminals.

The chalenge is in working out a deal with the Visas and MCs of the world to host the data for you on their networks. I beleive that they work on a transactional basis. They charge their clients for each transaction that goes through their network. This would be no different. Someone would have to pay for that (consumer?)

The idea, overall is a great one and the technology exists today to make it work. There are infinite possibilities once this is set up.

Thanks Tidewater, I see. But I was thinking also about cash/check transactions where we could still use the pos terminals to process the reciepts. Also, in my estimation, the information we would collect is what would be so valuable, and, I think as a company we would have to ensure that each individual's privacy is protected and that we only do permission based advertising. If MC or Visa owned this information you know exactly what they would do.

The object is to collect the information. The benefit to the consumer is that they have their receipts online and presented in a useful way. The benefit to companies who adopt the system is that they cut way down on receipt taps and printer ribbons and ink. We could also send them a monthly report of what has been purchased from them and maybe include gender/age information. The benefit to us is that we can really target specific consumers based on their purchases. This is what advertisers have dreamed of for years but they had no way to collect this information easily. Now they do. It will be revolutionary and we will all be rich so vote it up and let's get busy!

For those of you worried about the security issues or big brother issues with this, here is what I propose.

Each card will have a unique number and that number will be tied to the user once they sign up online. Also, if a husband and wife want to share the same account with two different cards then they can do that online.

The only information that will be collected at checkout will be the card number and the items purchased. No credit card or payment info will be sent to us.

When a person signs up online to use the card they will create a username and password that will be tied to that card. We may ask for their gender and maybe birthday but that will be all. That is so we can tailor offers to them.

We will need to be HIPPA compliant for those purchasing medications or paying doctor bills.

Any more suggestions?

If anyone would like to read more about Apple's POS patent: http://tinyurl.com/2rpoe7

Thanks for the link. I'm not sure how this fits in with my idea but I'm open to suggestions. Unless, you're pointing out the fact that applications are being built with POS software...

Its funny, could you imagine if Apple would have put that idea on CH? No way would it win. LOL. The first comment would be, "Why would I want to stand in the parking lot and place my order? Why not just walk in? Or IF I drive by...how slow would I have to go in order to place my order? Once I place my order and its filled, do I get to go to the front of the line?
Where would the adsense go? Or the number one comment.....Its alrady being done on site xyz.com...

MichaelM, I see the correlation now, in the article it talks about where the information is stored and the fact that individuals will be giving up some privacy for convenience. Sorry didn't read it well enough last time.

This is one reason why we have to ensure consumers that no credit card information would be kept by us, not even their first name.

Thanks again for the link MichaelM.

“so you're saying instead of offering coupons to those who have purchased an item, the companies would give back a small % to the consumers? That is interesting.”
Well, I am exploring (thinking out loud) here and not committing to either/or. I still think power to shop the lowest prices is better, for putting the consumer value up front instead of having them wait for coupons and rebates that may not even be useful.

“…would be able to provide real data to companies whose products have been purchased. Extremely valuable.” Yes, but consumer spending could be provided in aggregate, so they see group behavior and not necessarily individual behavior.
“…we would have to ensure that each individual's privacy is protected and that we only do permission based advertising.” Agreed, part of the consumer value is to control the flow of advertising.

Credit cards/cash and check transactions: Banks and credit unions already use the credit networks for their cash, check, and credit transactions. Credit unions are already closely aligned with consumer interests; therefore, they are the natural partner to help add “Consumer Track” functions and services.

“The benefit to us is that we can really target specific consumers based on their purchases.”
We help marketers to target consumers through our black-box controls. Our best purpose is to represent consumer blocks.

“We may ask for their gender and maybe birthday but that will be all. That is so we can tailor offers to them.”
I think we will need to register members somewhat like a credit card, so that they can get back in the system after forgetting their logon sequence and losing their card.

Great ideas Summertime. Thanks.

I think its a cool idea .. If I could use say my pay pal card and instead of just getting a email with the amount I'd get a copy of the detailed receipt you'd just have to get pos mfg's to put a button on to decline paper receipt.

I actually looked into doing this as a business. There are some companies (not many) that are already e-mailing receipts such as Moosejaw and one of the Car Rental Companies (Hertz or Avis) I can't remember right now.

There is also software out there with this capability to you would not necessarily need to develop new code.

A good idea would be to partner with some of the Software vendors with this type of program and offer your services as an implementation consultant.

Oh my, lots of comments. I did a quick scan.

I think you could build out a middleware solution for something like this, and sell it to the point of purchase providers like Moneris, VISA, etc. In general I think it is an amazing idea, but it has some serious hurdles to overcome.

I think you can solve the security problem by being middleware, and leaving the security up to the PoP/PoS providers. You just have a solution for taking the reciept and converting it into a digital format. Let Moneris and their ilk deal with the log-ins/security/whatever.

daraddishman, that would be the way to go. The software to do this is fairly simple. Getting the information to a database for online viewing is a little more difficult. Thanks for the input.

This has to be a TOTALLY secure site/database. Is there such an animal?

I like this. I don't think (as some commenters have suggested) you DO need every retailer to sign up to make this worthwhile. As an example, most of us do most of our food shopping in the same shop each week; a system like this would tie up a major part of household expenditure. As more retailers adopt the system, its usefulness simply grows. We might even be tempted to choose shops based on which ones use the system.

An added bonus would be a potential interface with recipe planning programs and all sorts of other things - perhaps you should build a dev kit into it and see what anyone else can come up with!

PhilipH, That's why I propose we write the software for the POS terminals. Some have suggested we team with VISA or MC, but by writing software that interfaces with the POS terminals (those things you slide your credit card through), we can cover a majority of the merchants in America.

The POS manufacturers have developer kits that we can use to build the software, now, once you do it for one it will be easier to do it for another.

There are millions of merchants, we can't go that route, Visa and MC only handle the transactions of the credit cards themselves, even if we took a software package to them they wouldn't be able to do anything.

Now, there are only a few POS terminal manufacturers and this is where the magic happens. For instance, let's say a restaurant wants to start offering gift cards for their patrons, they don't contact VISA or MC, they contact companies who have written the software for the POS systems. Now customers swipe their gift cards on the terminal just like a credit card.

Same thing here. We write the software that takes a card swipe, connects to a database, and then downloads the receipt information.

But that is only half of the idea. Next we will have a secure website (just like a bank), that user can log on to and view their receipts.

This idea is coming, why shouldn't we be the first?

I like this idea! Embedded chip (or for older phones, a tag with the chip embedded in it that adheres to the back of the phone or attaches as a "trinket") using radio-frequency ID technology.

http://www.cbsnews.c...ech/main631231.shtml

I don't know if this needs a site at all. VISA has a website. MC has a website. My Bank has a website. Mint.com does my budgeting. This system should interface with my existing site services, shouldn't it?

Mah, daraddishman, Great points. daradishman, the object is to have all your receipts in one place and to be able to manipulate them somehow so that you can budget, forecast spending, get automatic rebate or recall information, etc. Plus, if we house the data we can then sell the information about spending habits, trends, etc. That's where the real money is.

Mah, that is something to look in to.

I'm old school and want to know if I've been screwed before I leave the store. But that's just me. I think you should take great optimism in the shear number of comments on your idea. Good luck.

I think daradishman is on the right track with this one. You avoid all the privacy issues (and complexities associated with issuing your own cards, creating legal agreeements with providers etc. etc.) if the consumer is willingly signing up to a service such as mint.com or any of the other screenscraping or aggregation type-services out there.

Mint.com is good because they try to actually translate the often cryptic codes on the receipts into store & location names.

There is an Australian mob doing well in the UK, called ewise.com.au. They have patented offline, client (browser) based aggregation software, so that there is no central storage of data at all. To me, that's the best model but you'd need to partner with them. Failing that, you could hook up with one of the big US aggregators like yodlee.com but I think you may struggle to demonstrate that you're adding more value than what they already can provide. Perhaps this is where your integrated accounting / financials package may come in.

In addition to my comments above, however, I will add that legally you will still come across situations where financial providers explicitly prevent screenscraping / aggregation access to your accounts but personally I think it's a more manageable number of issues than what you would come across at the Institutional level, i.e. asking banks or credit providers to create an agreement that gives you access in any shape or form to client information. In a lot of situations this would breach the agreements they have already established with their clients re: privacy and use of information.

I have a couple checking accounts (a small bank and a credit union) that have the VISA symbol on their card. They work as a checking/debit and a credit card. I did not take a credit line on the cards/accounts but if I tell the checker at the store that it is credit, they have me sign, and the credit union adjusts the purchase as a debit anyway. Maybe it seems trivial, but I would like to see it integrated with existing cards (like integrating accounts on the website, MAH).

Credit cards don't itemize the grocery bill, but don't they itemize many purchases?

"HD TV manufacturers" Ya, but there system has downgrading. You can easily lower the resolution to meet all customer needs.

One solution, that I could think might let this work is a QR code. QR code printed on the paper. QR code links to site with the info.

Users use there mobile to capture the code with the camera.

Sha-zam no new hardware needed.

I like where this idea is going...

Looks like this idea is mixture of all the ideas presented here. It works like a credit card or gift card but doesn't go through the financial institution and it allows for gathering of all your purchase information in one location for analysis (mint.com).

Landsky-If you have a web-enabled mobile phone then you can just go to your account on our site and see the receipt. OR you will still be able to get a paper copy on the spot. This is something that everyone will be able to use, but the majority will.

I like what mint is doing but I can do the same with Microsoft Money. All they are doing is getting the information from your accounts and displaying it in a meaningful way. Now, we could allow them to aggregate our information if a mint.com user were to request it.

Also, we're not getting the information from the financial institutions, the information will come directly from the POS terminal. That's where the software will reside. The information belongs to the purchaser and will be stored in the purchaser's account on our website. This is no different than a customer having a gift card, using half of it, and then going to a website to see their remaining balance.

I don't see any security issues because even if the site were hacked, there wouldn't be any personal information. Its just like buying a prepaid Mastercard. You buy it, add money to it, and use it. Your name isn't stored anywhere. The user will be tied to a card. That card will have a unique scan and id number. Once you sign up online by adding that card number, login name, and password, you will be the only one to access the information.

Summertime, yes some do itemize purchases, but only on their website, you would have to go to each website or use a service such as mint.com. Our idea also would allow for itemization of cash purchases also.

Kevin_cox, That is going to be very useful for a lot of applications but in this instance we have to remember the huge scale of things. By using existing POS terminals and having our software residing there, we will be able to cover a huge market quickly, also, the number of people who have credit or debit cards versus people with camera phones is probably 1000 to 1 easily. Thanks for the comments.

I like the idea but the capital costs to start this will be immense....

Not really. Its only software, a website, and database. Now, we will need to find a way to subsidize the printing of the cards. I think the merchants will buy them if we were to offer detailed reports to them about the spending habits of their customers. They could them give them out to customers that do not have them. After a while everyone will have a card and the cost will not be so immense.

I think you have to be very careful though if you're going to be selling the spending history of a customer. If you only give them the spending history at the one store, then i don't see how it's different than any of those other point plan/coupon cards.

But if you're going to offer one gas station information about how that person shops at -any and all gas stations in the system- or even broader - any spending history at any store in the system -, people are going to get concerned about privacy.

Also: has any thought gone into hooking e-commerce receipts into this system as well? If I can get my web-shopping receipts organized with my bricks and mortar shopping reciepts, it's even more valuable. Having an api that stores can hook into would be a good thing to develop, and it's another way to sell to businesses that have both an online and a real word presence.

Hello Laura, good comments as usual. First, there will not be a privacy issue because your name, address, phone number etc. will not be associated. WE won't even know who your are. All we will know is that card number 14356678 is assigned to username alphadog with password dogpooh. We may ask your age and gender. There will not be any way to find out who you are. Now, let's say you are a male 29 years of age and you purchase movies. Let's also say there are 5.2 million other men aged 29 who purchase movies, we can take the information we have and be able to tell other businesses (for a fee), what movies 29 year old males are purchasing. GOLDEN INFORMATION.

So what does the 29 year old male movie purchaser get? He may get a coupon or movie tickets emailed to him(if he so desires), by a company who has a movie that our research shows, men at that age want to see.

There are infinite possibilities with this.

Oh and the ecommerce deal would be a simple addon. Also, PAYPAL and others like it would want to be able to offer this to their customers.

"wouldn't be any personal information." There are lots of ways to link that data to you even without a name. If someone wanted to they could do it. Plus, your giving away the stores marketing data if this is public.

"Kevin_cox, That is going to be very useful for a lot of applications but in this instance we have to remember the huge scale of things. By using existing POS terminals and having our software residing there, we will be able to cover a huge market quickly, also, the number of people who have credit or debit cards versus people with camera phones is probably 1000 to 1 easily. Thanks for the comments."
1. Everyone and there mom has a camera phone.
2. Using a QR code with regular text is possible so you don't need a camera phone.
3. You don't seem to understand the scale. How are you going to link the user purchase to that data with no info given to the user. With my version of the system you need no user pre-signup. You, don't need a credit card or any cards at all. You could even pay in cash and still have access. User needs nothing and store only needs to use software with there existing pos system.
4. On my system you can lock data so only the user can view the data. Since it is security token based.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that you'll need to make it clear in the terms of service what information you will be tracking, and what will be done with the information. People like to know where their information is going, and if it's going to lead to them seeing advertising in print form or online. Also they need to know that if they absolutely don't want a purchase to be tracked, they shouldn't use the card and have the info in the system.

Being as transparent as possible on this is going to help I think: If you tell someone, "okay, you sign up and we will show you ads based on what you purchase because that's how we can fund this service, but you can pay to upgrade and exclude your data", you may be able to hook a broader range of people.

I think people want more and more control over the advertising they see, and there can be smart ways to use that with the information you're gathering. For example, if I'm an ad-supported user, I'd like to be able to specify some options like this:

1.) Only show me advertising for products/product types I've bought more than 10 times.

2.) Don't show me advertising for [industry sector/product type], no matter how often I buy related products. Some examples of this: if I buy a particular brand of granola bars because it's peanut free, I don't care about any other brand of granola bar that's not peanut free, and I'd rather not see advertising for granola bars at all. Or say I'm taking a particular medication - if that's the only brand covered by my insurance, I don't want to be told about alternate products.

3.) Show me advertising for specific things [ asparatame-free, peanut free, vegan, chocolate] - allow people to opt in to a particular type of advertising - this is additional meta data to sell.

4.) Show me when products I've bought are on sale in my local area.

Another point on this: There are a lot of people who like comparisons and stats. Adding some information like '57% of people on the system buy the same brand of peanut butter as you', 'most of the people who bought this dvd are female' or 'here's a chart of what you spent at game stores over the last 6 months', it'll be another reason to check in the site. I don't know that it's a core feature to have for launch, but it's something to consider on upgrades. People like information about themselves as much as advertisers do, IMHO.

"There are lots of ways to link that data to you even without a name. If someone wanted to they could do it. Plus, your giving away the stores marketing data if this is public.Name one way to link that information."
Name on way.

"1. Everyone and there mom has a camera phone."
I am in an office right now with 15 people. 2 of them have camera phones.

"2. Using a QR code with regular text is possible so you don't need a camera phone."
How does this work?

"3. You don't seem to understand the scale. How are you going to link the user purchase to that data with no info given to the user. With my version of the system you need no user pre-signup. You, don't need a credit card or any cards at all. You could even pay in cash and still have access. User needs nothing and store only needs to use software with there existing pos system."

I've already explained that.

Now, your system still uses paper receipts and then you take a picture of the receipt? How do the users get the code for their phone? Who programs is? How programs the receipt terminal to print QR code?

So let's say we have your system and ours. With my system I go to CVS pharmacy and make a purchase, the nice clerk points me to a card on a rack and asks if I'd like to have my receipt digitally available online instead of a paper receipt. I agree. She takes the card and swipes it in the POS terminal. She then informs me to go to a website where I will enter the card number, a username, and password. She tells me I can use it at any participating merchant. I go home, sign up, and see my receipt. I also learn that there are thousands of merchants who offeer this. There on the screen is a printable coupon from CVS for the exact item I just purchased; for my next purchase.

I just saved paper, I have my receipts securely online and I can manipulate the data to view my spending habits or get ready for tax time.

Now as I understand it, with your version I would make the same purchase, take the receipt, snap a picture of it, throw the receipt in the trash, and then...where would I view the info? On my phone or on a website somewhere?

How about putting your idea up for vote, if everyone thinks your way is better then I'll be happy to help.

Please don't make me have to get another card that needs to be swiped when I buy things... I have enough already!

:)

Ok, how about you just enter a pin number.

That way there are no cards to purchase. We will not need a million dollars to get started. That's a great idea. Now all we need is software and no cards will need to be printed. Thanks for the feedback.

Once again the wisdom of the crowd shines through.

I think you might want consider both options: some people are going to say 'please don't make me remember another number!'. I find a lot of companies that have card systems also allow you to use your phone number if you don't have the card. This keeps both sides of the argument happy: if I prefer to swipe, I have a card or a keychain tag, if I prefer to not carry stuff I can just spout off a number.

Great suggestions Laura. We will never please everyone so we need to aim for the middle of the road.

so I have a general question, how do the users who contributed to this idea over at kluster get paid if this were to go forward.. an interesting piece for all crowdsourcing sites - chances are inventors are going to cross post and see where it sticks, learn and keep going - perhaps we need a crowdsourcing aggregator or an ISO standard for idea exchanges data LOL

I didn't know kluster existed.

To login instead of having a card: It precludes any need to partner with credit companies. Maybe customers could swipe their pre-linked credit/debit cards simply to generate a security question when they forget their password. Could we use card numbers strictly as partial ID and outside agreements with the issuing companies, and while preserving privacy breaches back to the credit agencies and the stores we shop in? I think this is one way that stores will try to intercept the data stream in reverse (as Kevin Cox suggests). Maybe partnering with card-reader producers (Veriphone and others) to host the software will block this reverse engineering of our business. ??

“I think people want more and more control over the advertising they see, and there can be smart ways to use that with the information you're gathering.”
Ads and special offers could be put in a separate part of the website for consumers to explore at their convenience. They have 100% control that way.
Earned coupons and rebates could accrue to the account automatically, but if listed at the top of the ads pages, the consumer might be enticed to check there to plan ahead for their shopping.

Will it be sufficient to sell only statistically aggregated data to the marketers, or do we need to offer individual consumer patterns? Obviously, personal ID data should never be provided to marketers, but even provision of individual consumer patterns to marketers seems too invasive.

Consumer membership fees could be a small (5$/year maybe) but legitimate revenue stream. The fee might have a psychological effect to reduce perception that this is an agreement to marketing deluge, invasion of privacy, and increased ID risk. This business can and should do much more for consumers than Costco (and other club stores), and for a fraction of the cost.

Summertime, I love where you're going. You've hit on it perfectly. $5-$10 per year would cover the cost of the cards etc. We could sell them and then let the merchants get a piece, maybe $1 -$2 per card and then also charge the merchants. We would then sell the aggregated marketing data as reports, and offer the rebate/coupon option to customers, make the advertising extremely targeted so consumers will actually want it, and give the consumers reports on their spending. Wow!

Now, here's a problem I ran into with this idea this weekend. I took the kids to Mc'donalds. We went through the drive-thru, got our food, and I got a paper receipt. How would this idea work in this situation?

I was thinking we could easily use a card in this situation. Just pass it through the drive-thru. Any more ideas?

I think there are going to be a lot of sticky integration points - for example there's a lot of gas pumps that print you out a receipt. I think a key point on this is going to be making it as simple as possible for merchants to key into the system. Once you start seeing the e-reciept logo everywhere (sort of like those paypass systems that are becoming more prevalent), you'll a lot of consumers signing up.

I'm not sure what the best strategy for integration is going to be. You may want to chose a particular industry (gas receipts, grocery stores) to use as an initial opening market, or it may be better to scattershot and hope for spotty coverage over a wider range of industries.

Check out this link. These are some of the software applications written by third party vendors for Verifone.

http://www.verifone....-added-software.aspx

If we start with a particular manufacturer such as Verifone, then we can cover a myriad of industries and get all the bugs worked out; from there we just change the software for other manufacturers.

##"Name on way."
Here are a few off the top of my head:
* Linking the time of purchase with the time you pay for it
* Linking variables like buying habits over time.
* Comparing the card number you use with your ip logged on.

##"Everyone and there mom has a camera phone."
I am in an office right now with 15 people. 2 of them have camera phones.
They must only use only really cheap phones if that is true. There is over a 50% market penetration in the USA and a 75% market penetration in the UK. Source: M:Metrics

##"How does this work?"
You know just regular text like we are typing right now.

##"How do the users get the code for their phone? Who programs is? How programs the receipt terminal to print QR code?"
They take a picture of the qr code. The terminal clearly needs to be programed to print out the code.

##"Now as I understand it, with your version I would make the same purchase, take the receipt, snap a picture of it, throw the receipt in the trash, and then...where would I view the info? On my phone or on a website somewhere?"
With my version you sign up for nothing. You don't have to carry any card. Unless you want it linked to a credit card.

The code is printed on the paper automatically using a token. That token can be linked to your credit card, debit card or any info the store knows you by. So, you don't have to sign up but its still an option.

Stores, have a lot of uses for the paper version still. Plus, if you don't have a paper version it fails to do the job of being able to check it.

1. Your idea requires registration. With my idea you don't have to.
2. Both ideas can link data to the customer automatically.
3. Your idea requires uses to have a card with them at all times. My idea does not require this.
4. Your idea requires to store to beg for users to opt-in for it to work. My idea does not need users to opt-in or pre-register.
5. Your idea takes away the paper and does not let users check for errors at the store. My idea lets users check for errors at the store.
6. Both let you view on the web.

##"How about putting your idea up for vote, if everyone thinks your way is better then I'll be happy to help."
I don't want to put up my version since I think this idea is a lame thing to build. That will take up more time then its worth just to get past the red tape. Plus, its hard to see why your idea would even make good money since it will be so hard to get into the market and make this happen.

ya, paper sucks.

Seems like this is an idea being voted up based upon number of comments, not necessarily whether it's practical. I think many, myself included, think this is a good idea but to be honest I don't think the author's intended delivery plan is realistic. If it was, I'd think this would already have been done. The many variations in POS software / databases in terms of technologies, protocols etc. makes for a pretty daunting obstacle when trying to achieve critical mass even if you're working in just one industry. All the best though.

I totally agree with what siddey said its just not very realistic for CH to make this idea happen.

Look, the main reason this has not been done is not because of practicality; it is because there is not a central database to house the information. If you follow the link I gave above you will see that there are programs being written for the terminals to do a myriad of things, but a merchant isn't going to want this on his own. There will need to be a need from the consumer to push this.

Now, we could easily just provide the database and website and allow other companies to write the software for the different types of terminals. All they would need to do is link to our site. This can be done; It will just take more than posts on CH to make it happen and a lot less nay-saying.

“
* Linking the time of purchase with the time you pay for it
* Linking variables like buying habits over time.
* Comparing the card number you use with your ip logged on. “

When you swipe your credit card at the grocery, the machine goes on the credit network to verify the account status. Does the grocery get anything more than a thumbs-up/down and a transaction number? [Maybe your account number, to get paid] So, they can accumulate the data from your shopping in their store, and they can link your club account (if you have one) to your credit number. This much is to be expected, but the credit company must block access to the rest of the credit account. Why can’t we block everything that the merchant would not normally be entitled to, just as the credit companies do?

We can offer merchants aggregated sales data within their business sector, which should trump data from their own “club” programs’ by far. Maybe some merchants will outsource their club program to us.

I still like the idea to integrating this system onto existing credit union cards (Check, Debit, Credit, “Consumer Track”). Credit unions often qualify members based on employment (State Credit Unions, for example), but this might help create something open to all (like GEICO, for example).

Phone or flatbed scanning of receipts is a nice addition. Maybe it could serve as the initial system, but would it not be slow and tedious to do OCR and manipulate the data into our database? It seems we might need the cards for convenient data acquisition.

Obviously, I took the liberty to assign the working title “Consumer Track” until it becomes supplanted. “Consumption Track” might sound less like a privacy invasion.

What happened to this idea?

Its still alive. Just waiting on someone to step forward and run with it. I have zero programming knowledge so I'm looking for someone who wants to take on the challenge.

http://www.alletronic.com/

check it out, these guys are already doing paperless receipts. Very cool stuff.

Cawlin, thanks for the link. These guys are doing exactly what I proposed we do, right down to selling the information received. SEE I told everyone it could be done.

These guys need some better SEO because three weeks ago they weren't even showing up on Google or else I wouldn't have put the idea in Ideawarz. Oh well, a day late and a dollar short, always a bridesmaid, well you know the rest...

The thing is with this idea, they are housing the information themselves and are opening up the API for developers. Very smart. They own the info. That's what I labored to put forth here. Whoever is the first to store the info is the one who makes the killing.

Now there will be other companies who try to do the same thing. Here's the problem. No one is gonna want receipts on different web sites.

Yep, should be interesting. I have to agree that they need way better SEO and even the PR could use a little work, they come off a a bit to Eco-Hardcore which often makes non hippie businesses weary.

I am going to be talking to a past employer about using this in their stores. They are the type of people who would love to use it and their customers would too. Hopefully they get in on it and I can go try it out.

interviewables,

Your idea was spot on from the start. We discussed all the aspects that alletronic does, and more. Maybe they got the idea from you and CH. I suspect they don't have many business partners yet (any at all?), but they are getting positioned for the big-time. Anyone seen any evidence at all in the real world yet?

I like that they can use any existing cards. How about the security? Banking info is not stored, but I wonder about someone breeching the consumer system then bridging into the banking data somehow. ?? If there is a problem, then I would return to my idea to partner with small credit unions.

AllEtronic needs a system for customers to scan their own paper receipts. Now, is the right time, before businesses start to sign up or start their own programs. Customers could line up multiple receipts on a scanner at home and send composite images to "Consumer Track" (we still have a better name). Consumer Track extracts the separate receipts and logs to the respective account. The consumer could log in and fill in missing details for the mom-and-pop store receipts with insufficient tracking information. After the first log from a given vendor, they simply associate reciepts to that vendor. Meanwhile, Consumer Track is accumulating data to market the program to businesses that have not yet signed up. Note also that this will help prevent big businesses from running their own programs. For example: consumers will still get that grocery club card to get the associated fair prices, but they will scan their receipts and build up Consumer Track at the same time. It seems like there is a time window, where consumers might use paper receipts to build something like Consumer Track in their best interests before big credit and marketing companies get control of it all. What do you think? Could we leap-frog past the head start that AllEtronic has?

Summertime, anything is possible. The way to leap-frog them is to write our own pos software that works with the majority of merchants hardware. Right now they are hoping developers come on board and write and sell the software to the merchants(which they will do). We could provide the all-in-one solution. Whoever stores the data will rule this niche.

"The way to leap-frog them is to write our own pos software that works with the majority of merchants hardware. "

I think the law still requires a reciept. Scanning receipts is compatible with every business (and in all countries?), AND it will bring the businesses that don't adopt first around really quickly. Our own pos software is starting from behind, and it will have to compete head-to-head without the game-changing paradigm shift I am proposing.

"Right now they are hoping developers come on board and write and sell the software to the merchants(which they will do)."

I caught this drift before but was not sure what to make of it. Are they are not really even competition yet? Is their model to purchase developers' programs outright or charge a percentage to implement it. That might be fine for us to go in under their lead, but I see no reason not to create the additional strong incentive to market to businesses that I outlined.

"We could provide the all-in-one solution. Whoever stores the data will rule this niche."

Credit companies, banks, grocery stores, and many more already store information. But, if the consumers have a system that works to their advantage (records + opt-in and control of marketing, electronic and streamlined coupons and promos, paperless store-returns etc.), they will be throwing away junk-mail, and the businesses will be begging to get into the system that consumers care about.

I have thought about this idea for a couple of years now but as noted in this thread, there are some complications. To that matter, we have developed our own web based POS system http://www.bizmanagepro.com which we are releasing in the coming month as we finalize our customer trials. As part of our next release, we wanted to integrate a consumer card idea to allow for reciepts to be managed by the customer online.

Although my post is a little late, I think everyone should check out allEtronic. http://www.allEtronic.com

They've created what you are all talking about. Plus, Stanford University is already using them. I've also heard that the Angels Stadium, Staples, Home Depot and Best Buy are about to start offering allEtronic to their customers.