That’s fine for your business.
But I want proof of purchase. I don’t want to be bailed up exiting JbHiFi or Bunnings or Kmart, et al, by the checker wanting to see if I have paid, or just trying to walk out with unpaid goods.
Where’s the proof of purchase? Oh it’s been sent to my phone or email, but it hasn’t arrived yet. May arrive in an hour or so. Or gosh, my phone is in the car.
Please read my previous post and posts above. A consumer can ask for a paper receipt. No-one is yet forcing anyone to only have a electronic (emailed or text) receipt only.
Even Chemist Warehouse, subject of this thread and which has migrated to a electronic receipt system, can still issue paper receipts if requested by the customer.
The original poster was suggesting otherwise.
Firstly no supply of email or phone number, then no receipt.
Secondly, no receipt printer as part of their system.
That wasn’t correct and unfortunately appears a misunderstanding on the poster’s part.
The request for a paper receipt has been addressed in the thread and that Chemist Warehouse issues paper receipts/Tax invoices when asked. At the point of sale they offer electronic receipts/Tax Invoices to a customer first, and will issue a paper receipt (without email/phone details) when requested.
Last week I spoke to the head pharmacist at a nearby Chemist Warehouse and they confirmed that this is their companies policy (following the adoption of the Slyp system).
Edit: Forgot to also say that I was told during discussions that it was mentioned for online orders, a paper copy of a Chemist Warehouse Tax Invoice is included in the packaging with send purchases. This is also confirmed on their website under ‘Will my Order include GST’
As I will be paying a visit to CW soon, I will see how their receipt issuing system works for myself.
Forewarned is forearmed. I will be sure to have a pen in my top pocket and a piece of paper.
Or a misunderstanding by the staff person at Chemist Warehouse to suggest different to their policy? Easier to judge if one was present than speculate at arms length, BWIM.
If I was to reframe the question as a hypothetical!
Is it the customers responsibility to know the CW policy and correct their staff, or is it CW’s responsibility to correctly indicate the options to the customer?
It requires a simple binary response.
Does consumer law compel CW to issue a paper receipt at the point of sale? It’s irrelevant that some might accept the digital alternative, or a business claim digital is a superior option.
It requires a simple binary response.
Or,
How important is a receipt in this instance?
For me it’s an exception, (adaptable to circumstance) and it’s one of those local businesses whose public trade name is the same on the card statement/online records. For a visitor to our nearby township there are others whose trade name is not self evident on the statements. An unrelated company or Family Trust relationship will appear.
I’ve had occasion to challenge more than one charge to a card with the bank. The advice in return was to always collect a receipt, from which the amount could be matched as a reminder of which service the charge related to. Less likely around home, more likely when away and making multiple daily and small transactions.
If we are transitioning to cashless and receipt-less it’s a consumer legislative failure that there are not strict requirements in place for how the receipts are to be provided, IMHO. This would include the business public trade name and store location being reliably recorded on transaction statements. For now the digital resolution is free to define consumer outcomes without any consumer recourse? @BrendanMays
As far as I know a business is required (ie no request by customer necessary) to provide a receipt for any sale $75 or greater at the time of purchase, for amounts less than this there is only a requirement if the customer asks for one. The business in the case of a request for an amount less than $75 has 7 days in which to provide the receipt.
Have sometimes purchased meals for family members from McDonalds that has exceeded $75 and the machines have in some stores never had paper to print the receipt. Managers there don’t even know they are breaching Consumer Law and offer no apology. Very poor standards, have others ever suffered this failure?
A reference to the requirements can be found at the following link. Please note the receipt provided is referred to as being a physical one. The business can provide other proofs of purchase as well.
Interesting discussion here - I had the same experience at Chemist Warehouse recently and I think it’s the way they frame the decision. They ask if you want an electronic receipt, and if you say yes they need your phone number. If you say no, they don’t offer a paper receipt, so they shift the burden on the customer to ask for one. You have to know to ask for one, as otherwise the assumption is that you don’t want a receipt at all.
So I think what this is is a shift in norms. There are definitely advantages to electronic receipts, which don’t fade or get scrunched up in my handbag. But I don’t want to give personal details just to get a receipt.
At JB Hi Fi, they also ask if you want an electronic receipt if you reach a certain threshold value, but if not they give you a paper receipt. They also offer you a choice of email or mobile phone. Email feels like a less worrying form of communication, especially if you are already by default forced into giving this online in many circumstances. With my email, at least I can do things like change my password, have two factor authentication, and keep my more sensitive transactions in another account
This to me feels like a much preferable way of approaching it - giving the. consumer choices. For JB, it feels like you also get value, because this is then recorded in their system if something is wrong with what you’ve purchased.
What neither of them do though is explain the privacy consequences of giving that information (though, to be fair, does anyone these days?) so grateful for the explanation that the information is kept with SquareUp and not with the retailer. Still, there should be clear regulation that, unless the customer opts in expressly, this private information should not be used for marketing purposes and should be deleted after a certain amount of time.
I regularly get my prescription filled at a Chemist Warehouse, they always ask me if I want my receipt and it’s printed immediately.
Also at the supermarkets, the self service machine shows a tab with a ‘yes-no’ option for a receipt.
I’m in a bayside suburb of Melbourne, it seems that things are done differently in other places 
I think there is an economy-wide shift in norms, potentially motivated as a cost saving measure for the business, a better environmental outcome, more surveillance capitalism - or a happy alignment of all three.
I am concerned with the current trend to ask customers for phone numbers or emails so that Chemist Warehouse (plus other big businesses) can issue a paperless receipt. I can understand that removing the roll of paper in the Eftpos machine is a great advantage for the business (cost saving & time).
However, have we not learnt from the hacking into OPTUS and MEDIBANK that the more information retained by businesses, the greater the risk of that information being compromised. Thus, to ask for phone numbers and emails for paperless receipts is extremely poor judgement particularly on the part of pharmacies. If huge companies such as Medibank are not safe from hacking, then pharmacists who hold masses of intimate personal information have much less ability to withstand hacking. Pharmacists must stop this urgency to accept technological crazes without consideration of the massive risk posed to personal data that they hold. By linking pharmacy patient receipts to phone numbers in order to obtain a paperless receipt, is leaving the patient exposed to hacking and ransom demands. Who will stand up for our privacy and say NO to phone numbers required for paperless receipts?
Went to another Chemist Warehouse yesterday and had exactly the same experience. I was first asked if they could send a electronic receipt (tax invoice) to a mobile number. I said no and asked could I please have a printed receipt. A receipt was printed without any request for a mobile number. Same experience as several other Chemist Warehouse stores visited in the past.
Asking the cashier why they first ask to send a electronic tax invoice to a mobile number, she said it is now Chemist Warehouse policy to do such and a printed receipt is only given when asked. I asked if they had been trained on the new policy and she said she had, like all other relevant staff in Chemist Warehouse.
Probably. A small box of receipt rolls has a starting cost of around $50. At work i probably change a receipt roll at least 2 or 3 times in a small self-serve during my 5 hour shift. I would say it’s not out of the realm of possibly to for the most commonly used registers to go through at least 1 roll a day. There would be barely additional cost if a store already has it’s own app, as most of the infrastructure would already be there.
Almost all receipts these days are thermal receipts. They are not suitable for recycling or composting because they use BPA plastic, so can contaminate other recyclable materials and compost
Except for the cost of complying with the Privacy Act and the potential costs when they fail at doing so.
That may not be a problem for a one-off “Mum and Dad” store, as they will be exempt from some of the requirements of said Act. It presumably does apply to Chemist Warehouse.
Then there’s the non-monetary cost of grumpy customers waiting while the checkout chick replaces the roll. Have you noticed how it always runs out just before you get to the front of the queue? 
What queue? I suppose it depends where one shops most often, although I often need to wait while they go to the laser printer for the A4 tax invoice. It solves the problem of keeping those receipts fading before tax time.
Before anyone jumps on to suggest better alternatives, I’ll agree there are several. My comment reflects how the majority of small businesses around here still prefer to function. I’ve only a couple who are all digital sending invoices by SMS or email.
That cost is 0 to negligible. Compliance with the Privacy Act is already required and baked into the systems, whether it’s a company’s data storage, release of an app etc. Even as a front line worker i am required by my company to take training at least yearly on complying with the Act and the company’s policies. In the larger companies they will have a person or team responsible for privacy compliance. That is almost certainly a salaried position so while potentially a slightly higher workload, there would be no additional staff cost.
It’s a pretty big assumption that every company is going to fail at complying with the Act. The OAIC releases a report every 6 months of notifiable data breaches that breaks down industries with the most data breaches, types of breaches etc
Fair cop. I wrote “when” but I didn’t mean to imply that every company will definitely fail.
There’s not a Chemist Warehouse within a thousand kilometres of me (wish there was, this town has a cartel of chemist shops - 4 - only one, 5th, somewhat out of town, isn’t part of it), but on a recent trip I did visit one - they didn’t even ask, just handed me a paper receipt.
Woolworths now just do my receipt ‘online’ apparently - I’m not sure if I clicked something at some stage. Prior to that, on two occasions I’ve been challenged as to whether I’d scanned everything correctly. On both occasions I had already paid (for everything in the bags) and left the store. Without a paper receipt, assuming I was willing to indulge a third party security ‘guard’, I believe there would be a painful process of either showing them my mobile app (not going to happen, ever) or getting a copy receipt printed at the service desk while my groceries start to spoil. Admittedly, theft is a big issue especially where I live - but to some degree that is the price they pay for not having checkouts open. It seems that offering to engage the police seems to nullify the situation.
Happy to have an ‘e-receipt’ - but don’t ask me to present it …
Well I have been to CW twice in the last month or so, and I was given a printed receipt no problems, and no mention of supplying a mobile number or email address when I just requested a receipt.
Most businesses I use, by default do not give a receipt for small amounts with card tap and go, so I always ask for one.
