End of the Shopper Receipt?

In the US,  major retailers, including Whole Foods Market, Nordstrom, Gap Inc. (which owns Old Navy and Banana Republic), Anthropologie, Patagonia, Sears and Kmart, have begun offering electronic versions of receipts, either e-mailed or uploaded to password-protected Web sites.

Retailers first considered e-receipts in the late 1990s, but the dot-com crash stopped most efforts.

In 2005, Apple introduced electronic receipts at its stylish retail stores. More mainstream retailers found the checkout system difficult to replicate and were concerned that most shoppers were not quite ready for such a technological leap.

However, with wider use of mobile phones for payments, as with Google Wallet, e-receipts will become standard.

In terms of creativity, Nordstrom are considering increasing appeal by adding a photo of the item to the receipt so that a shopper can add it to a Facebook wall

To overcome objections to use of email addresses, some retailers are uploading  purchase information to a password-protected site. Customers can search their receipts and eventually  review tallies of how much they spend on ice cream or shampoo.

Can you imagine the added plus for a Tesco to be able to link receipts and Clubcard data, and the downside for those who cannot?