TESTIMONIALS – In order to combat waste, in-store ticket printing will be prohibited, unless the customer requests otherwise, from January 1, 2023. A decision that does not suit everyone.
Will the receipt soon be the symbol of a bygone era, as the minitel and the Mammoth supermarkets were in their time? The question may seem absurd as this little piece of paper is now inseparable from the act of purchase. His days could however be numbered, just like his alter ego the credit card receipt. A decree implementing the anti-waste law provides “the ban on the automatic printing of tickets in stores from January 1, 2023“, with the aim of reducing the production of waste by several tons per year. The printing and systematic distribution of “vouchers and tickets aimed at promoting or reducing the prices of sale items in sales areas» and automat tickets, are also in the sights of the law. While the intention is laudable, some are not yet ready to give up this very useful coupon.
Read alsoRise in agricultural prices: no impact yet on the receipt
Like many French people, Claire*, in her thirties, likes to consult her receipt when she makes purchases: “I ask for it for the big races in particular. I like to check prices and promotions“. This small piece of paper is indeed the best tool to know immediately if the price paid at the checkout is the same as that displayed on the shelf. A similarity by no means guaranteed. The magazine 60 million consumers, previously interviewed by Le Figarothus pointed out that “en 2016, after checking tens of thousands of prices, Fraud Control had established at 8% the error rate, half unfavorable to the customer.
The document also often serves as a support for the legal guarantee of conformity which protects the customer against all manufacturing defects during the purchase or delivery of a product. “We keep them for the guarantee, explains Clotilde*, a 50-year-old living in the Nice region. They are kept for several months, or more, in a crate in the garage, just in case.»
Souvenir tickets
«I almost always refuse them and when they give them to me I throw them away without looking at them. But I like to keep them when they are related to an important event“says Louise *, 28 years old. She quotes pell-mell:the pot to celebrate his CDI», «her birthday brunch” and even “once I managed to find the motivation to go to the swimming pool on a Saturday morning before noonshe laughs. In short, those moments that make herproud or happy“. Some are in his bag, others in his room, “when I tidy up, I fall on it and I recall these memories».
Getting rid of receipts or credit cards is not easy for everyone. If the majority of French people put it in the trash without asking questions, others are worried about seeing the information it contains end up in the wrong hands. This is the case of Clotilde and her husband who, for safety, prefer to have them disappear regularly. “We store them and once or twice a year we burn everything in our garden“, receipts, but also invoices or statements of account. “These documents contain a lot of personal information“, she justifies.
Inevitably, it welcomes the decline in the receipt with suspicion. “We will continue to ask for it in hard copy“, she warns. Same story on the side of consumer associations, who warn that “the right for a consumer to obtain a receipt will only really be preserved if the choice is systematically offered to him», which they doubt. They also consider that the replacement of the printed receipt by sending it by e-mail “opens the way to a forced march dematerialization of the ticket», «likely to facilitate, via marketing techniques, the creation of databases by merchants».
Read alsoEnd of the receipt: consumer associations opposed to the deletion by default
Others, on the contrary, are more receptive to this change. “Personally, I don’t mind receiving them by email. Especially since I often complain about the length of certain paper tickets that we are given in stores“, points Claire *. For her part, Louise* admits that she will regret not being able to accumulate new souvenir tickets, but she understands the need to reduce paper consumption. On the other hand, she will not ask for the digital version: “I’m not interested, they will accumulate in my unread emails and I will never come across them again».
SEE ALSO – Are these applications effective against food waste?