This measure of the "anti-waste" law, voted in 2020 in France, opens the door wide to new alternatives such as the dematerialized ticket.
The stated objective is to protect the environment since a receipt sent by email would reduce the waste of paper and water.
Even if, according to the GreenIT collective, a dematerialized ticket would release 2 grams of CO2 equivalent more into the atmosphere than a printed ticket, because its transmission and storage in a data center are energy-intensive.
But implicitly, dematerialized tickets are a new opportunity for "targeting" thanks to the personal data collected, fears Ralph Roggenbuck, lawyer at the European Consumer Center.
Concretely, the customer at the checkout may be offered to give their contact details, name, email, or even telephone number and address, to receive a summary of their purchases in their mailbox or on their personal account in each store.
In case of exchange, or to find a guarantee, no more stacks of discolored receipts, he will only have to find it in a few clicks.
Many large distributors such as Carrefour or Système U already offer it.
Moreover, 70% of the turnover of food brands is already linked to customers identified through the loyalty system, according to Jean-Michel Chanavas, general delegate of Mercatel, a professional association specializing in payment-related issues. .
"Wonderful Bargain"
A dozen young companies have found a new niche there, such as Limpidius, Zerosix, Yavin, etc. They offer merchants the possibility of sending these "demat' tickets" (dematerialized) to their customers, in connection with the cash register software, and sometimes to design their formatting.
The anti-waste law is a "great boon" for traders, assure some of these intermediary companies on their websites.
They praise the economic and environmental merits of these digital tickets, but also their marketing interest, in a "totally uninhibited" way, remarks Lionel Maugain, of the magazine 60 Millions de consommateurs.
The data collected during the transaction allows merchants to enrich their "customer repository", a database to better target their customers.
This new practice is a "genius reason" for professionals to collect people's email addresses since it will attract "a lot more people than the loyalty card", assures Ralph Roggenbuck.
Legally, this collection of data is legal.
The risk is that the consent of customers is not collected in a clear manner.
For a merchant to use this data for a different use, for example to send advertising, he must ensure that the customer accepts it in writing, by ticking one by one the boxes corresponding to the different uses of the data. , he insists.
"This need has existed for a long time", explains Jean-Michel Chanavas, but these companies "seize the opportunity of the law to switch to the subject of marketing", he raises.
However, the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL) is clear: the dematerialization of receipts cannot justify "other purposes, in particular commercial prospecting", indicated the institution in its White Paper on data. and means of payment published in October 2021.
Queues at checkout
It remains to be seen how to collect consent without lengthening the queues at the checkout.
The procedure (oral or written) remains unclear and professionals are still awaiting the decree implementing the anti-waste law.
To avoid this waiting time, the start-up Yavin offers brands to recognize customers' credit cards ("with their agreement"), so that in the future, they can systematically receive their receipts by email.
Its potential competitor Killbills wants to further reduce this time by allowing the purchase statement to be sent directly to the banking customer area, simply by means of a credit card transaction.
"In this case, the brands do not collect any contact details from customers and cannot contact them inadvertently", assures Sid-Ahmed Chikh-Bleb, its co-founder.
Anyway, this data, even anonymized, remains a "gold mine" for analyzing consumer behavior, certifies the CNIL.
© 2022 AFP