Do you want a receipt

No loads of other countries don’t give receipt. Most Europeans countries don’t. Maybe you come from a country where there is not much awareness and consideration for environment if you argue back when other posters explain that it’s due to environmental reasons. I am originally from a country where consideration to environment is lower than in European countries but that does not want me to expect my adopted countries to do things the same way. I feel living in other countries should make people a bit open to doing things differently otherwise why even leave own country to live in a country if there way of doing things annoy you. Even in Switzerland, a pretty efficient country in so many ways, they ask if you want a receipt. You need to travel a bit more if you think UK is unique for asking before printing receipt.
Anyways, asking someone if you need a receipt does not take that long.

"Can I take your email for your receipt?"
No. Chelsea, love, just print it for me please.

I live in Spain and am frequently asked if I want the receipt.

A quick Google search tells you that in the UK over 11 billion receipts are printed and approximately 9.9 billion are thrown away.

Even without that do you not have common sense to think how often you actually need a receipt? How wasteful that is?

This is a good point.

At our local Lidl you need to scan your receipt to exit the barrier at eve self checkout.

Not related but it annoys me that they forced everyone to move to self service under the guise that it would reduce queuing but now they only ever have half the self service tills available to use. (Lidl and ASDA) They are all card only so no one is manually cashing them up at night so there is literally no reason to have everyone stood in a massive queue for the privilege of scanning and bagging their own purchases.

That would be because every other country is wasting paper. Pretty obvious really.

I own a shop. I ask customers if they would like a receipt when they have paid. Till rolls are far from cheap so I'm not printing unnecessarily. No one waits until you have pretty much left the shop to shout that question out. If you've walked away, you clearly don't want a receipt!

It’s to save paper. So do you want a receipt or not? If so, wait or ask for it, if not walk away. If you’re this stressed about a minor inconvenience, you may have bigger personal issues to address!

English people are really embarrassed about handing out receipts. A lot of people don’t want them and it’s a really stressful mini interaction that retail staff have to go through hundreds of times a day.

Back when I started working, handing out receipts was a part of the mystery shop/audit and you could fail it for not handling out the receipt. It was an important fraud prevention thing and you weren’t supposed to keep unwanted customer receipts by your till either.

But, as I said, people get embarrassed about handing them out.

Customers can be knobheads about a lot of things and min wage retail can be soul destroying. If people wouldn’t even hand their money to me then they would get a counter full of change back. People get really shocked when you treat them the same as they treat you.

YANBU, but so many people don't care about receipts so that's why they ask now

You’re bonkers OP. If I think I might need the receipt in case of returning something I say “yes”, if not I say as I’m paying “I’ll just leave the receipt thanks.”

It adds no more time to the interaction than any other at a till: “do you need a hand packing?” “Do you need any bags?” “Cash or card?” “Do you need a receipt?”

These are all normal questions. If you know it’s the norm here then stop getting into mad self-inflicted, stressful scenarios over it. Just say “no need for a receipt thank you” as you hand over your cash or tap your card.

I remember when the paying for a bag thing came in. Drove me mad. Loads of shopping, nah was planning on juggling it home 😂 we’re all used to it now so take our own bags 😂

Yes, I've noticed that, they just throw it in the bin. I'm sure a lot of it is to make returns more difficult

I take a receipt now because I dont have a bag as proof I haven't shoplifted i dont have every bank app on my phone so when I'm getting my dads shopping we always get a receipt as I cant just bring it up on my phone and security guards seem to prefer to shout and embarress people rather than check the tills/footage (yes I saw it in real life not on tiktok before anyone says "it never happens") so before I was less inclined to get a receipt now ive a regular forest full of paper scraps

I was refusing receipts for a long time but I've started requesting a receipt at every till and cashpoint now. I realised that it was putting me at a potential disadvantage to not have one (I might have the transaction on my bank statement but it isn't itemised) and only saving the retailer money, so it was daft to put myself into that position.

It doesn’t save paper as often they just bin the receipt in front of you.
it's also a pain for returning anything if you say no thank you but they don’t tell you that.

We must read different threads then.

I have found some of the threads on here very moving in terms of the support, understanding and empathy.

There are some arses that pop-up regularly who takes delight in twisting the knife, but they are in the minority.

But I am still Mumsnet bewildered why you posted if you are not expecting anyone to be supportive etc.

Of course it's a massive amount of paper waste.

Try saving all your receipts for a year and then imagine that for every single person.

I tell them that I do/don't need a receipt as I tap my card, job done.
I don't like wasting time.
It might save a tree or two.

Then why are you here?

Really curious 🤔

Well maybe we are ahead of the curve!

As it's "only in the UK" you have experienced this. Good on us!

Just rude to everyone else 😂😂