Do you want a receipt

[Bunnybenty]

I moved to England not that long ago.

In other countries that I lived in, they just gave me a receipt in the shops, everytime that I bought something. The receipt was always handed to me with the purchase.

Why in the UK do they not just give the receipt to you,

instead they always ASK you if you want a receipt.

What annoys me about it, is that it slows the shopping experience down so much.

Many times I have been called back to the till, to be asked if i want a receipt.

Example: I was in a small shop this morning. I only had a certain amount of time, as i was on the way to work. I was walking out of the door, when the woman at the till shouted at me "Wait. Come back! come back!".

I thought maybe my payment hadn't gone through, so I walked all the way back to her.

She said "Do you want a receipt?".

It drives me mad!

Imagine how many receipts are given out a day & thrown in the bin. It’ll be hundreds of thousands. The waste is immense. Just because other countries don’t do it, means nothing. I can’t believe it adds that much to your shopping time!!

Just googled it & found this:
Over 11.2 billion paper receipts are printed in the UK every year and the majority of these are non-recyclable – a real bane to both the retail industry and shoppers alike as both actively strive to be more sustainable. Recent research from Yocuda, the world leaders in digital receipt solutions, has found that 76% of shoppers would choose a digital receipt if they knew how many trees are cut down to generate paper receipts.

Thats a huge amount!!

Mumsnet has to be the absolute cesspit of humanity at times

yet here you are.

The only person who has been rude and swearing is you.

What role do you have in a school, OP?

Then maybe all the other countries need to follow our example.

This is hilarious.

It is a massive and totally unnecessary waste of resources. Just imagine the sheer volume of paper, water, land etc providing all those millions and millions of useless bits of paper. More countries need to be putting a halt to this

Many people work in schools without being rude to staff in shops.

What a weird thing to be mad about.

Sometimes I need a recept, sometimes. I don't.
If I'm food shopping for myself, then I dont need one, however if im shopping for work,either a significant shop or picking up milk, bread and snacks I need a receipt for petty cash. Im glad they ask because its a hassle if I forget to take one.

Yanbu. I wish they gave one as standard too.

Maybe you could suggest some ways your school could reduce its paper wastage?

If companies really bothered about paper waste there wouldn't be so much paper junk mail coming through our doors, I still get rubbish like this from loads of businesses.

It’s impressive that you are such an expert on Ireland too.

She was being amusing, another confounding British tradition.
In response to PP who accused OP of running away without paying.

They are trying to save paper and ink plus stop litter with people screwing them up and dropping them on the floor. It’s literally a yes or no answer, not exactly time consuming 🙄

It’s no ok in schools, really shame more isn’t being done about it. Maybe you could take the lead at your school? Don’t you have paper recycling bins? A lot do.

Many countries in the past made it a legal requirement for ships to provide every customer with a receipt. This was to make it more difficult for shops to keep transactions off the books for tax avoidance purposes. Some shops may also have policies that every customer should receive a receipt, to avoid staff pocketing cash payments.

The high proportion of electronic payments in the UK today probably makes such rules less necessary, and so shops prefer to make receipts optional to save paper - and cost.

If it keeps happening, maybe you could:

A) Leave earlier

B) Pre-empt it, by saying "I don't need the receipt, thank you"

Can't be that much paper? Google tells me there are 53 million retail transactions per day in the UK. Can't you see how astonishingly wasteful it is to print out 53 million little slips when many are not wanted or needed and will either go in the bin or end up as litter?

Huh? How can it not be that much paper waste based on the fact that other countries do it?!

Imagine waking up and looking at Mumsnet and finding people arguing about till receipts. How bizarre!

If it gets you this stressed then shopping online is your only answer!

If you're halfway out the door before the cashier can ask if you want a receipt then you're leaving before the transaction is complete, it takes at the most 3-4 seconds for the machine to talk to your bank, and give the authorisation, maybe another second to print the merchant receipt and for the question "Does the customer want a receipt?" To flash up on the screen and the cashier to ask you.

If they gave you one as standard you'll be waiting longer for that process to complete, and seeing as you're already on your way, they're not getting the opportunity to give you it automatically are they? You're the one legging it before the opportunity arises, and they're asking you in case you forgot and want one because it will take even longer to identify and print a receipt if you ask for one after they've done a few more transactions.

So perhaps say "I want/don't want the receipt" as you pay and you'll either save yourself 2-3 seconds per transaction or you'll get your receipt.

@Bunnybenty Come here a minute... bit closer...

Do you want a receipt?

I only need one if I’m buying something on expenses that I need to provide evidence for. Most of the time, if I’m asked if I want a receipt I say “no thanks, have a good day!” If I need a receipt, I ask for one (if I haven’t been asked). It’s really not … that … hard!