For those who have read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, perhaps the paperless receipt’s time has come. Apple very well may be the trend setter that makes paperless receipts “cool”. After the most recent post about these dastardly strips of paper, We received an email from yReceipts, a company that offers consumers and companies paperless tracking of their purchases.

Stay up late at night and one can see plenty of infomercials for small scanners that will transfer receipts, business cards, and other slips of paper into electronic versions that can be managed by a personal computer. However, yReceipts works to cut out the proverbial middleman. By working directly to replace receipts, consumers and retailers gain greater control of their paperwork. yRecpeipts offers “shops an alternative to paper receipts by enabling them to email receipts to their customers. . . . This makes it more convenient for returns, warranty claims and expense tracking as all receipts are accessible from anywhere at any time. No more lost receipts for shoppers.” The accounts are free to consumers.

Based in the United Kingdom, yReceipts provides a service that may soon become an industry norm. They provide the following reasoning for their service:

Receipts are necessary: We use receipts every day as proof of purchase. We need them for a variety of reasons including returns, expenses and warranty claims. Most of us are not able to find or store receipts easily. yReceipts offers a solution to this problem by providing a central place to store and organise receipts.

Paper is wasteful: In a country like the UK, we deforest 500,000 trees every year for our annual paper receipt consumption. You can help stop this by using yReceipts.

Online is reality: We live in an online world. We shop, bank and book travel on the internet all the time. yReceipts can improve our shopping experience by conveniently providing online receipts.

Simple products that make life easier, reduce overhead, and save natural resources represent the essence of the second green revolution as well as the triple bottom line. Here’s to more innovative products and services.

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