Goodbye till receipts: save paper with the REWE eBon, now possible for all customers - even without a PAYBACK account.
It is printed out, customers often only take a quick glance at it and it ends up in the bin: for many, the receipt is a waste of paper. Until now, the digital receipt was reserved for PAYBACK customers only. Thanks to a new function in the REWE app, the eBon is now available to everyone - and can be activated with just one click.
Small slip of paper, big impact
"Receipts are made of thermal paper and cannot be recycled into waste paper. With the simpler process for activating eBon, we want to encourage more people to save paper when shopping and thus also reduce the amount of waste in the stores," says Irene Schultes. As a project manager in the sales department, she is responsible for the strategic development of the eBon service.
Savings on the small slips of paper could have a big impact: With the eBons for PAYBACK customers alone, REWE saved 4,000 kilometres of receipt paper in 2021.
"With the eBon for everyone, we expect to make even greater savings," says Schultes. If just ten per cent of all REWE customers received eBons instead of paper receipts, 47,000 kilometres of receipt paper could be saved every year.
In the first five weeks after the launch of the new function, more than 200,000 customers have already registered for the eBon via the new function in the REWE app.
Register, scan, receive eBon
Customers can register for the eBon in their account in the REWE app under "My purchases" with just one click.
When the app QR code is scanned at the checkout, the system automatically recognises whether a user has activated the eBon. The eBon is generated, sent to the customer by email and saved in their web or app account. There, users can get an overview of their purchases over the past three years.
For customers who already receive a digital receipt via PAYBACK, the new app function will not change the checkout process. For products that are weighed at the checkout, a receipt must be printed out for legal reasons. However, this "mini receipt for weighed goods" only shows the weighed items.
Both German and English comments appear here.
The comments suggest a misunderstanding: Of course, the eBons are also saved in the REWE app immediately after the purchase and can be accessed/viewed for three years under the "My purchases" tab - separated into "online shop" and "in store". Sending the receipt by email is therefore additional and allows customers to save their purchase data individually, even beyond three years. This is useful, for example, if the purchase receipt is subject to a longer retention period for tax reasons. Without e-mail dispatch, commercial customers would be excluded from the eBon function. But there are certainly also private customers who prefer to archive receipts themselves.
The receipt should be visible in the app. Lidl and co. are once again one step ahead of REWE.
I think that's basically a good idea! Not everyone knows that this is not paper waste. However, I personally don't think it makes sense to send it by email - if it's available in the app, that's completely sufficient in my opinion. Maybe set up a function there that makes it possible for me to send it to myself by e-mail or WhattsApp, whatever, if necessary, but I don't think it's necessary to send an e-mail. Sending an email also means "rubbish". Otherwise a great thing!
By e-mail? That's a bit impractical, as I don't open my e-mail inbox immediately after shopping and download the e-receipt, unless the transfer is delayed anyway. But I need the receipt immediately for any complaints, it's no use to me later when I get home.