Some households use it to do their accounts; in others, it lines the drawer bottoms. The receipt has not been systematically printed since August 1, in the name of ecological sobriety. Retailers may instead offer, but are not obliged to, a dematerialized ticket, sent by email, compiled in a customer account or displayed by QR code. Customers will still be able to obtain a paper ticket if they expressly request it, and retailers will be required to display the existence of this possibility.
Exceptions are provided: the ticket will continue to be printed systematically in hotels and restaurants when the document is required to claim a guarantee or for services over 25 euros.
Provided for by the anti-waste law for a circular economy, of 2020, this measure aims to preserve resources, in particular forests. Each year in France, twelve billion receipts are printed, representing 150,000 tons of paper, according to the authorities.
The entry into force, initially scheduled for January, has been postponed twice. On the one hand, to give traders time to prepare. On the other hand, the Minister Delegate in charge of small and medium-sized enterprises, trade, crafts and tourism, Olivia Grégoire, “had wished for a postponement at a time when price inflation in supermarkets was at its maximum”, pushing households to scrutinize their spending even more, explained the minister’s office during a press briefing on July 24. However “we have observed for several weeks a decline in inflation”, according to the cabinet, which sees an opportunity to concretize this provision.
“The big winner is the trader”
In April, in the name of consumer protection, twelve associations opposed the removal of the default printed ticket, demanding that the merchant be required to systematically offer his customers a physical ticket. They did not win. The obligation to display this option near the checkouts is not enough, however, according to Antoine Autier, head of the studies and lobby department at UFC-Que choisir, for whom the question arises of the “quality of the ‘information “. According to him, some customers could forget to ask for their ticket and “suffer the consequences”, finding themselves unable to return a product or check the conformity of the price paid with that which is displayed on the shelf.
Morgane Lenain, administrator of the National Union of Family Associations (UNAF) in charge of consumer protection, agrees: “The big winner of this measure is the merchant, who will save paper, but also save money. disputes and complaints in the event of the absence of a receipt. »
To these criticisms, a spokesperson for the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) replied that it would always be possible to request a paper ticket and underlined that “in practice, traders already offer”.
The dematerialization of the ticket is also in question. “The trader will be able to build a database, know how his customers consume and orient his pricing policy accordingly,” laments Ms. Lenain, for whom “it’s an invasion of privacy and the door open to a certain number “unwanted advertisements” when sent by email. The DGCCRF recalls that the collection of personal data, which must be “minimal”, is required to comply with the general data protection regulations, and that the National Commission for Computing and Liberties “watches over the law”.
Controlling your expenses
Beyond questions of privacy, the UNAF, which also offers free budget management advice for households on behalf of the State, sees the receipt as a valuable financial education tool. However, “dematerialization cuts the consumer off from the reality of his expenditure”, according to Morgane Lenain, inducing “difficulty in realizing that the money is slipping away”.
What do those affected think? In March, a study by the OpinionWay institute for the federation of distributors Perifem showed a certain ambivalence. Three-quarters of the 1,063 people surveyed (73%) say they are in favor of ending the systematic printing of receipts. At the same time, 89% of them say they use the printed ticket to check the details of the price paid. A majority of respondents intend to continue to ask for it: 91% in appliance stores and 76% for food purchases.
A small majority of respondents (59%) say they are ready to take a loyalty card to receive their dematerialized receipt, a solution they prefer to email and QR code. As for sharing personal contact information, 76% don’t want to do it in front of other customers, and 66% see it as a waste of time.
Analysis by Franck Charton, General Delegate of Perifem: “What the French need is not paper, it’s the service provided by the receipt. But to move towards dematerialization, you need pedagogy. For him, the electronic ticket “will be able to bring many more services” to households, such as the construction of expenditure statistics in applications.
It remains to be seen what the net benefit will be for the planet of the end of the systematic printing of receipts if customers massively switch to electronic means, whose impact on the environment is not zero. Ademe, the ecological transition agency, says it does not have any information on the subject. Moreover, the hypothesis of a total conversion of paper tickets into electronic tickets is “not realistic” in the eyes of the DGCCRF: “The meaning of the measure is to limit the number of tickets, whether they are printed or dematerialized”, according to the administration, which admits the importance of avoiding the “transfer of ecological impact”, in particular by working on a “better eco-design of digital services”.