Why loyalty Apps are suboptimal for digital receipts

The loyalty App was not born to host digital receipts. Loyalty Apps manage rewards, loyalty initiatives and everything that rotates around increasing the odds of the customer bonding with the brand and eventually, returning into the store to buy more items. Loyalty Apps do not cover 100% of the customer base. Let’s assume that the rate of customers showing their loyalty card is very high, let’s assume 80%. What is the percentage of customers that downloaded the merchant loyalty App? It is safe to say that that number will be lower then 80%, let’s say it is very high: 50%. In this perfect scenario for the retailer 1 customer every 2 customers has downloaded the loyalty App. If a supermarket chose the loyalty App as destination for digital receipts then only 50% of customers would be able to access digital receipts because the remaining 50% does not have the App installed on their phone. It is necessary to mention that a loyalty App, even though well designed and carefully implemented will not be able to store and let the user manage their digital receipts if compared with an App that is specialised in digital receipts management for the customer. The Loyalty App is not the optimal tool to deliver digital receipts for the same reason why emails and SMS are not either optimal for digital receipts. All these channels have not been designed initially to manage e-receipts. Receipts are like teeth, there must be a specialist, the dentist, that takes care of them. E-receipts must be received, managed, shared and they have to serve the user that wants a report of their expenses based on each item category. The interface where receipts are saved must be reliable to at least 10 years. The e-receipts must be received instantly without any action needed other than paying. Then it has to be saved and safe inside a “place” where the user knows their receipts are safe and private. Inside the App Scontree users can store their receipts, share one or multiple e-receipts in one click, and finally the user can benefit for free of a screen dedicated to reporting their expenses where is possible to see their expenses divided by category, average receipt amount and average receipt number of items. Finally, the reason why loyalty Apps are not ok for receipts is simply because the user does not want an App for each retailer where they shop at, but customer prefer an App specialised in digital receipts’ management that is horizontal and linked to multiple retailers.