If you own a checkbook, chances are you don’t know what drawer it’s hiding in, but it was only 20 years ago, in 2003, when the number of electronic payments (credit cards, debit cards, and ACH) finally overtook the number of payments by check.

But while the notion of handing a single-use piece of paper to cashiers is an anachronism, cashiers handing a single-use piece of paper to shoppers—in the form of a receipt—is all too common.

And all those little (and not so little) receipts add up:

• In the US alone, receipts use ~3.7 million trees and 10 billion gallons of water annually, according to a 2022 report by Green America.
• An estimated 93% of receipts are printed on thermal paper coated with chemicals that renders them nonrecyclable, according to Treehugger.

Now it’s not only environmentalists that are targeting paper receipts. Vendors who sell paperless receipt software are highlighting that along with being green, texting a receipt to a consumer opens a digital line of communication that, unlike e-commerce, is not a given with brick-and-mortar transactions.

Keep reading here.—AAN

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Over three packed days in Las Vegas, Groceryshop speakers covered a lot of ground, from consolidation to consumer loyalty, but three topics were clearly top of mind for those at the show. Here’s what everyone was talking about.

AI

It will come as a surprise to no one that the show was buzzing about applications for AI in grocery, particularly generative AI (we already told you about the new trend of brands naming their ChatGPT programs, and how Instacart is using AI).

Surabhi Pokhriyal, chief digital growth officer at Church & Dwight, noted the tech has many applications across sales and marketing, like the creation of product detail pages for e-commerce, while Veeral Shah, chief digital and e-commerce officer at Nestlé USA, noted that the food giant is using it for things like writing job descriptions and predicting when stores will be out of stock of its product.

But while AI is “going to be one of the biggest technological advancements of our lifetime,” Shah noted that most brands are feeling a similar pressure that they’re “getting left behind” and warned brands to be wary.

Keep reading here.—EC

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

We’re getting to know the latest addition to the Retail Brew team, Alex Vuocolo.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I see my job as trying to understand the economy by looking at one of its most important components: the companies that bring the goods we want and need to market.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? It involves reading a lot of other news outlets and then kicking yourself for not having written a particular story.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? I founded a quarterly print magazine in Philadelphia about transportation issues. I didn’t make a cent, but it was a blast. The combination of putting out a magazine and working at a pizza shop is actually my ideal working arrangement.

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about this year, and why? It’s interesting that more retail workers are trying to unionize. For such a large sector, there's been a lack of this kind of labor activity in the past.

Keep reading here.—EC