Link to original article

eCeipts would file electronic receipts to website where consumers could track spending

At a time when consumers are purchasing more products online, a Port City start-up wants to add receipts for items people buy in person to that list.

eCeipts plans to sell a service to retailers that the company founders hope could one day eliminate the paper receipt and replace it with an electronic receipt filed to a website that consumers could check later to track their spending.

Alex Scott, a University of New Brunswick business student, came up with the idea with a friend. He hopes the service will reduce paper use from receipt machines and help a business and people more easily track their spending. But he realizes for this to work, eCeipts has to be widespread in retail locations.

"It's not a small project that's for sure. It's a game changer, it's something that you can introduce and it changes the foundation of commerce," he says. "But go big or go home I guess."

He and his four partners plan to start in Saint John focusing on local and regional businesses, before expanding to the rest of the province and region.

The service hasn't been installed in any stores yet because the company only formed a little over a week ago and has yet to incorporate. It was one of four businesses that emerged from 54 Hours, an event held May 8 to 10 aimed to take business ideas and turn the best of them into reality over the weekend. That's were Scott met his four partners: Matt Doherty, owner of IT equipment and services company Direct 2 Market Solutions; Christina Taylor, owner of Focal Point; Jason Richard owner of Prop2Go; and software engineer Sal Belal.

Michael Wilcott, the organizer of the event, says that when the eCeipts idea was put forward it grabbed everyone's attention in the room.

"Everybody realized how powerful a concept it is," he says. "I think it kind of has limitless potential. I think there are a lot of challenges to make it work, technical challenges, but the value proposition is unquestionable."

Doherty says the electronic receipt service would save retailers money.

Though he recognizes receipts are a fairly marginal cost for most stores, he says a large retail chains could possibly be spending $1 million a year on receipts.

"If they can eliminate that by half they save $500,000," Doherty says. "For every receipt you do not have to print there is a benefit."

For consumers he says they don't have to worry about storing or losing receipts if they are trying to track their finances.

"There's the benefit of not having a George Costanza wallet," Doherty says referring to the sitcom show Seinfeld character whose wallet was inches thick with receipts.

eCeipts would also make the returning process easier and more secure, Doherty says.

"You get a gift or you lose a receipt, how do you make a return if you need that," he says.

The website where consumers would check their purchases, could have a money management application built in, or could be compatible with existing desktop base accounting systems.

Doherty believes this would be very useful for businesses.

"I have to submit expense reports and I have folders filled with receipts that I need to expense. If there was some way I could just do it electronically that would be amazing," he said repeating what a friend told him.

But Doherty recognizes eCeipts wouldn't likely be able to completely replace paper receipts for a very long time.

"Of course there's a group of people who would want the regular receipt," he says. "Just like there's still a group of people that refuse to use the ATMs."

"I think there needs to be a gradual acceptance of this just like there was a gradual acceptance of ATMs," Doherty says.

"But even today they cannot eliminate the tellers inside."