The game changers: Smart receiptsThe game changers: Smart receipts


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The sales receipt is no longer merely a transactional record. Increasingly, it is a potent marketing tool, as well.


By marrying receipt marketing software with point-of-sale systems, operators have found an effective way to deliver a range of information intended to engage customers, build traffic or highlight special menu items — all on a slip of paper that once was quickly relegated to the circular file.


So-called “smart” receipts can sport, along with sales data, nutrition information, or targeted, trackable coupons designed to boost traffic during less busy dayparts or draw attention to select promotional items.


Some operators, such as Anthony Pigliacampo, founding partner of the three-unit fast-casual Modmarket concept, say they prefer the low-key style of receipt marketing to other, more overt methods of in-store marketing.


“If you put down table tents, everybody ignores them,” he said. “If you put signs on the wall, you look like a cheese-ball fast-food place. I don’t want giant posters of food in the stores. We have a really modern aesthetic, more like Apple Store than Applebee’s.”


Officials at Modmarket, whose units are located in Denver and Boulder, Colo., originally envisioned receipt marketing as a way to bring guests nutritional data. But the traffic boost provided by handing out 10-percent-off, next-day receipt coupons was a welcome surprise, Pigliacampo said, adding that such coupons have an average redemption rate of about 15 percent.


“With every other type of coupon we have done, if we got a 1-percent redemption rate, we would be doing a backflip,” said Pigliacampo.


There’s also room on the double-sided receipts for pithy messages like, “Our pizza dough contains eight whole grains and is made from scratch every day.”


Each sale at Silvergreens, a two-unit fast-casual chain based in Santa Barbara, Calif., that uses the SmartReceipt system, yields a receipt printed with the calories, fat, fiber, protein and percentage of total recommended daily dietary values of the food order. If a patron modifies a menu item — such as holding the cheese on the burger — the receipt automatically reflects the revised nutrition counts of the order. 


Silvergreens receipts also offer guests a discount for returning sooner than they otherwise might or for dining during a different daypart. Typically, the offer period begins the next day and is valid for seven or 14 days. A lunch or dinner customer may be beckoned back for breakfast with a price-off coupon, for example, or offered a free strawberry lemonade or an order of hand-cut fries on the next trip, if they make a minimum purchase. 


“We are always testing new ideas or promoting new menu items to get people to try them,” said Lenka Keston, Silvergreens’ director of marketing and business development. “It usually works really well because it is right there in their face — ‘Wow, that’s a cool coupon.’” 


During the holidays, Modmarket offered on its receipts a free $20 gift card to patrons who bought $100 worth of gift cards, increasing card sales by 200 percent over the prior year, Pigliacampo said. Another hit gambit is the “golden ticket,” a receipt good for a free $25 meal that the software randomly prints out every couple of days for a customer who spends at least $40.


“Those people love Modmarket and tell others about us,” Pigliacampo said.