End clap for the receipt… or almost. Announced for January 1 and then for April 1, 2023, before being postponed twice, the cessation of systematic ticket printing will finally take effect next Tuesday in France. “It is indeed on August 1 that this provision, voted in the context of the climate and resilience law, comes into force”, welcomed the cabinet of the Minister Delegate for Trade Olivia Grégoire, affirming that the professionals were “end ready” for this change.
A few days before the entry into force of this measure, many questions arise. Why was it decided? Will it still be possible to get a receipt? What are the alternatives ? What do traders think? Le Figaro answers you.
Concretely, from August 1st, with a few exceptions, receipts, credit card receipts, all those issued by automatic machines as well as purchase vouchers will no longer be printed automatically, but only if the customer requests it. . “The only thing that will change is that if you want the receipt, you will have to think about asking for it,” explains Olivia Grégoire.
The executive defends an ecological measure: up to 30 billion receipts, bank cards and vouchers are printed each year in France, and most will end up in the trash. The 12.5 billion receipts alone represent 150,000 tonnes of paper, or 25 million trees cut down or 18 billion liters of water consumed, according to figures from Ademe. “Immense somewhat useless expenses for our planet” in the words of Olivia Grégoire, and “so many bits of paper that are difficult to recycle which, moreover, are almost systematically thrown away by a certain number of French people as soon as they have been handed over”.
Be careful to understand the measure, warns Bercy: “it is not a ban on issuing the receipt, but giving the consumer the opportunity to refuse it”. Many “exceptions” meant to “protect consumers” remain.
The ticket will always be printed automatically for products under legal warranty (household appliances, telephones, gardening appliances, etc.), weighed products, services for an amount greater than or equal to 25 euros (hairdresser, mechanic, etc.), bills and bills in hotels and restaurants and access to goods or services (motorway, parking). The same applies to transactions that are cancelled, not completed or subject to a pre-authorization regime and for credit transactions (reimbursement or transfer of funds).
Merchants will themselves be responsible for informing their customers of this change, by posting a message at the checkout “in clear, legible and understandable terms” as required by the implementing decree. The General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) will be responsible for ensuring that traders play the game well. Controls are planned, “like those carried out to check the consistency between the price displayed on the shelves and the price at the checkout,” says Olivia Grégoire’s office. Implemented in the heart of summer, this new measure thus makes it possible to “leave time to adopt these new reflexes before the start of the school year”.
Rather than printing the ticket, merchants will be able to offer alternatives. It can be sent by SMS, by summary email, by “message in the buyer’s banking application” or on the internet, via a QR Code. Bercy insists, however, that these devices are in no way mandatory: if a baker does not have the technical means to provide proof other than paper, then the customer who wishes to obtain one will not have another. choice but to take it as it is. “If he asks for his ticket, the consumer must be able to benefit from it, without having to communicate his email address, his telephone number or to be in possession of a smartphone”, affirms the DGCCRF, underlining that the important is to ‘leave the power of choice to the consumer’.
Last March, the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL) had already called on the authorities, recalling “the rules to be respected and good practices” in terms of data protection. If the merchant offers the dematerialized sending of the ticket, the Cnil recommends favoring solutions “which require the collection of the least amount of personal data”, while respecting the GDPR and the Data Protection Act. “Prospecting is only possible in compliance with certain rules”, in particular the obligation for the trader to “collect the consent of the people” canvassed, underlines the authority.
Fears shared by the Confederation of French Traders (CDF). “We really want to alert to the fact that by giving a telephone number and/or email address, there is a risk that this personal data will be kept by the merchant”, warns Laure Brunet-Ruinart, the general delegate of the confederation, which emphasizes that in the absence of “collection of consent”, the latter has “no right to keep this data”. With the risk for the professional of finding himself in “a legally contentious situation” according to her. “We advise them to avoid dematerialization, because today there are too few solutions that are in the nails,” adds the representative.
First, some wonder about the usefulness, from an ecological point of view, of replacing paper with emails. On this subject, Bercy concedes that “no study has yet been carried out on this subject”, but implies that it cannot be worse than the ecological impact of tickets “difficult to recycle” and containing “chemical substances “. For its part, the UFC-Que Choisir is suspicious: “We are far from being in favor of sending the receipt electronically, often accompanied by advertisements or images which contribute to the weight of the email”, confirms Antoine Autier, responsible for the studies of the organization.
Then, on the consumer side, some are worried about the announced end of tickets, a real “budget management tool for consumers”, which makes it possible to “verify the accuracy of the amount of the transaction”, all the more “in an inflationary environment. To remedy this, Antoine Autier believes that the seller should ask the question verbally, to be certain that the consumer makes the informed choice and in full awareness not to take the ticket, rather than the latter being obliged to do so. Requirement. But the law provides the opposite.
Finally, there remains the subject of refund requests, while the ticket is still requested in many places to change or return a purchase. Questioned on this point, Olivia Grégoire’s office replies that “in case of doubt” or “for a product which we are not sure is the right size”, the consumer must “systematically ask for the ticket “. The risk is all the greater for the consumer customer in the event of forgetfulness, nothing is provided to protect him. “It’s a real problem,” laments Antoine Autier. We can clearly see that there is a problem, how to bring back a food product whose DLC would be exceeded if we do not have proof of purchase, ”he wonders.
Francis Palombi even sees this as the “blind spot” of the measure: “How does it work for these products that we are likely to want to exchange? Today, this is not one of the exceptions, ”laments the president of the Confederation of French traders. “This is one of the points on which we wish to alert Olivia Grégoire’s cabinet. We must wake up the State on the subject”, launches the one who represents more than 450,000 companies in the food and non-food retail trade throughout the territory.
