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The Long, Long History of Long, Long CVS Receipts (vox.com)
Why is a receipt for cough drops the height of a small child? Rachel Sugar, writing for Vox: CVS is a drugstore much like other drugstores, with one important difference: The receipts are very long. How long are the receipts? For at least a decade, concerned shoppers have dedicated themselves to this question, producing a robust body of phone-picture literature on the subject. You could not major in CVS receipt studies, probably, but you could minor.
Not all CVS receipts are created equal. If you, a non-loyal shopper, mosey into CVS and buy some Tylenol and a package of seasonal candy, you will get a receipt that is unspectacular (read: a normal length). To get one of the iconically long CVS receipts, you need to use your ExtraCare card, which means you need to be an ExtraCare member. (You can join as long as you are willing to turn over your name and phone number in exchange for better deals.) People on the internet have documented this phenomenon with a vigor usually reserved for cats climbing in and out of boxes. On Twitter and on Instagram, shoppers stand next to their CVS receipts, which are often as tall as they are, and sometimes taller.
Not all CVS receipts are created equal. If you, a non-loyal shopper, mosey into CVS and buy some Tylenol and a package of seasonal candy, you will get a receipt that is unspectacular (read: a normal length). To get one of the iconically long CVS receipts, you need to use your ExtraCare card, which means you need to be an ExtraCare member. (You can join as long as you are willing to turn over your name and phone number in exchange for better deals.) People on the internet have documented this phenomenon with a vigor usually reserved for cats climbing in and out of boxes. On Twitter and on Instagram, shoppers stand next to their CVS receipts, which are often as tall as they are, and sometimes taller.
There is a printer involved. That seems to be enough.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Slashdot is advertising CVS loyalty cards now?
Yeah, doesn't really meet the standard of News for Nerds or Stuff that matters. I prefer the way Meijer handles their loyalty program & receipts. I just punch in my phone number at checkout, and my electronic coupons & everything is applied automatically, and I get my receipt emailed to me as a PDF. If I need to do a return, I just whip out my phone & pull up the PDF. Much more efficient.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Nah, the editors don't have any good Trump stories in the queue today. I'd say the stock market taking a dump yesterday is more interesting than the length of paper receipts from an overpriced convenience store that also dispenses prescriptions.
But ... but ... it's "funny"!
Didn't you see the Monty Python foot???????
I thought this was going to be about revision control tickets or some shit.
Thermal paper rolls are cheap.
Thermal printers are damn fast.
It's unnecessary, but also inevitable that some moron would take it too far on the "just give them all the coupons" front. I'm more concerned about the waste of paper and what the checkouts must look like because for sure I wouldn't touch that receipt and would leave it inside the store.
I know from experience though - I wrote a piece of software that produces a firelist for my employer. We needed a quick "who's supposed to be here now" list, and the software that controls the access control has all the necessary information to tell us but just won't churn it out in a compact enough form.
I put in a little test system with a thermal printer (no ink, quick printing, cheap to run) and when the fire alarm goes off, it churns out a list of my choosing.
It was so successful that over time I was asked to list every member of staff, whether they were in or not, the time they last tagged in/out, plus the people who aren't even supposed to be here, plus all the temporary visitors, plus the other sites, plus.... and then do it twice at both ends of the site so the duty of checking it can be split and we have a "backup".
It still only takes about 3-4 seconds (1ms processing time, the rest is sheer print-time) to churn out a complete list (which is longer than it takes to realise the alarm is genuine), but the list is now over 6 feet long.
Usually I check the paper reels immediately after any fire drill/alert because it uses up so much paper, but it's a good backup to any electronic system and churns out fast enough that you could grab it in a real fire (it's safer to grab that, than to try to check that everyone you think might be outside are - by the time you check anything else, they're already dead, but it takes seconds to skim the highlighted / obvious / simplified list of names and see who's missing).
I'm waiting for the ironic day that what catches fire is the thermal printer itself, or something nearby, and which just keeps feeding more and more paper into it to fuel it...
Every time I get a massive ream of receipts, I stand there and make the person behind me wait while I look at them to see if there's anything good in it. There never is, so I tear that crap off and essentially throw it at the cashier. (I am more likely to literally toss it on the checkstand, but eh.) If everyone did that, it would slow things down enough and they would be throwing away enough additional trash to where they'd stop issuing massive receipts.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It sounds like you just proposed a technical solution to waste and slow receipt printing.
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Cats climbing in and out of boxes are awesome.
Automating coupons and loyalty cards takes the consumer out of the game, and the consumer needs to be involved in the game in order to increase the consumer's spending. The consumer needs to feel like they are winning something based on their personal ability so that they stay engaged in the game. (Which is ultimately about the store selling more, not the store providing just what the consumer needs at the lowest possible price.)
Not saying your complaint isn't valid, just suggesting that pestering the underpaid cashier with no decision authority whatsoever about it isn't particularly effective. It's almost like shouting into a mailbox and expecting the Postmaster General to take note of your complaint.
If you're doing it right, then when you complain to the cashier it is actually for the purpose of a memory aid to yourself to shop somewhere else. When you turn your dissatisfaction into a social exchange it enhances your short term memory of the problem and makes it more likely you'll remember to go somewhere else the next time you need cheap bandages.
And BTW, it is pretty much guaranteed that department stores will have equal or lower prices on bandages than a "drug store." Drug stores are a species of convenience store. Like 7-11, but with a pharmacy. The Rx in the pharmacy is what brings people in, and then everything else is only there for convenience shopping.