Loyalty program receipt scanning is a popular way of gaining 1st party customer data for your scheme. Find out how this tech can help your business improve customer experience and drive sales.

What is receipt scanning and who is it for?

Receipt scanning is a data capture solution designed to allow businesses to gain detailed customer purchase data. It is often used in loyalty programs as such integration benefits both the company or brand (i.e. by capturing valuable data) and the customer (i.e. by rewarding scanning of the receipts).

For some companies, loyalty programs are relatively easy to implement. A fast food chain can offer customers loyalty points at the tills with every purchase, for example. But what about a soft drink brand, or makeup manufacturer? They are selling their products through third parties (i.e. wholesalers, retailers), so integrating loyalty programs at the point of purchase is extremely difficult.

What about businesses that want to capture more customer data for their loyalty programs? Every piece of data from the time of a purchase to the person serving the customer can be useful. It allows companies to build up a picture of consumer behaviour and understand the best way to market to their audience.

In both these cases, the answer is receipt scanning. Receipt scanning is an ideal solution for any business with little end-customer data due to complicated or fragmented sales channel structure. It can be a powerful addition for brands struggling to implement a rewards program, as well as companies looking to access more data. 

Here’s how receipt scanning software can work for your business…

How does receipt scanning software work?

Many brands use loyalty apps, which incorporate receipt scanning technology. You might be wondering: How does receipt scanning work and how do you scan receipts? When your customer makes a purchase, they simply go to their app and upload a picture of their receipt. The app then pulls the data off their receipt and provides them with their loyalty points. The amount of points they receive is relative to how the loyalty program is set up. For instance, they could receive 1 point for every pound or dollar they spent on your brand’s products.

For brands that sell through retailers and other distribution networks, this allows them to run loyalty programs easily. The AI-powered technology can learn to recognise your products no matter which store they are bought from. Therefore, even brands with fragmented distribution can benefit from using receipt scanning technology in their loyalty programs. How much data you can capture depends on the quality of the technology. White Label Loyalty’s receipt scanning solution can capture every piece of data on any receipt, leading to an extreme competitive advantage of earning data.

Receipt scanning tools can give you insight into your customer's entire basket…

Reliable & secure

Now of course, your customers likely buy other products along with yours when they shop. Fear not, this is not a problem but an opportunity! You can configure our loyalty platform to only reward customers for purchasing your products. However, with the receipts scanned in your loyalty app, you gain additional invaluable insight. For example, you might find out which competitor products customers bought along with your products. Moreover, you may find a certain segment of customers based on which stores they buy at or on which days of the week. All this information can be used to further drive your marketing strategies.

Are receipt scanning programs accurate?

If you’re worried about accuracy or fraud, that’s something we’ve taken care of. When a customer scans their receipt using our technology, the app will send it to a manual reviewer if anything is unclear or if the purchase is unusually large. Plus there is an option of spot checking randomly by a manual reviewer to make sure everything is accurate. All this and more makes our software for receipt scanning accurate and protected against fraud.

What can receipt scanning do for your business?

Once you have receipt scanning set up, how can it benefit you? Firstly, you can increase brand loyalty even if you sell through third-parties. It gives you control over your loyalty program. You won’t have to depend on retailers or wholesalers to set one up, and you won’t need to integrate with unfamiliar POS systems. Find out more about our brand loyalty specific solution here.

Then there’s the data you can collect. What time of day are your customers purchasing your product? Do they typically buy it on its own, or as part of a larger shop? Which merchants do they buy it from? All this information - and more - is available through receipt scanning. Anything that’s included on a receipt can be picked up and used to better understand your customers.

Receipt scanning app for businesses

All this allows you to supercharge your loyalty program. Our receipt scanning solution is fast, accurate, and flexible, letting you pick up practically any data from any receipt. White Label Loyalty’s receipt scanning API has been used by brands across the globe - book a demo with us to see how we can help your business. 
 

What kind of use cases are best for receipt scanning data capture?

Receipt scanning is suitable for any brand that wants to capture its customer's full transaction data. This is especially useful for businesses that sell through third-party retailers, as it allows a brand to collect data about end-customers without relying on information from somebody else. Receipt scanning is also perfect for businesses like restaurants and retailers who often print receipts for their customers. 

But what if the receipts have an unusual layout?

Our receipt scanning software is flexible enough to read the data from any kind of receipt or invoice. Using comprehensive machine vision, the receipt scanning technology can easily and quickly extract information from any kind of receipt, even ones with unconventional layouts. 
 

How quickly does receipt scanning technology extract transactional data?

One of the key benefits of receipt scanning is that it is fast and accurate. Our system can quickly detect a receipt’s layout and use the appropriate mapping tools to find the data you need without making you wait. 

Receipt scanning rewards programs: case studies of receipt scanning loyalty programs

Receipt scanning software for restaurants and retail
 

Take a look at our case study for Burger King EMEA, which used our receipt scanning API to create a loyalty app solution. Our receipt scanning system analyzed the different receipt layouts of Burger King Switzerland to extract transactional data. 

Receipt scanning software for B2B and manufacturers
 

Our receipt scanning technology was used to create a B2B solution for Wavin, connecting them directly to their end consumers. Wavin’s app for receipt scanning allows the brand to reward customers for buying Wavin products no matter which retailer they purchase from. 
 

Are there any disadvantages of using receipt scanning for business?
 

As with anything, there are some downsides to using receipt scanning data capture. Firstly, it is not as seamless for the end-user compared to alternatives like card-linking. With receipt scanning technology, the customer needs to manually take a photo of their receipt (or forward an invoice email). This means that there is an extra step in which your customers will need to be proactive. On the other hand, card linking simply requires a customer to connect their card once and they will automatically get rewarded each time they make a purchase with that card. To find out more about card linking, check out our information here.

As a result, receipt scanning can be more prone to error. To get around this, you need a good receipt scanning tech provider. Your receipt scanning provider must have fraud protection in place. Sometimes a customer’s submitted photo isn’t clear enough - in these cases, the image will go into manual review (to ensure there are no attempts at fraudulent activity). This means that the receipt scanning won’t be instantly rewarded, as manual scanning takes more time. Despite this, we find that most customers find receipt scanning for rewards very easy. If you’re after something a bit more seamless and frictionless from a customer point of view, look into card-linking data capture. 
 

Want to know if receipt scanning is the right solution for your business? Interested to know more about how receipt scanning works? Book a demo below and we’ll show you.