The Flimsy Doorknob & The Forgettable Receipt | Hacker News Reader

The Flimsy Doorknob & The Forgettable Receipt

dustincurtis.com

142 pointsbradgessler60 comments

Instead of packing slips we've been including cardstock 'receipts' with each of the orders we ship. We write the recipient's name, circle the merchandise they purchased, and include a hand-drawn sketch featuring characters from the game (example: http://forum-files2.fobby.net/0012/7914/chimera.jpg )

It was tedious at first, but people raved about them. Eventually we wised up and started offering store coupons to the community's artists in exchange for drawings. It's really added value to our products and simultaneously strengthened our community. Win/win!

Very cool. If you number them (the drawings), they could become collector's items.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the point about the receipt. I want to be left with a memory of how awesome an experience was, not how much I paid for it. For something like Starbucks, having a stack of receipts that are nice to look at and inform me in a pleasant, easy to read font exactly how much money I'm spending there might make me reconsider my expenses in a hurry. Forgettable receipts might have an advantage after all.

Of course, this is all theory... I would love to see some actual data!

I'd like some data too!

Anyone own a chain of restaurants? Do you want to implement better receipts and the hardware/infrastructure required? I'll help.

Usually the point-of-sale software, card readers, and receipt printer come as a package, and don't play particularly nicely with 3rd part equipment. You make a good point, but part of the reasoning behind modern receipts (of the kind you hate) is that thermal paper involves the least amount of operator overhead - put in a new roll every so often, no need to worry about separate ink cartridges etc., plus they're fast.

If you want to propose an alternative, I'd start by obtaining a copy of Quicken POS (a common piece of software) and a consumer photo printer, to see how practical it is to print out custom receipts. Then you could look into commercial volume printing solutions and see what sort of budget you'd be looking at.

If there's one company that I would have thought could have pulled it off, it was Apple. I was pretty disappointed when I walked into an Apple Store to find the employees using Windows CE-based handhelds which, of course, printed the same uninspired receipts found everywhere else. I do hear they're trying to replace them with iPod Touch-based systems, but I haven't heard anything about whether or not the receipts themselves will also be upgraded.

I don't, but these guys would be worth talking to:

http://twitter.com/NAKEDpizza

http://www.nakedpizza.biz/

But luxury meals are enhanced by paying more for them. They are prestige purchases, and "prestige pricing" increases sales, according to data in marketing textbooks. How much you paid becomes a positive part of the experience, and worth remembering.

While I agree with your point, it gets lost when applied to Starbucks. There seems to be a groundswell of people who have suddenly realised that it's totally unreasonable to charge what they charge for a cup of coffee. The sheer ubiquity of Starbucks has also reduced their luxury allure. Might be nice to have a pretty receipt, but as far as Starbucks is concerned, they might want to reduce the font of the price and ensure it smudges easily.

OH yeah, his Starbucks example doesn't really make sense - I was thinking of the architecturally designed home and the $1000 restaurant meal. It's a bit weird how he starts with two compelling luxury data points, then overgeneralizing to... a $6.02 purchase.

I disagree that luxury meals are enhanced by their high price. I eat for the food, and superlative, exquisitely prepared food tends to cost more. Overall experience, most notably accomodating and non-intrusive service, is important as well.

I think a handsome receipt gives a "nice touch" feeling about a restaurant experience; in a similar way, a flimsy receipt may stick out as the only dumpy aspect about a meal.

"I make user interfaces...You can learn more about me here, here, and maybe here."

Hey Dustin, quick suggestion for a better user interface: put the name of the link in the original copy so that I don't have to mouse over the word "here" to see what it is.

Also the "You should follow me on twitter" remark at the bottom of the page sounds somewhat arrogant to me.

I found it amusing.

and go the extra step and actually say @dcurtis, since someone may need to look it up.

Suggested approach: "Follow me @dcurtis"

Example of fancy, highfalutin' restaurant receipt:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterme/3729304/

I had a booking for last Friday, but my wife cancelled it just before the deadline for fee-free cancellation. I'm still disappointed, but the money we saved in not going literally afforded us a last-minute weekend in Hawaii instead.

I can't imagine a meal being better than a weekend in Hawaii.

> The toilet paper is even custom made with the logo of the executive’s company embossed on each sheet

I am not sure what I would think if I were a shareholder, but "we're paying this guy too much, and this is how he shows it" would come to mind.

It could be his company.

The bigger issue that I see is that I don't want people wiping their ass with my brand :)

Really? Not the "20-foot-tall floor-to-ceiling windows that expose the entire San Francisco Bay"?

That's "nice", something someone would work hard for - hopefully the reward for a job well done. Company branded toilet paper is 'frivolous' and, as Ryan pointed out (I didn't want to say it), I'm not sure what kind of message it sends to have people cleaning their nether regions with your company's logo.

A personable one? Hopefully not a lasting one...

Its tacky to decide that someone is overpaid by your perception of how they spend their money. You make fun of a $10 roll of toilet paper, but they might have paid twice what their house was worth or gave most of their money to charity. Maybe the toilet paper was supposed to be funny, and you just didn't get the joke. Its better to justify salary by productivity to the company than by personal preferences.

One time, at Canoe in Atlanta, the server gave us a business card at the end of our meal (it was nice, as business cards go). Canoe also seems to use a CRM to keep track of their customers, as they said "Welcome back" when we did come back.

Those practices, just standard practices for any modern business really, made for a much better experience than a pretty receipt would.

I think you're hitting on the essential point of the article which is customer experience and creating a positive memory.

One of my clients is a high-end boutique. Their purchase experience is good by nice retail standards - high-quality bag, tissue with ribbon, etc. But then the do little extras like presenting your receipt in a little card stock slipcase and hand-writing you a thank-you note a few days later. It is the little things that matter.

I'd agree that the MASA receipt is pretty rudimentary, but as another commenter mentioned, it's largely a factor of the POS system. (And apparently not high on their selection criteria list.)

I bet if somebody made a receipt printer that could print nice, customizable receipts and interface with existing equipment, they'd get plenty of customers.

I think most receipt printers have the capability to print graphics. The problem is more that the software vendors do not offer this capability, or it is not utilized.

How about a pc inkjet printer? They can actually be hooked up to the nice touchscreen ones you see at restaurants. If size/perception is an issue, why not try a small photo-printer such as the new Polaroid PoGo.

Also, as a side note, Starbucks might not be the best fit since it's a relatively low-price-point commodity. Both previous examples were high-price-point, luxury experiences, which would benefit from 1) the lack of a bad reaction 2) receipt as a marketing tool since you create worth through creating a souvenir. Starbucks on the other hand, would only benefit through the latter, where you create worth through impressions (kind of like those annoying magazine signup forms). This is actually not helpful since Starbucks doesn't need any more impressions due to their many stores, and when you throw them away from the back seat of your car, you'll indirectly attribute the brand to junk.

It would be nice to see online services mimic retail merchandising techniques.

Using an inkjet printer is a good idea (maybe).

No offense, but your second paragraph is way too long for a comment.

There is a strong correlation between comment quality and length; if you wanted to compare the quality of comments on community sites, average length would be a good predictor.

http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

I'm saying that a paragraph that long is uncomfortable to read, given that HN comments span most of the width of the page. It needed to be broken into multiple paragraphs.

Frankly, I'm offended that I got downmodded so much on this. People clearly did not carefully read what I said.

Here's a company doing more "useful" receipts by supplying customized nutritional information for exactly what you've purchased. They're fairly nicely designed as well if not a bit busy. http://www.nutricate.com/

Car manufacturers should take note as well : the ker-thunk of a door, and heft of a well damped indicator stalk, the soft-feel plastic of a door handler transmit quality, even if the rest of the car is run-of-the-mill. This is where VW leads in giving a quality feel, even though it's cars often feature badly in quality reports.

I've often felt that the best part of BMW's 325 is simply the lack of poor parts. The biggest annoyance that comes to mind is that the last door is hard to close because the cabin is air tight. Granted, I like a specific model year above others, but its interesting to note that slight luxury and a lack of deficiencies has produced a car with a legacy.

That receipt concept is a waste of paper mass and ink. Sure, they could improve receipts a lot, but that's not the way to do it.

Why not? I think it's at least worth experimenting with to see what happens.

You don't need to do any experimentation to know that a full-color receipt with lots of black on heavy stock is going to use more resources than thin thermal paper.

Ah, I see what you're saying. I read "waste" in terms of ROI not gross resources.

That's not as obvious as you think. Thermal paper costs more to make than regular paper.

I bet it costs less to print solid black on regular paper with a laser printer, than thermal paper.

But, that's his whole point! He's saying that it's incongruous and inadvisable to cheap out on the design and production of the receipt when it's one of, if not the, final impression a diner will take away from your restaurant.

Ok, and that might work when it's a $1000 meal, but not for Starbucks.

Also, why does the receipt look like an iPhone app?

Um, because the iPhone is cool? Also note he said it was more a concept, not what you would actually impliment.

Reducing waste is like performance optimization - you should only do it once your code is correct. The original poster just paid $1000 for a meal probably consisting of fish that was pulled from the ocean on the other side of the planet 12 hours ago. The resource cost of acquiring this food, preparing it, and operating the restaurant will dwarf the cost of a nice receipt. If you prefer, they could hand write it on nice post consumer recycled stationary to save some "trees".

As far as restaurants go, I notice that the receipts have a way of sticking with me (pockets, etc.) long after I've forgotten about the meal. I'm sure I'm not the only one either.

I wonder if you can brand fat....

Another thing you touch and interact with in a home is light switches.

It's amazing to me how nice odd light switches are. Twisty knobs or metal buttons – anything besides the normal off-white plastic switch and cover.

They don't play as well with my muscle memory, but that inefficiency becomes a good thing somehow: it's something I remember.

Actually, whenever I've been in a place with odd lightswitches, it's been pretty annoying. First, if I have to figure out how to use it by trial and error in the dark, that's a problem. Second, if I'm expecting to live there for years, I'm going to have to replace them, and then, very likely, I'm going to have a bunch of wonderfully different switches, and one that stands out because I could get it at Home Depot, and I couldn't find anyplace to buy one like the others.

All that said, I prefer the wide rocker switches over the lever switches that I grew up with, so I'm not knocking change, just variety. :)

When I'm hunting through my papers for receipts, I want those things to look like what they are--receipts. The only drawback to the existing MASA receipt that I can see is that it's harder to make your web page look good when you're trying to show it off on your blog later.

He makes a very good point. When you pay $500 for a meal it is very disappointing to see a receipt like that. I never really thought of the receipt as a marketing opportunity but now I realize how important receipts can be as a marketing vehicle.

But who really wants a receipt unless you're expensing the dinner? I'd much rather have some record emailed to me and have nothing to worry about keeping track of or putting in my pocket.

Unless you're going to deliver a receipt that matches my meal in value, I don't particularly see the point. I don't want some stock-printed receipt merely intended to impress.

Receipts are just receipts, and there's no real value you can provide for me there. Instead, remember who I am, and welcome me back next time.

I should also note that the author's point could have been better elucidated without relying so heavily on braggart anecdote.

Houses are always works in progress. I'd like all my receipts to be digital. You touch furniture more than fixtures.

Only got through the first half before my the flickering in my status bar was so irritating I had to stop reading. Sorry Dustin but if you're talking about user experience, please do not have my browser ajax your site every couple of seconds.

I like this idea (would love to see test data). It reminds me of how Apple innovates in so many ways to create a better customer experience.

When you buy something from the Apple store they ask if you'd like the receipt emailed, printed, or both.

I generally opt for email only.

It's not quite the same thing as mentioned in the article, but it is similar in that it's much nicer than just getting handed a flimsy receipt.

Great points and I'm still amazed by his article presentation.

what about the crappy user experience of having a blog and no place for people to comment?

That's a good point, really. I mean, look at all the comments his work has gotten here on HN. That seems like one of those rather obvious details that was "intentionally" overlooked.

That writing is "Simple & Amazing"

Excellent article. I usually don't log in to HN, or comment frequently, but I had to bump this one up.

That shit at Masa better be damn good for $400 plus tax & tip.

And what's with the forced 20% service on dinner for two?

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