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!

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

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.

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

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.

http://twitter.com/NAKEDpizza

http://www.nakedpizza.biz/

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.

Suggested approach: "Follow me @dcurtis"

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.)

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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