• Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, September 2, 2009 8:36 AM

A picture that accompanies this story is worth way more than a thousand words: a foot-long receipt from a Duane Reade drugstore dwarfs the single packet of Trident gum whose purchase it documents. But that doesn't come close to the two-and-a-half foot transaction souvenir reportedly spewed out for a Hula Hoop at a Chicago Kmart.

Ilan Brat and Ann Zimmerman take a, pardon me, long look at the coupons, return policies, loyalty points and other bits of information (like requests to fill out long surveys) that retailers are tacking on to receipts. The practice is leading some consumers to flat out refuse them. "You feel like you have a very special document in your pocket," says one of the rejectors, "when in reality you bought a Sprite at a Best Buy."

Of course, there's always someone looking to win a $5,000 gift card, and others who profess that they really like this emerging genre of literature. One says she "can't wait" to see how many "Extra Bucks" her CVS purchases earn. It figures that she's a freelance writer.

And Dan Brogan says that retailers "find it's one of the most effective places to communicate with their customers." Then again, Brogan is the svp who oversees receipt printing at NCR, where the receipt was born in 1884.

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »