Emailed purchase receipt

Abstract

A method of processing receipts, including: obtaining transaction data including a plurality of categories of information necessary to describe a purchasing transaction of a customer at a store location; obtaining image data representing a receipt corresponding to the purchasing transaction of the customer at the store location; obtaining an e-mail address of the customer; providing an option to print the receipt at the store location and an option to e-mail the receipt to the customer; obtaining a selection of at least one of the provided options; if the option to print is selected, initiating printing of the image at the store location; and if the option to e-mail is selected, sending an e-mail to the e-mail address of the customer, the e-mail including providing at least one of the image data and the transaction data.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of processing receipts, comprising:
 obtaining transaction data from a computing device, the transaction data associated with a purchasing transaction of a customer;   obtaining an e-mail address of the customer from a customer information database persistently associated with the computing device;   providing, to a display device, an option to print the receipt and an option to e-mail the receipt to the customer;   if a customer selects the option to print, initiating printing of the image data on a printer; and   if a customer selects the option to e-mail, e-mailing the receipt to the customer by confirming the email address and transmitting the email to the customer.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of obtaining transaction data further comprising the step of obtaining image data from the computing device, the image data representing a receipt corresponding to the purchasing transaction of the customer. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transaction data includes at least one of a name of the store, a location of the store, a contact information of the store, a date and time of the transaction, a description of an item purchased, and a price of an item purchased. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the step of emailing further comprises an e-mail template being assigned based on the location of the transaction data. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the e-mail template includes a customized graphic, a customized advertisement, a customized coupon or a customized survey based on the e-mail template assigned. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the computing device is a POS system at a store location and the steps of obtaining transaction data from the POS system at the store location, obtaining image data from the POS system and obtaining the e-mail address of the customer from the customer information database associated with the POS system occur after the option to e-mail is selected.