Blog

Receipts, counters and running a shop

Practical writing about digital receipts, point of sale and the small recurring costs of a Hong Kong counter — and, in each piece, what Loop CheckOut actually does about them.

Guides

Longer reference pages, kept up to date rather than dated.

• Guide · Choosing a POS

  The POS system, and what to check before you choose any of them

  What Loop CheckOut does as a point of sale, what the free plan actually covers, the eight questions worth asking every vendor on your shortlist — and where Loop is not the right answer.

• Guide · Loyalty

  Stamp cards, points and offers that run off the receipt

  Why a paper stamp card loses most of its customers, why most digital ones only move the problem, and how a stamp that fills itself from the receipt avoids the second scan.

Articles

Dated pieces, written once and left as they were published.

• Running a shop · 6 min

  What thermal receipt paper actually costs a Hong Kong café

  The roll is HK$12, so paper feels free. Count the rolls, the minutes and the chemistry and a single counter comes to around HK$9,000 a year. Here is the arithmetic, and what is actually in the paper.

• Using your receipts · 5 min

  Can you use a digital receipt for a return, a warranty or an expense claim?

  Short answer: yes, and for a warranty claim three years out it is usually better than the paper slip. What a receipt has to prove, and where the format genuinely does not matter.

• Running a shop · 5 min

  How long a Hong Kong business has to keep its receipts

  Seven years, under section 51C of the Inland Revenue Ordinance. Which is a problem, because thermal paper cannot be relied on to stay readable for one.

• Using your receipts · 5 min

  Splitting a bill six ways, without the group-chat arithmetic

  Dividing a restaurant bill by six is the easy answer and the wrong one. How an itemised receipt splits a meal properly — shared dishes divided across whoever had them, service charge apportioned, and the working shown next to every share.

• Using your receipts · 5 min

  What a digital receipt actually saves, in grams

  Every Loop receipt carries a CO₂ figure. Here is the exact calculation behind it, worked through on a real receipt — and an honest account of the four things it does not claim.

• Using your receipts · 5 min

  Offers that find you because you already shop there

  Claimed in the app, redeemed at the counter, and paid for by the merchant only when they turn into a sale — which is why you do not get buried in them. Plus what a shop can and cannot see about you.