4 ms·

A lot of problems would go away if all merchants (voluntarily or by law) explicitly charged their payment costs to the customer. Both for card and cash transact

A lot of problems would go away if all merchants (voluntarily or by law) explicitly charged their payment costs to the customer. Both for card and cash transactions, because cash handling isn't free either. The customers using high reward cards would then soon discover that they are just paying for those rewards themselves, and the free market would quickly push everyone to the most efficient payment systems.

dodgemustang 8y ago
Dogecoin it is then. Edit: If you really believe the freemarket is the best to determine what is the preferred mode of exchange. Then decentralized currencies are inevitably going to win out, especially if they're equally accessable. (Meaning no need for extensive tech knowledge or expensive mining rigs). A currency that has a built in UBI and virtually no transaction costs is going to be attractive to consumers. And merchants will eventually gravitate towards it more as they see it enables consumers to consume more.
pwg 8y ago
> A lot of problems would go away if all merchants (voluntarily or by law) explicitly charged their payment costs to the customer. At least in the US, the contract the retailer signs with the CC processor to be able to accept CC's explicitly bans passing the card fees on to the customer as a specific line item in the receipt. Which really translates to the merchant increaseing their prices by 1.02x to compensate for the 2% (avg. estimate) fee the cards charge. So the customer still pays, but they do not directly see what part of the price goes directly to the payment network.
- _archon_ 8y ago
  What prevents a seller from giving a cash discount line item for cash transactions?
  - frockington 8y ago
    Probably wouldn't be the best idea from a business perspective to make it more inconvenient for people with high rewards cards (rich people)
  - pwg 8y ago
    Nothing, anymore, in the US at least. A court case a few years back resulted in retailers having the right to offer an "X% off if paying with cash" discount to customers. But they are still barred from doing the reverse (line item for X% more for CC transaction on the receipt).
bena 8y ago
Why not extend that out further. Explicitly charge their delivery costs, their production costs, their management costs, their payroll costs, etc, etc? Eventually we'll just clamor for merchants to just put a single price tag on everything and not worry us about how much of each item is going to all of their various costs.
- wcoenen 8y ago
  Because those other costs aren't avoidable by customer choices, and they don't go towards "reward" programs that distort the payment market and push everyone to high cost systems.

dodgemustang 8y ago

Dogecoin it is then. Edit: If you really believe the freemarket is the best to determine what is the preferred mode of exchange. Then decentralized currencies are inevitably going to win out, especially if they're equally accessable. (Meaning no need for extensive tech knowledge or expensive mining rigs). A currency that has a built in UBI and virtually no transaction costs is going to be attractive to consumers. And merchants will eventually gravitate towards it more as they see it enables consumers to consume more.

pwg 8y ago

> A lot of problems would go away if all merchants (voluntarily or by law) explicitly charged their payment costs to the customer. At least in the US, the contract the retailer signs with the CC processor to be able to accept CC's explicitly bans passing the card fees on to the customer as a specific line item in the receipt. Which really translates to the merchant increaseing their prices by 1.02x to compensate for the 2% (avg. estimate) fee the cards charge. So the customer still pays, but they do not directly see what part of the price goes directly to the payment network.

_archon_ 8y ago
What prevents a seller from giving a cash discount line item for cash transactions?
- frockington 8y ago
  Probably wouldn't be the best idea from a business perspective to make it more inconvenient for people with high rewards cards (rich people)
- pwg 8y ago
  Nothing, anymore, in the US at least. A court case a few years back resulted in retailers having the right to offer an "X% off if paying with cash" discount to customers. But they are still barred from doing the reverse (line item for X% more for CC transaction on the receipt).

bena 8y ago

Why not extend that out further. Explicitly charge their delivery costs, their production costs, their management costs, their payroll costs, etc, etc? Eventually we'll just clamor for merchants to just put a single price tag on everything and not worry us about how much of each item is going to all of their various costs.

wcoenen 8y ago
Because those other costs aren't avoidable by customer choices, and they don't go towards "reward" programs that distort the payment market and push everyone to high cost systems.