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> I don't like to carry cash around, and I hate it that I have to pay a surcharge when paying by card. So you think your use of a credit card should be subsidi

by shkkmo 6y ago

> I don't like to carry cash around, and I hate it that I have to pay a surcharge when paying by card. So you think your use of a credit card should be subsidized by people who pay in cash?

Rebelgecko 6y ago
I wonder how much more expensive credit cards actually are? Cash costs money/time to handle and deposit, it's easily stolen, and easy to commit fraud with (like the classic move where a drive thru employee pockets the cash from a sale without ringing it up)
- toast0 6y ago
  The computerization of order taking and kitchen tickets would seem to make it harder to charge a customer without ringing it up? I know you could cancel it in the system, but that's gotta be counted somewhere where a manager is going to see it eventually?
  - eru 6y ago
    Depends on how much you can trust your employees.
- paranoidrobot 6y ago
  One issue I know smaller retailers sometimes have is that it can take a long time to get cleared funds into their account. One small cafe near a place I used to work said it usually took 30-60 days for funds to clear into their account after a card transaction. That, for them, was a major problem as it meant that they couldn't then pay their suppliers in a timely manner when cashflow was highly variable. Then again, a bakery I visited that was in a small town said they'd stopped taking cash, as they got robbed some huge number of times.
cynix 6y ago
> So you think your use of a credit card should be subsidized by people who pay in cash? I don't think it should be so clear cut like that. The credit card processing fees charged by the processor is a cost of doing business and should just be factored into the pricing without being explicitly passed on to a subset of customers. For example, a shopping centre or convenience store may have toilets that only a subset of customers would use. Should the customers who bought something without using the toilet be "subsidising the cleaning costs"? If a store offers online ordering, should customers who ordered online be "subsidising the rent of the physical store"?
- andrewmutz 6y ago
  If the toilets cost 3% of revenue, then yes they should charge separately for using the toilets.
  - eru 6y ago
    Or rather, they should have the option to do so. It's a valid business decision to NOT charge extra for the toilets, too. Just like shops usually don't charge people who are a bit slower in the checkout line more for taking up cashier time.
chongli 6y ago
People who pay in cash are subsidizing the store’s costs to handle cash. Paying employees to count the cash (usually after closing), putting it in the safe, distributing the cash to cash registers, refilling when they run out of change, paying for the security service (Brinks etc) to deliver cash to/from the bank, insurance against robbery... Cash is not free for a store to handle. Stores pay transaction fees on credit cards, sure, but they save on all the costs of cash. A hypothetical store that takes credit cards only would not have any of these costs and their vulnerability to robbery/theft would be limited to merchandise and capital only, saving the cost of insurance against theft of cash. For some types of businesses (services rather than retailers), this makes their office a pretty unattractive target for burglars and eliminates employee theft of cash.
- eru 6y ago
  Your argument is one for considering exposing the cost of any payment mechanism to the customers. (Especially when the cost between different payment mechanisms differ a lot.)
- clairity 6y ago
  > "Cash is not free for a store to handle." that's like saying opening the doors everyday to customers is not free. it's true, but misses the point. handling cash, like paying for utilities, is a fundamental cost of doing business, and so it should be, because the right to anonymity and privacy is woven into cash. not so much with electronic transactions, which are optional, alternative costs.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    No, it's not a fundamental cost of doing business, and many businesses no longer so that.
- labawi 6y ago
  In many places, paying cash is faster than paying by card. Before contactless, with optimized (rounded) pricing, you would often get 3x the throughput (nowdays less) and for small transactions the fees were ridiculous (smaller with contactless).

by shkkmo 6y ago

> I don't like to carry cash around, and I hate it that I have to pay a surcharge when paying by card. So you think your use of a credit card should be subsidized by people who pay in cash?

Rebelgecko 6y ago

I wonder how much more expensive credit cards actually are? Cash costs money/time to handle and deposit, it's easily stolen, and easy to commit fraud with (like the classic move where a drive thru employee pockets the cash from a sale without ringing it up)

toast0 6y ago
The computerization of order taking and kitchen tickets would seem to make it harder to charge a customer without ringing it up? I know you could cancel it in the system, but that's gotta be counted somewhere where a manager is going to see it eventually?
- eru 6y ago
  Depends on how much you can trust your employees.
paranoidrobot 6y ago
One issue I know smaller retailers sometimes have is that it can take a long time to get cleared funds into their account. One small cafe near a place I used to work said it usually took 30-60 days for funds to clear into their account after a card transaction. That, for them, was a major problem as it meant that they couldn't then pay their suppliers in a timely manner when cashflow was highly variable. Then again, a bakery I visited that was in a small town said they'd stopped taking cash, as they got robbed some huge number of times.

cynix 6y ago

> So you think your use of a credit card should be subsidized by people who pay in cash? I don't think it should be so clear cut like that. The credit card processing fees charged by the processor is a cost of doing business and should just be factored into the pricing without being explicitly passed on to a subset of customers. For example, a shopping centre or convenience store may have toilets that only a subset of customers would use. Should the customers who bought something without using the toilet be "subsidising the cleaning costs"? If a store offers online ordering, should customers who ordered online be "subsidising the rent of the physical store"?

andrewmutz 6y ago
If the toilets cost 3% of revenue, then yes they should charge separately for using the toilets.
- eru 6y ago
  Or rather, they should have the option to do so. It's a valid business decision to NOT charge extra for the toilets, too. Just like shops usually don't charge people who are a bit slower in the checkout line more for taking up cashier time.

chongli 6y ago

People who pay in cash are subsidizing the store’s costs to handle cash. Paying employees to count the cash (usually after closing), putting it in the safe, distributing the cash to cash registers, refilling when they run out of change, paying for the security service (Brinks etc) to deliver cash to/from the bank, insurance against robbery... Cash is not free for a store to handle. Stores pay transaction fees on credit cards, sure, but they save on all the costs of cash. A hypothetical store that takes credit cards only would not have any of these costs and their vulnerability to robbery/theft would be limited to merchandise and capital only, saving the cost of insurance against theft of cash. For some types of businesses (services rather than retailers), this makes their office a pretty unattractive target for burglars and eliminates employee theft of cash.

eru 6y ago
Your argument is one for considering exposing the cost of any payment mechanism to the customers. (Especially when the cost between different payment mechanisms differ a lot.)
clairity 6y ago
> "Cash is not free for a store to handle." that's like saying opening the doors everyday to customers is not free. it's true, but misses the point. handling cash, like paying for utilities, is a fundamental cost of doing business, and so it should be, because the right to anonymity and privacy is woven into cash. not so much with electronic transactions, which are optional, alternative costs.
- Nursie 6y ago
  No, it's not a fundamental cost of doing business, and many businesses no longer so that.
labawi 6y ago
In many places, paying cash is faster than paying by card. Before contactless, with optimized (rounded) pricing, you would often get 3x the throughput (nowdays less) and for small transactions the fees were ridiculous (smaller with contactless).