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3% is the cost of doing business. you wanna charge customers for electricity too? what’s that - like 1% more? uniform / apron cleaning - 0.12%? anything else?

3% is the cost of doing business. you wanna charge customers for electricity too? what’s that - like 1% more? uniform / apron cleaning - 0.12%? anything else? :)

TheDong 2y ago
Electricity and so on are already included independently of the payment method. Yes, the store should be charging enough to its customers that it can afford electricity, and if it can't afford electricity, it should increase its prices. It's not worth trying to account electricity use per-customer though, obviously, and it typically won't really vary by customer much anyway. Credit card fees on the other hand do vary by customer, and can trivially be attributed to a single transaction accurately.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  none of this makes sense of course if you want electricity, you call electric company, turn it on and you get a bill for usage. you want the priviledge of using visa at your store, you call them and get it all setup and and then you get a bill for this. it is cost of doing business and you can’t pass that shit off to customers
  - TheDong 2y ago
    What you're saying doesn't make sense. If you run a cafe, and one customer orders an espresso and the other orders a latte, are you not allowed to charge them differently? Buying milk to make lattes is also a cost of doing business, but it's a cost that is only driven by people who buy lattes, so you pass the cost of milk on to latte buying customers and not espresso buying ones, right? Credit cards are the same as milk here, only people using them cost you money. Should all foods and drinks in a restaurant cost the same because otherwise you're passing on the cost of buying ingredients and staff labor, i.e. "the cost of doing business" on to customers unevenly?
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      Now I have seen it all - comparing a method of payment to milk might just be the greatest thing I have ever read on HN and that is ... something for sure ... so let's try again - I am buying a product or a service. It is exactly the same product, same "milk" if you will :) now the business is telling me that based on the method of payment I choose (who the F carries cash around in 2024/25...) I will be charge _different_ price for the _same milk_? that ... makes absolutely no sense. of course the business itself can choose to charge me extra 3% if I pay with Visa or 15% if I bring a goat to barter with but of course I am going to pick my ass up and head on over to a competitor who won't charge me 3% or 15% extra
  - ac29 2y ago
    > it is cost of doing business and you can’t pass that shit off to customers If a business doesnt pass on its costs of doing business to customers, they will go out of business. The cost doesn't need to be passed on as a fee or surcharge, but it does need to be passed on.
do_not_redeem 2y ago
An interesting thought experiment: what if a store let you pay by bank wire (let's say $20 fee) Would you stick to your guns and say that cash users have to subsidize expensive wire fees? Or is that too much, and the fairness ends at subsidizing the expensive credit card fees? If so, why the distinction? If you could pay by bitcoin, should cash users pay the bitcoin transaction fees too? :) Also, do you really think 3% is a fair tax on the entire economy that we should be giving to the duopoly of MC/Visa, when they only charge 0.3% in most of the rest of the world? The only reason they charge so much here is because they can get away with gouging due to our non-functional regulatory environment. I don't know why so many people accept 3% as a law of nature or something when the cost of handling cash is far less than that.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  if paying by bank wire costs $198 and you want to offer it as a method of payment - it is on YOU. amazing people here don’t understand that there is a cost of running a business. you don’t want to pay Visa 11% - don’t. you don’t want to pay apple 30% - don’t make ios apps. it is that simple mate
  - do_not_redeem 2y ago
    So your point of view is that businesses shouldn't be allowed to give customers choices that have different costs and charge them fairly? Every option has to cost exactly the same for everyone? How do you feel about shipping options then? Should Amazon charge the same for 5-day ground as they do for overnight shipping?
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      you do realize you are comparing apples to oranges? charging customers for usage of credit card is specifically forbidden so any business doing is in breach of contract!! this has nothing to do with shipping options. you cannot charge me money for using a credit card mate, it is 2024 (soon to be 2025).
mckn1ght 2y ago
> 3% is the cost of doing business. Yes, it's a cost you pay at some places to do business with them using your credit card.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  didn’t realize I had to spell it out like this - yes, exactly. thanks
  - mckn1ght 2y ago
    I don’t think you understand. Per your other comment: > it is cost of doing business and you can’t pass that shit off to customers What do you think prices are? They are the costs to the business plus some profit margin. Visa is passing their costs down to their customers too. Businesses are completely within their right to pass the CC charges on to customers. It becomes the customers’ cost of doing business with their preferred method of payment.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      That's all fine - businesses can be within their right to do whatever they please. However, myself and myriad of other people will simply go elsewhere where we are not charged different for the same product/service depending on the method of payment we choose :)
      - EricE 2y ago
        And you will pay more. Local gas station beats Costco by $0.10 a gallon if you pay cash. Which I happily do.
        bdangubic 2y ago
        I stopped needing gas long time ago but if I needed gas I sure as heck am not going anywhere where I can save $0.10 to pay in cash (probably spend 2x that in gas needed to get to the gas station to save $0.10 per gallon). or for that matter ain't going to any place that has a different price depending on my method of payment.
Brian_K_White 2y ago
Incorrect. Visa charges 2.5-3%. It's not part of the burrito like the electricity.
- BenjiWiebe 2y ago
  Exactly. The Visa fees are a percentage (sometimes plus a per-tx fee as well). Electric bills don't usually double when the customer spends twice as much.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    The distinction I meant to make is the "cost of doing business" is all the things required to do whatever your thing is. The food ingredients, the building rent, the electricity and cooking gas, those are all required to make the burrito, every burrito. The credit card exchange fee is like chocolate sprinkles on ice cream. It's a completely seperate and optional thing. This totally seperate company offers an extra service you may or may not want to add on top of your burrito. That's nothing at all like the electricity, and is not at all part of the cost of doing business. It's the cost of doing an entirely seperate business.

3% is the cost of doing business. you wanna charge customers for electricity too? what’s that - like 1% more? uniform / apron cleaning - 0.12%? anything else? :)

TheDong 2y ago

Electricity and so on are already included independently of the payment method. Yes, the store should be charging enough to its customers that it can afford electricity, and if it can't afford electricity, it should increase its prices. It's not worth trying to account electricity use per-customer though, obviously, and it typically won't really vary by customer much anyway. Credit card fees on the other hand do vary by customer, and can trivially be attributed to a single transaction accurately.

bdangubic 2y ago
none of this makes sense of course if you want electricity, you call electric company, turn it on and you get a bill for usage. you want the priviledge of using visa at your store, you call them and get it all setup and and then you get a bill for this. it is cost of doing business and you can’t pass that shit off to customers
- TheDong 2y ago
  What you're saying doesn't make sense. If you run a cafe, and one customer orders an espresso and the other orders a latte, are you not allowed to charge them differently? Buying milk to make lattes is also a cost of doing business, but it's a cost that is only driven by people who buy lattes, so you pass the cost of milk on to latte buying customers and not espresso buying ones, right? Credit cards are the same as milk here, only people using them cost you money. Should all foods and drinks in a restaurant cost the same because otherwise you're passing on the cost of buying ingredients and staff labor, i.e. "the cost of doing business" on to customers unevenly?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    Now I have seen it all - comparing a method of payment to milk might just be the greatest thing I have ever read on HN and that is ... something for sure ... so let's try again - I am buying a product or a service. It is exactly the same product, same "milk" if you will :) now the business is telling me that based on the method of payment I choose (who the F carries cash around in 2024/25...) I will be charge _different_ price for the _same milk_? that ... makes absolutely no sense. of course the business itself can choose to charge me extra 3% if I pay with Visa or 15% if I bring a goat to barter with but of course I am going to pick my ass up and head on over to a competitor who won't charge me 3% or 15% extra
- ac29 2y ago
  > it is cost of doing business and you can’t pass that shit off to customers If a business doesnt pass on its costs of doing business to customers, they will go out of business. The cost doesn't need to be passed on as a fee or surcharge, but it does need to be passed on.

do_not_redeem 2y ago

An interesting thought experiment: what if a store let you pay by bank wire (let's say $20 fee) Would you stick to your guns and say that cash users have to subsidize expensive wire fees? Or is that too much, and the fairness ends at subsidizing the expensive credit card fees? If so, why the distinction? If you could pay by bitcoin, should cash users pay the bitcoin transaction fees too? :) Also, do you really think 3% is a fair tax on the entire economy that we should be giving to the duopoly of MC/Visa, when they only charge 0.3% in most of the rest of the world? The only reason they charge so much here is because they can get away with gouging due to our non-functional regulatory environment. I don't know why so many people accept 3% as a law of nature or something when the cost of handling cash is far less than that.

bdangubic 2y ago
if paying by bank wire costs $198 and you want to offer it as a method of payment - it is on YOU. amazing people here don’t understand that there is a cost of running a business. you don’t want to pay Visa 11% - don’t. you don’t want to pay apple 30% - don’t make ios apps. it is that simple mate
- do_not_redeem 2y ago
  So your point of view is that businesses shouldn't be allowed to give customers choices that have different costs and charge them fairly? Every option has to cost exactly the same for everyone? How do you feel about shipping options then? Should Amazon charge the same for 5-day ground as they do for overnight shipping?
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    you do realize you are comparing apples to oranges? charging customers for usage of credit card is specifically forbidden so any business doing is in breach of contract!! this has nothing to do with shipping options. you cannot charge me money for using a credit card mate, it is 2024 (soon to be 2025).

mckn1ght 2y ago

> 3% is the cost of doing business. Yes, it's a cost you pay at some places to do business with them using your credit card.

bdangubic 2y ago
didn’t realize I had to spell it out like this - yes, exactly. thanks
- mckn1ght 2y ago
  I don’t think you understand. Per your other comment: > it is cost of doing business and you can’t pass that shit off to customers What do you think prices are? They are the costs to the business plus some profit margin. Visa is passing their costs down to their customers too. Businesses are completely within their right to pass the CC charges on to customers. It becomes the customers’ cost of doing business with their preferred method of payment.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    That's all fine - businesses can be within their right to do whatever they please. However, myself and myriad of other people will simply go elsewhere where we are not charged different for the same product/service depending on the method of payment we choose :)
    - EricE 2y ago
      And you will pay more. Local gas station beats Costco by $0.10 a gallon if you pay cash. Which I happily do.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        I stopped needing gas long time ago but if I needed gas I sure as heck am not going anywhere where I can save $0.10 to pay in cash (probably spend 2x that in gas needed to get to the gas station to save $0.10 per gallon). or for that matter ain't going to any place that has a different price depending on my method of payment.

Brian_K_White 2y ago

Incorrect. Visa charges 2.5-3%. It's not part of the burrito like the electricity.

BenjiWiebe 2y ago
Exactly. The Visa fees are a percentage (sometimes plus a per-tx fee as well). Electric bills don't usually double when the customer spends twice as much.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  The distinction I meant to make is the "cost of doing business" is all the things required to do whatever your thing is. The food ingredients, the building rent, the electricity and cooking gas, those are all required to make the burrito, every burrito. The credit card exchange fee is like chocolate sprinkles on ice cream. It's a completely seperate and optional thing. This totally seperate company offers an extra service you may or may not want to add on top of your burrito. That's nothing at all like the electricity, and is not at all part of the cost of doing business. It's the cost of doing an entirely seperate business.