3 ms·
For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?
by phantom784 11mo ago
For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?
- mattnewton 11mo agoThey probably will, but that means a POS software update on a tight deadline.
- wongarsu 11mo agoIt's not like pennies just cease existing. You just can't buy them from the mint anymore. I bet if you give customers an easy and free way to deposit change or to turn it into larger denominations you easily get enough pennies to delay ther update a couple years
- mattnewton 11mo agoThere are a lot of solutions, as everyone has mentioned. The problem is not hard, it’s “what color to paint the bikeshed” territory. But we’re still having to solve a problem on a tight deadline based on a tweeted proclamation with no federal legislature specifying exactly what solutions are allowed and what solutions conflict with existing law.
- mrguyorama 11mo agoOr, in reality, most commodity POS systems are actually able to support various countries and tax regimes, and is plenty ready to be configured a variety of ways and work perfectly fine in changing systems. For example, the exact same physical hardware in American supermarkets for self checkout is also used in countries like Australia that have more coins than the US, and the machines literally do not have enough coin slots for every coin, so they just don't dispense certain coins in that place. The POS market is rather robust and has been around the block for quite a while and has no problem managing quite literally arbitrary fees. Businesses in our city added a "cost of living" fee to all bills (just raise prices FFS, so dumb) and they didn't have to go out and buy new POS systems, because POS systems are very configurable. Like, other industries that have been selling software products for decades are actually kind of good at their jobs and it's really just software as a service that reliably makes garbage. POS software can handle all sorts of things you probably don't even realize. Go lookup all the functionality that Square advertises their POS systems have, and understand that they are new entrants to the market and do not have all the features that legacy vendors have built up over decades. The functionality has been so thoroughly figured out for so long and so straightforward, that a POS you bought in the 90s is likely still fit for service today. Meanwhile, retailers are actually open to improving and modernizing their POS infrastructure regularly. They added those coupon printers to existing stacks and didn't have to do anything special because POS systems are absolute legends of interoperability. They use extremely standardized ports, including a special supplementary power version of USB, and are very tolerant to mix and match hardware. POS vendors even sell their hardware without forcing you to buy their software. The system is very open.
- anticorporate 11mo agoThe SNAP equal treatment rule requirement works in both directions: Prices cannot be higher or lower for SNAP recipients. As a retailer, there is an option to request a waiver, though.
- phantom784 11mo agoHow does this work with coupons, discount for loyalty card holders, etc.? Presumably that's fine because a SNAP recipient has access to those same discounts. So wouldn't this be the same - the "cash rounding" discount is available to SNAP and people paying cash?
- rtkwe 11mo agoAnyone can have a coupon the law is about not special fees or discounts to SNAP recipients, and since EBT/SNAP cards are essentially debit cards them always being charged exact change could be litigated as differential pricing in theory, which in a country as big and sue happy as the US means someone will try it eventually.
- jkaplowitz 11mo agoSo, that sounds like a yes, they could round up or down SNAP purchases just like cash purchases.
- Uvix 11mo agoNo, because they'd still be paying less/more than people paying with credit cards, debit cards, or checks.