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This certainly contributed to people preferring card over cash, making merchants loose ~3% per transaction. That ship has long sailed, but it does male you won

by _hl_ 2y ago

This certainly contributed to people preferring card over cash, making merchants loose ~3% per transaction. That ship has long sailed, but it does male you wonder: if everything was priced at increments of, say, quarters, would enough people still use cash to offset the lost sales from the allegedly less appealing pricing?

mitthrowaway2 2y ago
I don't know, but I find I use cash much more readily when the price includes tax, because I can confirm ahead of time that the cash in my wallet is enough without breaking a 20 for a pile of coins.
NeoTar 2y ago
> making merchants lose ~3% per transaction Cash also has costs - mistakes in making change, forgeries, time to count/cash up, time to visit banks for cash deposit and/or getting change, theft - it’s been estimated that these can easily exceed any costs of handling credit/debit cards.
- Two4 2y ago
  Cash indeed has a high handling cost. In my country and many others, withdrawing cash at the supermarket teller with your card is free (as in no ATM fees) because it reduces the amount of cash handled and transported by branches. They'd rather eat the cost of a card transaction than pay cash handling costs.
- ta1243 2y ago
  It's been estimated by card companies that these are higher.
  - arrowsmith 2y ago
    Card companies say that cards are better? Who'd have guessed.
- TrueSlacker0 2y ago
  I run a business with lots of daily transactions. The cost of balancing cash drawers, getting change, making deposits and balancing those activities in accounting, all totalled, is still cheaper than to pay the credit card fees. Also it's kind of a fixed set of time regardless of how much cash it is. So more cash is more savings but there is definitely a point where if the cash amount gets to low it would be cheaper to go all card. I think that cheaper propaganda is probably from theft in mostly places that hire minimum wage workers and treat them like slaves.
  - brg 2y ago
    Could you elaborate? I have many years experience running a gas station. For five daily’s employees, handlung cash is about 4 hours labor a day. This is counting the till prior and after shift, validating voids and receipts, handling checks, cashiers checks, and bagging and dropping the cash. With cash there is always slippage, and it is never in the ledgers favor. So cash increases labor costs by 10% and incurs about 1% direct loss a day, prior to bank fees. Where as credit cards end up being about a 2.5% overhead.
    - arrowsmith 2y ago
      Wait, you can still pay by check in stores in the US? That was phased out in the UK like 15 years ago. And even before then, I only ever saw old people do it. The US is weird.
      - NeoTar 2y ago
        I think in part it's because its harder to transfer money between banks in the US - no equivalent of the faster-payments-scheme which allows a free transfer within a few minutes in the UK. Cheques do provide a layer of universal compatibility. I think its also the reason behind the success of Venmo (and earlier PayPal) to allow for free/very low-cost money transmission.
        blitzar 2y ago

by _hl_ 2y ago

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

I don't know, but I find I use cash much more readily when the price includes tax, because I can confirm ahead of time that the cash in my wallet is enough without breaking a 20 for a pile of coins.

NeoTar 2y ago

> making merchants lose ~3% per transaction Cash also has costs - mistakes in making change, forgeries, time to count/cash up, time to visit banks for cash deposit and/or getting change, theft - it’s been estimated that these can easily exceed any costs of handling credit/debit cards.

Two4 2y ago
Cash indeed has a high handling cost. In my country and many others, withdrawing cash at the supermarket teller with your card is free (as in no ATM fees) because it reduces the amount of cash handled and transported by branches. They'd rather eat the cost of a card transaction than pay cash handling costs.
ta1243 2y ago
It's been estimated by card companies that these are higher.
- arrowsmith 2y ago
  Card companies say that cards are better? Who'd have guessed.
TrueSlacker0 2y ago
I run a business with lots of daily transactions. The cost of balancing cash drawers, getting change, making deposits and balancing those activities in accounting, all totalled, is still cheaper than to pay the credit card fees. Also it's kind of a fixed set of time regardless of how much cash it is. So more cash is more savings but there is definitely a point where if the cash amount gets to low it would be cheaper to go all card. I think that cheaper propaganda is probably from theft in mostly places that hire minimum wage workers and treat them like slaves.
- brg 2y ago
  Could you elaborate? I have many years experience running a gas station. For five daily’s employees, handlung cash is about 4 hours labor a day. This is counting the till prior and after shift, validating voids and receipts, handling checks, cashiers checks, and bagging and dropping the cash. With cash there is always slippage, and it is never in the ledgers favor. So cash increases labor costs by 10% and incurs about 1% direct loss a day, prior to bank fees. Where as credit cards end up being about a 2.5% overhead.
  - arrowsmith 2y ago
    Wait, you can still pay by check in stores in the US? That was phased out in the UK like 15 years ago. And even before then, I only ever saw old people do it. The US is weird.
    - NeoTar 2y ago
      I think in part it's because its harder to transfer money between banks in the US - no equivalent of the faster-payments-scheme which allows a free transfer within a few minutes in the UK. Cheques do provide a layer of universal compatibility. I think its also the reason behind the success of Venmo (and earlier PayPal) to allow for free/very low-cost money transmission.
      - blitzar 2y ago