I was recently in a bookstore in Yakima (eastern Washington State), and visited a local bookstore named Churchill’s. It’s a great little bookstore and I intended to purchase quite a bit there…
…until I found out it took neither debit nor credit cards. (Oddly enough, it did take checks.) It struck me as really bizarre, especially since I can use cards at even the smallest corner stores. Have you run into any businesses that do this? And do you know any good reasons a store owner would have a “no cards” policy?
Plenty; mostly small diners but I can name others as well. I will admit that its not all that common but knowing the margin and all in some businesses (along with the natural urge to maybe hide a transaction or two) it doesn’t really phase me much.
there are fees for the store associated with cards, rental of card readers, subscription to internet service to use the card reader, subscription to card processing service, etc. (I probably have at least some of these fees labeled incorrectly) Basically, cards are a huge hassle for shops, but one that most stores deal with because not accepting them reduces the potential customer base.
Winco (discount grocery chain) didn’t accept cards for the longest time, or checks, I know they now accept debit, and am pretty sure they accept credit.
On a less provable note, I have heard stories about small business being “intimidated” or “forced” by large service providers for card services into accepting cards. Not sure how that would work, but, I have heard the stories.
My local Winco accepts debit cards but not credit cards. They have a sign posted saying that the credit card charges cost them too much.
Most retailers, especially large ones like supermarkets LOVE plastic money, in particular debit cards. They pay a fee for them, but there are advantages from the store’s point of view:
The more people pay with plastic, the less cash they have to handle. This is a biggie.
Transactions happen faster. No more having to count out money. No more having to make change. No more having cashiers handling actual money, which is always risky. Merchants have to go to all sorts of heroic lengths to keep their cashiers honest. (That’s why, for example, carnivals and festivals with lots of booths selling stuff often sell you some kind of scrip at a few designated scrip booths, and all the other retailers require you to pay with the scrip.) And the less money you have to have in your cash drawers (ideally, none) the less you have to worry about getting robbed.
And at the end of the day, all of the cashiers’ cash drawers have to be counted, and reconciled with the amounts that the registers say should be in the drawers. That’s also time-consuming, and messy when the drawer counts don’t come out right.
Retailers, especially large-scale ones, would love you to use your debit cards. They would gladly move their business to a debit-card ONLY model if they thought they could pull it off. The price of debit card sales charges is well worth it to them. And no more daily armored car service to pick up the day’s intake to take to the bank.
I’ve also heard that a big reason supermarkets don’t accept credit cards is because it takes them longer to actually get their money, than if the customer pays with a debit card. I don’t know the details about that.
Used to be very common with breakfast-specializing cafes in my area ( they also had tendencies towards barber’s hours - closing on Mondays ) and you can still find a few that are still hewing to that. But I notice the practice has been slowly dying out over the last decade.
This is true, but there are fees and costs and hassle for accepting any payments. Cash doesn’t exactly sprout legs and walk itself to the bank.
The discount supermarket/pharmacy I go to only accepts Discover cards and checks. I almost always pay in cash.
My landscaper only accepts checks. I don’t ask why.
I don’t accept payment via a card reader. They are an embuggerance – more paperwork, more fees, and require me to be present at time of payment.
If someone wants to pay me via debit or credit card, they can pay via Interac E-Transfer.
I had a mobile veterinarian come to my house to give my dog his shots and a checkup. She would only take cash or a check. Not a problem, I wrote her a check. It was worth it not to have to load the pooch into the car. He’s getting on in years and doesn’t like to ride in the car anyway. The dog’s in fine health, by the way.
Two neighborhood joints that I know of…
One is a hot dog place around the corner. They are cheap and close by enough that sometimes we’ll do the extra hassle of walking a quarter mile past it to the ATM. It has at least occasionally cost them our business, though. There were times when we would have stopped in, but didn’t have time to get to the ATM first.
One of my fav coffee shops from my old neighborhood was cash only up until perhaps a few months ago. They had the best muffins in town and at least the ATM was more or less on the way there, so we tolerated that. They recently went to Square for card processing, but charge a 25 cent surcharge for non-cash payments… which is way more than it costs them. Come on, guys. They expanded a couple years ago, so I don’t think their margins are THAT thin.
It used to be harder and more expensive to get set up to accept cards, but between Square and Paypal (both have card readers and software for your phone / tablet now), there’s really no excuse anymore. It’s easy and it’s cheap. And it’s convenient for the customer too.
In addition to the above, I live near Amish territory. All the Amish businesses I’ve interacted with are strictly cash or check, none take plastic or any form of electronic transaction due to their views on technology.
A friend held off accepting credit cards at his tattoo shop for years, until demand finally made him cave. A couple hundred dollars tax free each day adds up. He claimed the 25% the artists working in his shop kicked to him.
In my own business, I accept credit/debit cards and cash. I haven’t accepted checks for at least ten years. Seriously? A piece of paper that may or may not have value?
Nitpick: It doesn’t faze you.
There are two local business that I am aware of who do not take cards. Both have an ATM on site. This seems to be a reasonable way to handle it, if you absolutely must not take cards.
The Dollar General store near me has stopped accepting MasterCard Credit cards, because they refused to be blackmailed into paying higher and higher transaction fees for small purchases. They say the fees often swallow the markup. .
For a long time Sam’s Club would not take cards, just pointed to an ATM in the corner.
I don’t think there is anywhere that you can use a credit card to buy gold coins, or other forms of investment-grade metals.
I know several small sole proprietorships that only take cash. The biggest reason is that it is easier to under report income for tax purposes.
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I deal with a number of businesses that accept only cash or cheques: my gardener/snow removal guy, my doctor (who collects money for lab tests, although he personally has no fees), my chiropracter, the podiatrist who trims my toenails, the roofer who put a new roof on my house last fall. For a long time, I tried to avoid paying by credit card at the supermarket, not wanting to add to the price of food. But when they started requiring a cheque-cashing card for which they insisted I supply my Social Insurance number, I balked and started paying by CC (on which I get a nice 1.25% rebate).
There is one other company that will not accept my credit or debit card. It is a US based cell phone and they have it set up that if you cannot supply a five digit zip code on your address, they cannot accept it. So they pay money to send me a bill for about $20 every month and I pay money to send them a check every month, costing us at least $3 in postage. I cannot understand why they operate this way.
You can get a basic Square card reader for free (the chip-enabled reader is more expensive), so there’s little excuse. You can even run it on your cell phone, though I’ve usually seen it attached to an iPad cash register. I’m able to take credit cards when I sell my books; I only sell a handful a year, but the only cost is the regular transaction fee, about 2.75%.
So it’s not hard to set up to take credit cards. Supermarkets might have issues with low margins, but I’d think that it would be counteracted by the cost of bounced checks. And people tend to spend more when they’re not using cash, which is a plus.
The place where I buy my dog food doesn’t take plastic. The owner’s profit margin is so thin that the fees for credit card processing were really putting a damper on her ability to stay in business.
She’s across the plaza from the DMV. They don’t take plastic either.
Heh. The last time I had to pay for a new driver’s license I was surprised to find that they did not accept cash.