# Gas stations offering discounts for cash payment **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 27, 2022, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300 "2022-09-27T02:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2022, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/81 "2022-10-01T07:21:52Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I think a lot of the “time to railroad” came from credit card terminals that could be swiped. > … > The old duplicate carbon receipts and cachunkers were slow! To say nothing of looking up in a book sent weekly a list of stolen credit card numbers or slightly later making a phone call that would take at least a minute. Plus back in the ‘submit your sales on paper’ days it would be a week or so to get paid. Now it’s typically three days, or overnight if you want to pay extra. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/82 "2022-10-03T19:47:10Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > What it comes down to is that a lot of people think they know all they need to know about how these cost/benefit calculations are made in the back offices/corporate headquarters,… True, generally if a large Corporate business has done the number crunching, they know what they are doing. The issue generally is with small businesses, often Sole Proprietorships that maybe do not even have an accountant, just a tax guy. The owners sees the Credit card fees every month, which pisses him/her off. But what they don’t see is the little hidden costs of cash handling. After all, an extra half hour a day with a manager and the employee counting, recounting and checking the cash is just part of payroll. Such owners have no idea there _is_ any cost to handling cash. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/83 "2022-10-03T19:54:42Z")
True. Still, there may be circumstances where small businesses are better of going either cash only or cashless. There are a bunch of variables these days, from location to age of typical customer to a bunch more I can’t think of at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2022, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/84 "2022-10-03T20:25:08Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > What it comes down to is that a lot of people think they know all they need to know about how these cost/benefit calculations are made in the back offices/corporate headquarters, often basing those assumptions on how these things were done 20 or 50 years ago. This is why I insist on having folks with recent store experience on project teams that are going to impact store processes. They are probably overridden way too often. Then the projects crash and burn when we find out the added complexity we introduced needed a lot more training and even a different kind of worker than we actually have. This usually happens when some 20-something consultants convince our executives that some technology we don’t fully understand is the solution to a problem we didn’t even realize we had. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/85 "2022-10-04T16:16:22Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > everyone puts gas in the car Used to… Gas stations are going to have to adjust their business plans as more people switch to electric cars, because their customer base is shrinking. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/86 "2022-10-04T16:30:21Z")
It will be a while – a decade or more – before EVs are much of a factor. Even the EV enthusiasts in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-on-viability-of-electric-cars/938612) from last year had that opinion. Plenty of time to have a cigarette and jerky store adjacent to a fast-charge station up and running. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2022, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300/87 "2022-10-04T17:12:50Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > It will be a while – a decade or more – before EVs are much of a factor. Even the EV enthusiasts in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thread-on-viability-of-electric-cars/938612) from last year had that opinion. Well, California is currently around 5% of personal autos being electric and newly sold are around 15% electric. So not a sudden crash, but selling gas here is headed down even now. Bringing it back to this thread’s topic, I expect gas stations in California are going to be leaning in to the convenience store business model even more. That is, high mark-ups on everything, even gas. Californians are already acclimated to high gas prices; it’s only going to get worse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gas-stations-offering-discounts-for-cash-payment/972300.md?page=4)