Well, today we received about 10% of the coins we ordered. I crunched some numbers… between 7 and 10 days from now my store is out of change. Completely out. Nada. Zilch. I have more coin on order, but if the next delivery is like that last two that only postpones the problem 1-2 days.
I’ll be giving corporate a heads-up tomorrow, see what they have to say.
Going completely cashless would kill about 1/3 of business, create chaos at the checkout with those used to split transactions, and generate lots of shouting I’m sure.
As an alternative to going cashless, your store could round down cash purchases to the nearest dollar. The store would lose money, but not as much as if they went cashless. Perhaps someone could crunch the numbers and decide if it’s worthwhile?
I’m sure someone somewhere in the corporate over-structure is doing just that. After all, we knew about this problem some weeks ago, and the place is run well enough that I can’t imagine the bean-counters aren’t considering not only every option I could think of but possibly some I haven’t.
It would play merry hell with the record-keeping, but it’s not like we haven’t had one surprise/crisis/upset/batshit crazy thing after another since February. I’m sure they’ll figure something out.
Was re-reading this thread and felt like responding to this in particular.
The first day of our “cashless” machines the human-run lane right next to one of the sets of self-checkouts, which many people wound up going to because of the change, took in $13,000+
It’s now running about $4k-6k a day
So while it does seem 5k is a LOT of money (and in one sense it is) it’s quite plausible.
Anyhow - the coin shortage winds on. Back on the 10th I wrote:
We’re on track to run out of quarters on Wednesday - the 15th. We’ll have a couple more days of other coins after that.
I have orders in for coin Monday and Wednesday, but last order was only 20% of what we requested. Not that we’re unhappy about it, it certainly did help the situation, but it’s not sustainable.
Corporate knows this. They actually have contracted directly with CoinStar to make a separate delivery on Wednesday. Again, not a lot, but it will help considerably. I didn’t realize they could do that. Yet another new thing for 2020.
But, after today I won’t have to worry about the situation for awhile - I’m taking a bit of a vacation this week.
What if you could get people to start using half dollars again? Local bank branches may have only a few or none at all on hand at the moment but the Federal Reserve is stuck with about a billion or more that they can’t get rid of. It shouldn’t take too long to get them back into commerce if there was a demand for them.
The Fed can’t push this; demand would have to start at the bottom. That is, banks’ customers, such as retail stores, would have to request half dollars from their banks. The banks would then order them from the Fed. Even in a coin shortage, are stores going to order half dollars?
Canada doesn’t seem to have any shortages, probably as we seem to be much less cash-dependent than the US.
I think a large part of that is the far broader adaptation and acceptance of “smart cards” aka “chip cards” that let you just tap your card on the reader for a quick payment. The last few times I’ve been to the U.S., I’ve been a tad bemused by the quaint process of having to sweep my card through a reader and use the buttons. I may as well be paying in animal skins and wampum.
I may have used cash for a transaction once or twice in the last two months, if that. Normally, I’d go to an ATM and draw out $200 every six or so weeks to cover my petty expenses. The cash I withdrew back in March is still in my wallet, unused and unlikely to be used any time soon.
I’m reminded of an episode of Corner Gas in which Brent, the owner of the local gas station, gets some part-time help from his cranky half-senile father Oscar, who’d owned and run the station years before:
Oscar: I forgot about all the nutcases you meet on this job. Brent: Why? What happened? Oscar: Guy asked if we take Visa. I told him “This isn’t the ballet. Cash or Chargex.” Brent: Visa used to be Chargex. They changed their name. Oscar:(angrily) Since when?! Brent: Let’s see… I remember the Chargex company changing its name to Visa… Then I was born … Oscar: Well, how was I supposed to know? Brent: Well, we have a big “Visa” sign. Oscar: We have a big “Pepsi” sign! Doesn’t mean we take Pepsi! Brent: It means we sell Pepsi. Oscar:(angrily) We sell Pepsi? Since when?!
Absolutely correct. Demand must start from the bottom. I have read of a few really small businesses that use half dollars and have some repeat business just because customers want to get half dollars in their change. I have never seen a vending machine that takes half dollars. Has anyone else seen one?
$½ doesn’t seem like all that much these days. I imagine there would be more demand for $1, $2, and maybe even $5. You could buy a caffe latte at Starbuck’s with that last one.
This is, of course, assuming The Man wants to encourage people to spend cash instead of using wireless debit cards or whatever.
Didn’t those vending machines at the post office use to take them? Anyway you can program your own vending machines to accept whatever you want.
Has anyone tried their local casino? About 10 years ago I took my home change bucket to the cashier at a casino, they ran it through their coin machine and gave me dollar bills without a problem.
I had sort of the inverse experience making an onboard purchase on a British Airways flight last year (back when we could actually travel). The flight attendant seemed kind of bemused that I had to insert my card into the slot on her mobile payment device, when everyone else could just tap theirs. Us colonials and our primitive credit cards.
This is why I like $1 and $2 coins. Americans are kind of conditioned to think of the change in their pocket as basically worthless. But when I’m traveling in a country that has the equivalent of a dollar coin, after a couple of days the idea sinks in that I can actually buy a coffee and Starbucks with the coins in my pocket. Once I realize the coins I’m carrying around are actually worth something, I’m more likely to actually spend them.
That said, even at home I do try to actually spend my coins, rather than just tossing them in a jar or something like a lot of people seem to do. I don’t use cash often, but I do use it at the farmers market, and sometimes I pay with cash at In-N-Out Burger specifically as a way to use my coins. In fact, since my usual In-N-Out order comes to $6.68, I was kind of excited by the fact that I had accumulated three pennies last week. Because that meant I could make 68 cents, which meant I could pay for my food at In-N-Out with exact change.
Back when our self-serve machines still took cash they would also take dollar coins, half dollars, and $2 bills.
We do have customers pay with all of the above, which we happily take.
We’ll still take them in the cash lanes, too, of course.
Our casinos just opened up um… last week? They might be taking coins, but if so, they haven’t cycled them back to the bank yet. If they ever do.
I noticed the CoinStar machine is getting a workout this week now that it’s been serviced and it’s up and running again.
I’ve also had a few customers who made a point of paying with coins because they’d heard there was a shortage. Won’t solve the problem but it does help.
No it isn’t, but a half dollar could replace two quarters when giving out change. Quarters are one of the two coins that are in the shortest supply, moreso than nickels and dimes. Pennies are also in short supply, but in extremis, rounding to the nearest nickel could be done to ameliorate that shortage.
Right now our quarter shortage at work is the biggest deal. Fortunately, we have more dimes than anything else so in a pinch you can use dimes + nickels or pennies as appropriate (or necessary).
