Right now, my hair is much longer than it should be. I'm reporting for Guard duty down in Charlotte looking more like Lt Dan than Forest Gump, and it's all because all I've got in my wallet is a check card.Okay, it's largely because I put off getting a haircut until a couple of hours before heading down here, but it's partially due to downtown Roanoke businesses hanging onto the antiquated medium of paper currency with might and main.
My regular barber takes check, which is better than cash only, especially considering I haven't seen cash in like, eight months or so, and then it was just because I found a 20-spot at the Towers Mall CVS. Alas, he was sick, so I was relegated to wandering downtown looking to put the two-guard smack-down on my mop - but to no avail.
Don't get me wrong, I think that if a business wants to deal only in cash - hell, only in gold nuggets - then let no one tell them otherwise. But that same establishment shouldn't look to the sky and wonder why there are no customers, or blame a sluggish economy on lousy business.
I've never run a brick and mortar store, so perhaps dealing with credit cards and their fee structures is a headache or economically difficult to justify, but I'd like to think that - fees or no - it is a natural evolution of commerce that is either embraced as a boon to business or rejected and thereafter is an anchor that has real costs in lost customers.
Either way, my hair is still long, and some Roanoke barbers are still that much poorer because of it. So nobody wins.
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As a small business owner who tries to keep our overhead low we have opted not to deal with the credit card companies. Depending upon which card it is the fees can run up to 4%. Then there's the bank fees on top of that, and just dealing with all the accounting. For me it's just not worth the extra costs and hassles that we would have to pass onto the customers. Most of our customers are fine with it, and if any new ones come we let them know right up front. And yes, we have lost business because we do not accept credit cards but not enough to justify the need for them. Now we do accept checks and even those credit cards checks which do not carry any fee for us nor the customer.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the fees are a little ridiculous, and there shouldn't be anything that forces those options on businesses - let the market speak for itself. But for me - as for others - I think it's simply become habit to have no cash on hand. And while this might limit my options, when cash is used so infrequently, you begin to think of it as a "special occasion" currency, not something needed for everyday commerce.
ReplyDeleteStill taking checks helps, though. Every time I hit up the Grandin Theater I pay by check.
Now I'm the opposite. I only use cash. If I don't have it, I don't spend it. If I do use my credit cards it's only for emergencies and I pay the entire balance at the end of the month. This practice has made me a "liability" according to the credit card companies and a couple have cancelled me for being a good customer. Go figure.
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