Minimum cash spend in shops

Yvoh

Absolutely agree. It's not so easy to get the little bits and pieces locally. End up shopping on Ebay as usual!!

rach_k

After handing the cash for a PTA (so pretty small beans compared to a shop, I'd imagine), I can understand why they would do this, particularly if they find most people pay by card and they're happy with any fees associated with that.

Cash is a pain! You have to make sure you have and give the correct change, keep it secure, count it/get it counted, bag it up and take it to the bank (which may or may not be open at a convenient time for you) and possibly wait in a queue for 20 minutes behind idiots who haven't counted and bagged theirs properly... card payments just arrive in your account.

davidmcn

DigForVictory wrote: »

Sounds like a "get rid of the small customer" ploy, which is alas understandable given the increasd markup on the larger sales but very tough of poor old Major Smith, retired, who is trying to get his sink fixed by getting the right bit for a reasonable price rather than pay a real man with all their overheads to do it for several ponds more.

To be fair, you won't need to buy too many more widgets to bring the total up to £2.40.

DigForVictory

So true, but the gallant Major I'm thinking of is trying to make his army pension cover rent, food & utilities & hasn't quite grasped this brave new world and the bewildering decimalised coinage.

Smashing bloke, with the courage not just to face the enemy fire but also to get out of bed & try not to hit the floor every morning. Meticulously clean, polished, shaven etc but watching every penny with anxious concern.

He's not swift of movement any more, the coin purse is deep in his trouser pocket & some days the tremor is worse than others - he's beautifully polite but otherwise the customer from hell when you have three others behind him and he's trying to get the nerve to ask for a widget in thirty seconds of an inch when everything he sees is in these mms....

lammy82

There is a small trend towards preferring card/contactless payments over cash but it's certainly not across the board.
Round my way there are a few establishments which have gone card-only, and a local hardware place similar to the one you describe asked for card payment over cash as it actually costs them less to handle card payments vs depositing cash.

On the other side of the coin there are plenty of places, typically small cafes and restaurants, which don't take cards at all and apparently have no intention of doing so.