To wonder why, in 2018, some places don't take cards?

[AvocadosBeforeMortgages]

I rarely carry cash as I rarely need it. Public transport here is cash free. Works canteen is cash free. Almost everywhere else accepts card - even the market stall greengrocer.

And yet every so often I find a shop that won't take cards. I tried to buy a £2.50 item in a shop yesterday. Turned out card minimum was a fiver. Only ATM in the neighbourhood is broken, and I wasn't willing to walk a mile round trip to the next one, so they lost a sale.

Why oh why in 2018 are shops still declining cards as a form of payment?

Smaller business pay higher rates of rental, and there is more than one layer of rental charges included

You will be looking at around £1200 per year for these things which you pay to the bank

A quick search for prices
www.cardswitcher.co.uk/2017/11/much-credit-card-machine-cost/

That, as ivykat said.

Add to that the vagaries of internet connection and even the cheapest machines become more hassle than they are worth for some small businesses.

So with the IT not being up to it, banks pulling out of small towns and shoppers blaming small business owners for not being up to the iPhone minute, it's hardly surprising the high street is what it is!

It's not just the cost of having the machine, it's also the case that some new businesses will not be allowed to have a card machine by their bank until they've established themselves. I know someone who works in the business banking section in one of the big banks. They often have businesses trying to switchto them from a different bank and when they do the credit checks, they find they are a high risk. Those businesses are not allowed card machines until they prove themselves.

Small shops have to pay bank fees on card transactions hence the minimum spend thing. Plus it's harder to hide a good chunk of your takings from the taxman when almost everything can be done by contactless card transactions.

I bet lots of small businesses absolutely hate the move towards a cashless society.

Where I live in France it's extremely common for lots of small shops and businesses to say they only accept cash, or to have a different price for cash.

Plus it's harder to hide a good chunk of your takings from the taxman when almost everything can be done by contactless card transactions.

Ooh! We got to page 3 before the usual baseless vitriol got posted!

Bollocks! Nobody would go out of business just so they could hide a few quid from the taxman! Try applying some logic to the situation!

This is the reason it happens in France - I know this for a fact.

Where I live in France it's extremely common for lots of small shops and businesses to say they only accept cash, or to have a different price for cash.
Which is funny really because double pricing is illegal under EU law

I never said it was legal, just that it happens.

The problem with "I know this" is that others of us have lived / have family who live in France and know it is not the norm - just as it isn't here in the UK.

Contrary to popular belief not all small business hide their takings, just as not all single mums have 23 kids to get more money from the government!

Curious The guy who comes to trim the hedges gives us a receipt to pay online and for his books; the rest is paid in cash..... we are in Belgium where tax evasion is a national sport. It is the norm here...last time we did this was September 17, and we had been doing it since 2006!.

Tax avoidance.

I didn't say it doesn't happen! As a small business owner I am just pissed off that many post here as if it is the norm that all small businesses do it.

I know nothing about Belgium...

...maybe I should start avoiding and evading tax... then I wouldn't feel pissed off about it

Also... big corporations hide far more

In this scenario the suggestion is that some small businesses chance going out of business due to not having card machine just so they can hide some earnings - yeah! That really makes perfect sense!

Since when has it mattered to certain countries what is illegal under EU law Talk? There's the law and then there is reality, and as I have been told more than once, Belgian law and customs override EU law.

I pay cash for most unless its expensive (did buy the weeks shop with cash today) and find it strange people put things on cards. If cash you can monitor how much you spend. Having credit card equipment costs money so not worth it for small businesses.

scary
Oh, I know. The EU has a directive.
Most of the continent shrug and carry on
the UK civil service gold plate it and enforce the loopy version

its why Brexit is such a farce - the crazy rule enforcement comes from Whitehall, not Brussels

@curiousanoutsamphire
Methinks the lady doth protest too much
I am a tax accountant
I've got a pretty good idea of the level of fiddling among my clients
just below the amounts that need reporting under MLR btw
and the UK is the same as everywhere else
so just chill

It’s frustraiting, I agree. I love contactless - I keep my debit card in my train pass and that’s all I need. Our Chinese is a very short walk from us but at least half the time we have to get in the car to go to a different one as they only take cash. It just makes no sense! They must lose so much business as a) takeaways tend to cost quite a lot so less chance of having the cash and b) there are local alternatives.

Talkin Oh dear! I hope you aren't helping your clients avoid tax.

I really resent your implication. Seriously, fuck off!

The problem with not taking cards at all is that you not only lose the custom for the initial visit but all subsequent visits the customer won't make in future if there are more convenient options nearby.

In my town a local business owner started a coffee shop that was cash only ... it closed within a couple of months because it wasn't making any money and there was never anyone in the cafe when I passed despite being a lovely place with great coffee. Probably because the nearest ATM is about 500m away and within about 100m of the coffee shop there are various other cafes - from chains like Costa to tiny cafes inhabited by nobody under the age of 70 - all of which accept card payments and have booming trade.

I know so many people who went into the new cafe, were told they couldn't use card, realised they had no cash, left to go to the ATM and ended up just going to one of the other places instead and then never went back to that cafe in future because it wasn't worth the hassle of making sure you had enough cash on you before you went in when you could go somewhere else just as easily and pay by card.

So not having a card machine not only cost the cafe that initial few pounds but also the potential hundreds or thousands of pounds of future revenue that customers may have spent there if it had become their regular coffee spot for years to come.

In the US lots of places don’t accept cash!

In the us wages are starvation level, tips are 20% and they shoot each other daily. Completely different economy and mindset.

In the us wages are starvation level
Not in all states.

The only thing I do cash is bars and parking. If you are a shop and don't take card you'll just get no sale. We have 4 supermarkets walkable from my house so small businesses can't afford to not take contactless.

special - I don’t think so.