Given that we’re all supposed to use contactless payment wherever possible now, AIBU to think it’s a bit shit to have minimum spend amounts?

[AngeloMysterioso]

I try to use small and independent local businesses wherever possible but I’m getting quite tired of having to meet (sometimes quite high) minimum spend amounts.

Example- lovely local greengrocer, went in for a piece of ginger, £2.40. Minimum spend- £5. I put it back and went to M&S where the same sized bit of ginger was half the price and that was all I had to pay.

This is particularly annoying given that at the moment everyone is encouraged to use contactless or card payments as it is more hygienic than cash. I know there is a fee applied to card payments but surely these independent businesses are going to drive away customers if they insist on passing it on? I really like the greengrocers but I’m not going to waste money on things I don’t need if I’m not getting £5 worth of stuff whenever I go in there- I’ll just go to the supermarket instead.

@nohomemadecandles that is not convenient for me. I do a lot of shopping online (small businesses mostly before I'm told off for that too) I like my cash in my account where I can use it for online purchases.
Plus being treated like a pariah for trying to pay with cash when it didn't suit them during the bonkers part of lockdown?
Nah, I'm done with cash.

@Ostara212

Posters saying if someone gives them cash, they have to bank it

Is there nowhere you can pay in cash? I realise it depends what part of the country you live in.

My bank doesn't have cash point pay in, so it's either over the counter or a post office. Post offices also have shit opening hours and long queues. I'm not willing to change banks so I'll just quietly bitch about being given cash by people

Yes, my dd does that. If your anything like our local petrol station, the huge margins you make on booze and food must help. It's vastly expensive
You obviously don't understand a petrol stations margins then. We sell around £30k of fuel every day but after we've paid all of the tax due to the government the rest only just covers the rent and insurance. If we didn't sell everything else for above supermarket prices we wouldn't have enough money to pay staff wages let alone make a profit.

Plus being treated like a pariah for trying to pay with cash when it didn't suit them during the bonkers part of lockdown?

I paid cash number of times and never have been treated like a pariah😂

Well either you want your high street to survive or you don't. If you'd rather drive to M&S to save a quid then don't complain when it's boarded up shops and Starbucks.

It's a suggestion to use contactless, not a demand! FFS get ten quid out and you'll have a few quid left in you purse for when you want half an artichoke.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

Plus being treated like a pariah for trying to pay with cash when it didn't suit them during the bonkers part of lockdown?

I paid cash number of times and never have been treated like a pariah😂

I remember paying with cash at the garden centre during lockdown 1. The women behind the till literally recoiled and had to ask her colleague if it was OK to take it

@Ostara212

Posters saying if someone gives them cash, they have to bank it

Is there nowhere you can pay in cash? I realise it depends what part of the country you live in.

Business accounts incur various charges, you pay a different rate against your months cash deposits based on the thresholds.

If you have less than £x deposited throughout a month you pay a higher rate on those deposits.

But the alternative is to hang on to the cash, fine if it’s within a reasonable level for your till float, but not so fine if you’re hanging onto too much cash to the next month and need it to pay suppliers or risk theft

The only time I have cash is when the dcs have been given some for their birthdays from aged relations, they give it to me as they literally don't use it - I transfer money into their bank accounts.

Wow, you mean to say they don't actually see it as money? Like it's a valueless annoyance? So Grandma thinks she's doing them a kindness, oblivious to the fact that, inside, they're thinking "Ugh, not this rubbish again"?! I get that they might prefer to use their phones rather than old-fashioned cash, but to just outright reject it as if it were useless?!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

The only time I have cash is when the dcs have been given some for their birthdays from aged relations, they give it to me as they literally don't use it - I transfer money into their bank accounts.

Wow, you mean to say they don't actually see it as money? Like it's a valueless annoyance? So Grandma thinks she's doing them a kindness, oblivious to the fact that, inside, they're thinking "Ugh, not this rubbish again"?! I get that they might prefer to use their phones rather than old-fashioned cash, but to just outright reject it as if it were useless?!

🤣🤣 Of course they don't think it's useless. They just don't spend cash, they don't want to carry lots of cash, so they give it to me and I transfer it to their accounts. They buy most things online, so cash isn't useful for that.

I've always felt sorry for petrol stations. They bear the brunt of motorists' annoyance at how expensive fuel is, when the vast majority of the money charged goes straight to the government. Not only do they have the admin and potential security risks of handling a large turnover on behalf of the government, but because it is such a lot of money for people to hand over, almost everybody automatically pays with a card. Most of that card payment is to go to the government, but when it comes to shouldering the merchant costs of taking the payment, the petrol station can have that 'pleasure' all to themselves.

I've always felt sorry for petrol stations

I've never considered feeling sorry for petrol stations. Ours are all owned by big companies like Coop who are doing very well for themselves

Of course they don't think it's useless. They just don't spend cash, they don't want to carry lots of cash, so they give it to me and I transfer it to their accounts. They buy most things online, so cash isn't useful for that.

Just the way you phrased it - do they not just put a note or two into a card/envelope, or do they literally give them a massive bag of pennies?! I also don't want to be weighed down with vast quantities of cash, but if somebody were to give me vast quantities of cash, I think I'd be willing to suffer

Actually cash is more expensive to bank now. The reason why many small business owners charge for card payments is usually because they aren’t creditworthy enough to negotiate the best terms, and because many don’t bank all of their cash. A lot of corner shops, for example, still pay staff and suppliers in cash.

They give them a lot of notes!

I agree. I rarely have cash on me unless I've taken it out for a specific purpose. I won't spend extra just for the sake of it so end up using the large national brands. I'm taking a hit on paying more to support a local business. I can't afford to spend more again to cover their card fees.

I'm surprised other posters have said they haven't seen many signs requesting contactless. It's unusual to not have the sign where I live.

I've never considered feeling sorry for petrol stations. Ours are all owned by big companies like Coop who are doing very well for themselves

I wasn't referring particularly to supermarket PSs - although I gather that most of them run them as loss leaders to get you into the store itself (I may be wrong there); but when it comes to the independent ones, I think a lot of people see multi-billion-dollar BP or Esso rinsing them of the best part of £100 for a tankful, when in reality, it's usually a small business collecting a load of money that goes straight to the government, also having to pay a handsome share to BP and then left with a much less unimpressive profit for all their work for themselves. I'm not saying that they don't make a reasonable profit, but nowhere near what many people assume.

They give them a lot of notes!

Hmm, are they looking for any additional new grateful outlets for their largesse?! If so, my number is....

Sillyducks but you could still use cash? Unless you buy literally everything online which I guess you do.

Going back a currency-transfer step or two further, I remember a very old episode of Room 101 (Nick Hancock era, I think), where Sanjeev Bhaskar was the guest and he wanted to put 'gifts from elderly relatives' in.

He spoke about receiving a £1 postal order and ending up having to spend more than that on the bus fare into town to cash it at the PO, some lovely notepaper on which to write a lengthy thank-you letter, and then a stamp to send the TY letter - so he ended up financially in deficit from the gift, as well as having to waste the best part of a Saturday

Not only do they have the admin and potential security risks of handling a large turnover on behalf of the government
You don't know the half of it. We're open 24/7 and most people think that it's to make extra profit but it's actually to save money. Because of the stock and cash value we hold if we ever left the site unattended it would up our insurance costs by £1500 per week. It's cheaper to spend 56 hours on wages...

@Bryonyshcmyony

I've always felt sorry for petrol stations

I've never considered feeling sorry for petrol stations. Ours are all owned by big companies like Coop who are doing very well for themselves

I think many are franchise

Wow, Slippy78, that never even occurred to me, but it makes sense.

As well as that, I suppose there's also the little matter of the potential danger of what you have gallons of under the forecourt, should there be an earthquake or sinkhole appear or something....

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Wow, Slippy78, that never even occurred to me, but it makes sense.

As well as that, I suppose there's also the little matter of the potential danger of what you have gallons of under the forecourt, should there be an earthquake or sinkhole appear or something....

Yep. Around 300,000 gallons of the stuff.

Imagine asking the government if you could dig a big hole in the city centre and fill it with that much explosive liquid. There's a good reason that the overheads are so big....

@cupsofcoffee

Small businesses can just get an sumup card reader (£20, there are other companies too) and the transaction fee is 1.69% or 2.5% for an online shop. There is no flat fee. So for that £2.40 piece of garlic, the transaction fee would be 4p, not as extortionate as everyone is saying here!

You're correct - it's not extortionate when you look at it as a "per transaction" amount - but you have to look at the bigger picture.

If a small shop has 50 transactions per day that average £5 each - that's a roughly 8.5p charge per transaction. So about £4 per day.

But Saturdays and Sundays are really busy for this shop, so maybe they do 100 transactions - so that's £8 per day. So you're looking at costs of £36 a week - £150 per month. And that's not including the transaction costs for every single other card payment they take.

That £150 has to be made up somewhere - so maybe they're forced to reduce their opening hours, cut staffing costs or raise their prices to cover it.

Customers then don't want to pay the increased costs - or maybe they can't shop there anymore because they now close on Mondays to try and recoup their costs - and soon the business folds.

Little bits of spending here and there can soon add up to a really significant amount.

But that's based on almost £9k on sales, which is significantly better than getting no sales if they don't keep up with the terms of society becoming increasingly cashless.

A lot of banks now also charge businesses to deposit cash, so there are charges either way. Cash has additional security risks also (theft, fire, loss)