Cash Only Businesses

@mark_m’s post could be interesting, so I’ll start this thread and move the relevant posts here. For the cashless folks, there is an older thread you might enjoy,

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There is one bakery in suburban Brisbane that has a cash only policy that I prefer to go to. It has a steady trade and great pies. It has forgone the traditional square cream bun for those American style long ones, and also now sells rice paper rolls. You might think it understands trends.

That many of us are happy to live in a cashless world is self evident.

Is the bakery I know holding onto an older view, or is there another reason it might prefer cash? :thinking:

Fortunately there is a aelection of major banks and ATMs within the same block.

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I am always suspicious of retail businesses who refuse to provide EFTPOS facilities and wonder if their motivation is tax avoidance.

When we were in business, my policy was to make it as easy as humanely possible for customers to give us their money, and we started with EFTPOS and catered for Amex, Diners & JCB as well as the other cards.

One Cairns bakery which makes some of the best pies and sausage rolls in town have discontinued baking bread, bread rolls and buns. They still do a roaring business but now close mid-afternoon instead of 6:00 PM.

Like every bakery and pie shop I know of in Cairns, they have EFTPOS and do not have a $10 minimum spend.

Back in the 1960’s, the tax man was suspicious of a well-known barber shop which was a few doors down from an old 2 storey pub on the corner, which had the old-style bench stools outside.

Tax office employees spent a couple of weeks sitting on the stools drinking beer whilst counting the persons going into the barber shop and counting the ones coming out with less hair.

They calculated the turnover for this period and compared it to the barber shops reported income, then extrapolated the difference by a number of years and gave the barber the bill.

He had to sell his home to pay for it.

The tax man can easily do the same with a bakery by either counting the persons exiting with purchases and/or examining the bakery’s purchases of flour, sugar, meat, etc, to estimate the quantity of goods produced, and comparing it with the reported income of similar bakeries.

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A valid reason some small local shops might be cash only is because our electricity grid is (to be kind) not the most reliable in the country. Many shops have to close when their systems and registers go down with the grid, but the small cash-only ones keep on trading. Those that can keep trading and accept cards post ‘cash only’ on their doors and customers expecting to use their cards often keep walking, while customers expecting cash-only have cash.

Also, if your typical sale is only $4 and you pay $0.35 per transaction that is either an 8+% hit to the bottom line or you need to charge more, and at those price points every cent matters in a competitive sense.

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If the power is out. then so is the lighting, refrigeration, ovens and in-store ATM.

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With cash there is still the option of warm beer and a not so hot “cold” pie.
Might suit some travelers missing home? :joy:

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Many markets stalls and smaller family run cheap restaurants often are cash only. They possibly don’t or can’t afford the additional expenses/merchant fees associated with having a electronic cashpoint.

Don’t worry me, but is is always good to check to make sure one has enough cash before purchasing/ordering something.

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