Clankers found me one study [1] that suggests total handling costs may actually be this bad, but are highly business dependent e.g. restaurants are worse than grocery stores

[1] https://www.ihlservices.com/product/the-cost-of-cash-handlin...

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zahlman 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm just seeing what looks like an attempt to sell me a PDF.

What actually is the source of such costs? The cashier still has to be paid even if the customer is using a card. Presumably there isn't anywhere near that much theft from registers, or people messing up giving change?

	▲	supertrope 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Employee theft. Store manager theft. Robberies. Counterfeits. The extra time spent at each cash transaction and re-counting at the end of the day. Going to the bank, or paying an armored car service. Banks charge merchants a percentage of each cash deposit. Buying safes and pointing cameras down at each register.

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consumer451 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Clank deeper, please. You gave us content marketing from the electronic payment industry:

"Does IHL Group have any connections to merchant providers?"

> IHL Group sells market intelligence, vendor directories, and lead generation data to the electronic payment industry.

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supertrope 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Definitely a conflict of interest.

Cash handling costs is a real issue though. Not counting under-reporting income, credit cards cost the most at US intercharge levels of 1-3%. Then the all-in cost of cash handling. The lowest cost method is debit.

	▲	consumer451 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The lowest cost is in the EU in this regard. Anti-rent-seeking regulations ain't so bad for everyone, save the rent-seekers. BTW, I used to handle around $7M/year in credit card transaction in the USA, and if you got actual hand-written partial numbers on a signed contract, then we could avoid nearly 100% of charge backs, as we always delivered on our end. I think in 14 years, we had around 10 charge back attempts, and our merchant provider loved us. The only time I ever magically lost a charge back was to a Visa executive for ~$10k, and our merchant provider just shrugged. Whatayagonnado?