Ireland to phase out 1 cent and 2 cent coins

5starpool

SpaceTime wrote: »

The issue I see with this will be the international chains who will suddenly become all confused as it's not done "on the mainland" as they sometimes like to say...

Self scan for example will need to be able to handle rounding.

Well it is 'done on the mainland' several other Euro countries do this including Finalnd and Netherlands. Australia also have been doing it for loads of years. All tills/scanner things that do totals will just need a software update that is probably extremely standard.

SeanW

cdeb wrote: »

And like a penny - are you that tight that this is such a big deal?!

No, it's the idea. When something is sold for (for example) €9.99, it is of course really €10 but with a cent off to make it look to the buyer like "less than €10".

It's psychological gimmickry.

And what bugs me about this, is that now some of these slimeball merchants will be able to charge "€99.99" for something but still give you no change out of €100 ...

I would support changes to the 1c and 2c (maybe the 5c as well) minting only if one of the following were the solution:

1. Charge the full cost plus face value for minting 1c and 2c coins, so yes, you can charge "99c" for something but you have to give the customer back the cent, but you also have to pay 3c if the cent has to be minted. So psych-price all you like, just don't cry about it when you have to pay the full costs of doing so.
   
   OR
2. Allow petrol stations etc to round to the nearest figure (up or down) because they're selling by irregular amounts by volume. Everyone else has to round down. So if we get rid of the 1c, 2c, and 5c coins, a shopkeeper can advertise something for 99c, but they then subsequently must not charge more than they can give change for. So they can ask 99c, but the customer has a right to take it for 90c (or 95c if the 5c coin is kept).

cdeb

SeanW wrote: »

No, it's the idea. When something is sold for (for example) €9.99, it is of course really €10 but with a cent off to make it look to the buyer like "less than €10".

It's psychological gimmickry.

I know what it is. But does anyone actually fall for that any more?

SeanW wrote: »

And what bugs me about this, is that now some of these slimeball merchants will be able to charge "€99.99" for something but still give you no change out of €100 ...

Jaysus - a penny difference in a hundred quid!

How many people would honestly bother their hole to pick up a penny on the street?

I know I wouldn't.

Your suggestions are unimplementable.

SeanW

cdeb wrote: »

I know what it is. But does anyone actually fall for that any more?

Obviously they do, or it wouldn't be happening.

Jaysus - a penny difference in a hundred quid!

It's the principle of the thing. If you want €100 for something you should quote that. Or get less.

Your suggestions are unimplementable.

How? For one, the Mint charges the banks minting costs for 1c and 2c coins and the banks pass those charges on to retail customers that demand these coins for change.

For the other, you make the law "round down" to the nearest 5 or 10 cents, i.e. if you can't give back exact change because you charge X.99, then you cannot give less change than the customer is entitled to nor expect more cash than the price tag. It would seem very simple.

cdeb

SeanW wrote: »

It's the principle of the thing. If you want €100 for something you should quote that. Or get less.

I'd like if shops did away with the .99 pricing, but I wouldn't be having a conniption over such a small amount, and calling it "principle"

On your proposals - rounding everything down will just encourage shopkeepers to put up the price; rounding out means some bills are cheaper and some are pricier, so it balances out. So rounding everything down is silly. And how do you decide when the cent coin has to be minted?! Do you give an extra discount if the coin is shiny?

On a slight aside, I see the Monster Raving Loony Party proposed a 99p coin in their 2005 manifesto.

cerastes

Vandango wrote: »

You're either very young, very naive, or not Irish.

You can be certain prices will rise.

I stopped reading at the 4th page and skipped forward to reply as it was taking too long.
The rounding is on the total price, so upping prices will only be upping prices anyway, which is already happening.
Initially I thought it sounded like a bad idea, but I think it will be better getting rid of the 1's and 2 cent coins.

That said, while I usually make large transactions like shopping or fuel by card, I prefer to have a bit of cash on me as each transaction can cost significantly regrdless of the overall spend.
It should be free to use the card, end of.

yeppydeppy wrote: »

I recently got a PINless debit card and I think it's great, very handy and definitely the way forward. I bank with Permantent TSB so I don't have pay bank fees.

But what really annoys me is places that say they have a minimum charge - as far as I'm aware this is against the terms of their contract.

After reading that, Im thinking of skimming being a problem, cards in wallets, pockets and handbags getting skimmed, with owners unawares as people siddle up to them in queues to empty their bank accounts :eek:

Schwiiing wrote: »

When you live in the sticks, get paid by cheque and the nearest ATM is a 15 mile round trip you pay for everything by card. My local shop tried to combat this by introducing a minimum spend of E10 to use a card so now I travel to town for everything and the local guy can go **** himself.

I thought the minimum charge was not legal, but Ive seen either signs or been told about it at tills, people should tell them to fcuk right off with their minimum charge and that they'll be reported.

That said, the retailer shouldnt be scammed by the bank as they are just availing of the method of payment being foisted onto people, the charges should be minimal, any loss by the bank would be recouped by the quantity of increased usage.

SeanW

cdeb wrote: »

I'd like if shops did away with the .99 pricing, but I wouldn't be having a conniption over such a small amount, and calling it "principle"

That's exactly the issue - a shop will be able to sell something for ONLY €59.99 but take €60, which is the real effective price anyway. This kind of thing should not be encouraged IMHO.

On your proposals - rounding everything down will just encourage shopkeepers to put up the price;

That's the whole point, to discourage those ridiculous .99 prices. I'm not sure if you consider .99 to €1 or 99.99 to 100 to be "putting up the price" well technically yes, but one I would not be complaining about.

And how do you decide when the cent coin has to be minted?! Do you give an extra discount if the coin is shiny?

The banks decide, taking orders from their retail customers. Say the retailers need 10,000 1c coins but the bank only has 5,000 in stock. They have to order the other 5,000 from the mint. The mint charges the bank, the bank passes on the cost to the retailers that insist on using the coins. As I would envisage it, shops that don't psych-price would not pay.

cdeb

SeanW wrote: »

That's exactly the issue - a shop will be able to sell something for ONLY €59.99 but take €60, which is the real effective price anyway. This kind of thing should not be encouraged IMHO.

But buy three things for 1.99 each - which is more common - and you get a discount. Happy days!

Really not seeing why this is an issue.

osarusan

cdeb wrote: »

I'd like if shops did away with the .99 pricing, but I wouldn't be having a conniption over such a small amount, and calling it "principle"

This is what I said earlier about the 'raise stuff from 99cents to a Euro' idea:

osarusan wrote: »

Sure, I don't have any problem with shops setting or rising prices as they see fit.

All I'm saying is that increasing items by a cent under the guise of making it easier for the customer to round something off would be cheeky (but I could easily imagine retailers doing it).

Somebody doing a weekly shop at Tesco might see their spend increase by...say 60cents. Insignificant per individual shopper/family, but there might be 100,000 people doing their weekly shop at Tesco.

5starpool

SeanW wrote: »

That's exactly the issue - a shop will be able to sell something for ONLY €59.99 but take €60, which is the real effective price anyway. This kind of thing should not be encouraged IMHO.

That's the whole point, to discourage those ridiculous .99 prices. I'm not sure if you consider .99 to €1 or 99.99 to 100 to be "putting up the price" well technically yes, but one I would not be complaining about.

How many times of the year do you buy single purchase items that are priced at x.99? Using your 59.99 example, I can't imagine it's too often. When you are talking about items at .99 or 1.99 as lots of things are priced at (also, 1.29, etc), personally most of the time I'd be buying multiple items in a shop anyhow. If we take out the case of when shops actually round their prices themselves (which won't happen often I'd say), I can't imagine you'll be out by much across the whole year. Multi item purchases should be a zero sum game over time (so if you do 52 weekly shops 40% of the time it should be rounded up, 40% rounded down, and 20% stay the same).

5starpool

osarusan wrote: »

This is what I said earlier about the 'raise stuff from 99cents to a Euro' idea:

Tesco (to use your example) are always trying to make themselves seem cheaper or at least the same price as other places, so I can't see them raising prices across the board because of this as it will be awful publicity, and you can be sure that Aldi and Lidl won't use this as a reason to increase individual prices across the board.

SeanW

The ECB target for inflation is 2%. That's two cents on the euro every year. Even if every single item being sold in a shop was exactly €0.99, this would be the equivalent of 6 months inflation. I.E. it would happen anyway, sooner or later. Of course, most things don't cost €0.99 ...

cdeb

osarusan wrote: »

This is what I said earlier about the 'raise stuff from 99cents to a Euro' idea:

Was doing a bit of googling on this - I still can't believe anyone is taken in by this, but evidently I'm wrong. Here's an article saying when the price of a pizza went from €8 to €7.99, sales went up 15%! That's some impressive elasticity. Article seems to credit people being stupid at maths.

But as a strategy, it dates back to the 1860s it seems - when a penny was actually worth something. So it has to be just Pavlovian at this stage - it's drilled into people that it's cheaper, even though it's not.

sparkledrum

Do banks still accept bags of coins?

osarusan

5starpool wrote: »

Tesco (to use your example) are always trying to make themselves seem cheaper or at least the same price as other places, so I can't see them raising prices across the board because of this as it will be awful publicity, and you can be sure that Aldi and Lidl won't use this as a reason to increase individual prices across the board.

Again, this was in response to a post arguing that a cent per item is nothing anyway and who'd care about that. I'm pointing out that it is a lot of money from another perspective.

I agree that shops will be unlikely to try it, but it wouldn't surprise me if there had been investigations into seeing if this could somehow be used to make a profit.

Anyway the idea of increasing cost per item is irrelevant, because it's just system of only rounding up or down the final tally that has been mentioned here.

5starpool

osarusan wrote: »

Again, this was in response to a post arguing that a cent per item is nothing anyway and who'd care about that. I'm pointing out that it is a lot of money from another perspective.

I agree that shops will be unlikely to try it, but it wouldn't surprise me if there had been investigations into seeing if this could somehow be used to make a profit.

Anyway the idea of increasing cost per item is irrelevant, because it's just system of only rounding up or down the final tally that has been mentioned here.

It is irrelevant indeed, but quite a few don't seem to realise that.

Soyokakano

Delighted. They are fcking useless anyway. Anyone who has worked in retail/cash handeling knows how enoying counting those fcking things at the end of a shift can be.

Everything will have to be rounded of to the nearest 5c

Such as 4.95 or 5.00. No more of this 4.99 shyt

cdeb

sparkledrum wrote: »

Do banks still accept bags of coins?

Usually only on a Tuesdays between 10am and 11am, but only just after a full moon, and in a locked room marked "Beware of the leopard"

Cookie_Monster

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

this is the most hilarious misconception yet.

How about I give you €50 and you give me €50, repeat ad nauseum and this time next month Rodders, we'll be millionaires!


(clue: you are ignoring the fact that the coin is only one half of the transaction, the other half is the goods, services or debt that the coin is paying for.)

it's useable (lifetime) value is not the same as it's worth

syklops

cdeb wrote: »

Usually only on a Tuesdays between 10am and 11am, but only just after a full moon, and in a locked room marked "Beware of the leopard"

Actually its every other Tuesday. Unless that Tuesdays date ends in a 7 then they are closed for "Training".

I think the 2c is the main issue. Im here in the US where they still have the 1c coin and they do get used, I used a few yesterday. Its when your given a fist full of shrapnel made up of 2's and 1's you look at it and go, "Well thats all useless, ill put it in the coin jar", where as if it was a 10 and a 1, you wouldn't bother because the 10 is still 'useful'.

jonnypacket

The US one cent is interesting as you can still find pennies from 100 years ago in circulation. "Wheat cents" they are called due to the wheat grain engraving on the back. Even many of the more modern Lincoln memorial cents are often from the 1950s and 60s.

There are calls in the US to withdraw the penny as their neighbours Canada did due to its low value, but the powerful zinc lobby (from which the US 1 cent is made) has ensured the penny remains in production for now.

SpaceTime

The Dark Side wrote: »

Given we were able to put a man on the moon nearly 50 years ago, I'm sure we'll be able to figure out the rounding on a scanning machine.

You'd think so ... But

Hotblack Desiato

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

it's useable (lifetime) value is not the same as it's worth

Its value is what is stamped on it. The idea of a 'useable lifetime value' is meaningless nonsense.

Hotblack Desiato

jonnypacket wrote: »

There are calls in the US to withdraw the penny as their neighbours Canada did due to its low value, but the powerful zinc lobby (from which the US 1 cent is made) has ensured the penny remains in production for now.

Wouldn't the stonecutters 'powerful zinc lobby' :rolleyes: be far better off campaigning for a dollar coin?

spiralism

We do it here in Amsterdam and I've always thought it worked well. Great idea

cerastes

Soyokakano wrote: »

Delighted. They are fcking useless anyway. Anyone who has worked in retail/cash handeling knows how enoying counting those fcking things at the end of a shift can be.

Everything will have to be rounded of to the nearest 5c

Such as 4.95 or 5.00. No more of this 4.99 shyt

Prices remain the same, its only the total sale price that is rounded up.
You will only lose or gain 2 cents per transaction, not on each item which will/should still remain the same.
There would be no advantage to increase prices across the board to put customers in a situation where all prices would be ending in a 3 cent value as its only on the total sale price.

murpho999

bmm wrote: »

Prices will be rounded up not down ! 96 cent will become 1 euro, 46 cent will become 50 cent . This will cause inflation of 2 or 3% .

How do people conclude this?

Firstly, list prices won't change. Things will still be on sale as they were.

It's only when it comes to a cash payment for the total of all purchases not individual items that the rounding up or down will happen.

Inflation will not be affected as your poor example is of one transaction of 1 euro, but a transaction of €9.96 using your logic will be increased to €10.00 , an increase of 0.4%. €99.96 will become €100.00 or an increase of 0.04%.

In reality they would be rounded down to €9.95 or €99.95 but why would the truth be useful in scaremongering?

uncle_sam_ie

JustTheOne wrote: »

Wouldn't a cashless society make drug dealing extremely difficult?

Nobody ever thinks of the children.

pickarooney

Greenmachine wrote: »

Some people are ridicolously suspicious of change.

So you'd think they'd be happy to have less of it

SpaceTime

jonnypacket wrote: »

The US one cent is interesting as you can still find pennies from 100 years ago in circulation. "Wheat cents" they are called due to the wheat grain engraving on the back. Even many of the more modern Lincoln memorial cents are often from the 1950s and 60s.

There are calls in the US to withdraw the penny as their neighbours Canada did due to its low value, but the powerful zinc lobby (from which the US 1 cent is made) has ensured the penny remains in production for now.

There's always some powerful lobby pulling the strings over there!! It's not "corruption" though just the greatest democracy money can buy.