KFC - Cash only payment option

Kat1170 wrote: »

Come on folks, it has to be one or the other, you can't agree with both. :cool:

It's different situations. I said a city with a large student population while syklops said near a university - sounds similar but is different. A large town or city with a large student population means a young population that is more likely to eat out and eat out in the evenings or later which is were fast food places do well if the branch is located in good central part of town while near or on the actually college or uni property means they're aiming more for the lunch time trade which usually means cash.

laughter189 wrote: »

Call me stupid if you want , but I did have 26 euro in cash on me and it did pay for a very basic meal for 4 .

Now you put on your specs and read the opening piece again .- Its about KFC accepting cash only as a payment option .

I had 3 payment options with me :

1. cash
2. laser card
3. visacard

But this business can only offer one payment option .

Did you poll everyone else in the place to see if they would have prefered to pay with card over cash? Again as several people have pointed out to have a machine to take card payments costs money for the shop so they have to weigh that up againist how many actual sale they think they are going to lose out on as a result and clearly Waterford KFC thinks they'll loose more business then Wexford KFC. There is no law saying they have to take more then one payment option, hell they can take whatever they want as payment be legal tender or magic beans if that's their choice. Either don't go there again if you feel so strongly about loosing out on getting desert or remeber for next time to stop by an ATM on the way.

syklops wrote: »

I am not disagreeing with you that they lost out, and I am sure if there was a demand for it, they would install a machine, but as far as I can tell, this particular KFC is in the middle of a retail park, surrounded by shops that do accept payment cards and offer cash back. So management in this KFC restaurant may be gambling with this fact in the hope of not needing to fork out for the terminals and the other costs associated with them.

I think you may be over stating the cost of having a debit card facility. It's actually relatively cheap.

You did state that having more than one payment choice is "hard for business".

Which quite frankly in the majority of cases that is nonsense. Your goal should be to sell as much as you can especially if your products cater to the very definition of an impulsive shopper.

If your customer has a limited or finite amount of cash, you limit that sale at the very best, they will bypass your business at the worst. Which obviously is not good for business, if you expect your customer to call into B&Q to buy something and get cash back to use your business, than that is bad business. Your relying on so many different variables, it's madness.

The OP wrongly assumed that this establishment offers more than one form of payment. He has acknowledged that and learned from it.

But to be fair, it's not like he assumed valet parking and to be able to do the transaction in punts. What he assumed was pretty rational.

Lesson learned, go somewhere else.

By the sounds of it this place is not busy, this could be one of the reasons why.

laughter189 wrote: »

Call me stupid if you want , but I did have 26 euro in cash on me and it did pay for a very basic meal for 4 .

You should have gone for the Bargain Bucket or Family Feast and saved yourself a few quid

syklops wrote: »

You need a phoneline, for the terminal to work, I think you need broadband too with the newer models, or if you want to have multiple terminals. The terminals themselves are about 100 euro each to buy, or you can rent them.

So line rental, broadband, a couple of terminals. You need to sell a lot of burgers to cover the cost of all that. Many shops and filling stations have a policy of only accepting card payments on transactions over 10 euros because of the cost associated. Considering you can get a meal deal for one in KFC for about 7 euro, they probably felt that they would be getting too many transactions in the sub-ten euro bracket to warrant buying payment card facilities.


Actually I said, requiring businesses to offer more than one form would be hard for business. Think of all the burger vans, ice-cream men, and news paper stands who would suffer if they had to land out for payment card facilities, despite few of their transactions being higher than 3 or 4 euro.

Actually you don't need a phoneline, can just use a GSM Terminal, they also work on Wifi, or Phoneline.

http://www.gprocessing.com/wireless_credit_card_terminals.php

As a retailer offering different methods of payment is GOOD for business. This is for a number of reasons.

Loyalty Schemes (e.g. Tesco Visa card you get points buying anything on it, in the UK anyway)
Customers don't like carrying cash.
Shops have to pay for change.
Less time spent counting up at the end of business.
Less risk with large amounts of cash on the premises.

IMO Germany/The Netherlands is mainly cardless, this cash only thing is a foreigners perception. Germany they only take EC Cards and in the Netherlands they only take PIN.

Almost every single shop here in NL has a sign on the machine with "You can begin with PIN" meaning you can pay with your card for any size transaction.

They don't take foreign debit/credit cards though (Only in maybe 80% of restaurants) and some of the train stations (Schiphol, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht)

Having notes in Germany trying to get a Tram ticket is as bad as having no money, you have to go off and buy a bottle of coke or something to break a note, then get coins, whereas if you just load 50 euros onto your GeldKarte (Electronic Wallet) you can just pay at any terminal on or off the tram.

syklops wrote: »

Yes but GSM isnt free. You need a GSM contract with a GSM provider, and I know they can work on wifi, but the wifi isnt free either. It then connects to a wireless router which is then connected to a broadband line.



The US is the same. When I was there earlier this year I used my card everywhere. Even buying a coke in a shop for a dollar, I used to use my card as they dont have minimum transaction fees/policies. The two main reasons for this is in both the US and mainland europe is broadband is cheap and widely available, and differences in how banks charge for transactions.

Nah man,
Broadband is cheaper by miles than in Germany/The Netherlands.

I was able to pickup a Meteor sim a get 30 days broadband + a 7.5GB cap for 20 euros when I was back last week.

There is no comparible package on prepay or even contract for that matter in NL or Germany. Broadband in Germany/NL can be a ripoff unless your supplied by Cable (At the mercy of KPN or T-Com) and even then cable is more expensive

E.G.
Fibre Power 25mbit Broadband only.
UPC Ireland - 35 euros / month ex vat
UPC Nederland - 37.05 euros / month ex vat

On top of that you have to pay a bloody deposit on the modem with UPC here.

Its just Irish retailers skimping to save and in the process losing the long term benefit. I.E.
Go into shop want to buy something
Don't take card
Fine - I'll go somewhere else and buy it, 90 days insurance for me if I purchase with card.

Shop loses a sale, no big deal to me but the shop should be bending over backwards these days to sell their goods.

keithclancy wrote: »

Nah man,
Broadband is cheaper by miles than in Germany/The Netherlands.

I was able to pickup a Meteor sim a get 30 days broadband + a 7.5GB cap for 20 euros when I was back last week.

There is no comparible package on prepay or even contract for that matter in NL or Germany. Broadband in Germany/NL can be a ripoff unless your supplied by Cable (At the mercy of KPN or T-Com) and even then cable is more expensive

E.G.
Fibre Power 25mbit Broadband only.
UPC Ireland - 35 euros / month ex vat
UPC Nederland - 37.05 euros / month ex vat

On top of that you have to pay a bloody deposit on the modem with UPC here.

Its just Irish retailers skimping to save and in the process losing the long term benefit. I.E.
Go into shop want to buy something
Don't take card
Fine - I'll go somewhere else and buy it, 90 days insurance for me if I purchase with card.

Shop loses a sale, no big deal to me but the shop should be bending over backwards these days to sell their goods.

In fairness, it's different strokes for different types of retailers.

Most if not all clothing, textile, furniture, large grocery accepts cards and your quite correct in paying by card to garner payment insurance.

While I can see where the OP is coming from - most places do have laser card facilities nowadays, I can see why the business wouldn't have that as a payment option.
I dont know exactly the costs of providing Laser/Credit card facilities but I have heard here and elsewhere that they are not cheap so not every business will put them in place.
That in my opinion is fair enough - they are under no obligation to do so. Its just another one of those things (such as whether they provide free ketchup or not) that consumers can use in determining if they want to use the service provided there.
I have to say, despite the moves to cards I still use cash for takeaways, small shops etc and will continue to have at least 50 quid in my pocket at all times for these kind of things.

keithclancy wrote: »

Nah man,
Broadband is cheaper by miles than in Germany/The Netherlands.

I was able to pickup a Meteor sim a get 30 days broadband + a 7.5GB cap for 20 euros when I was back last week.

There is no comparible package on prepay or even contract for that matter in NL or Germany. Broadband in Germany/NL can be a ripoff unless your supplied by Cable (At the mercy of KPN or T-Com) and even then cable is more expensive

E.G.
Fibre Power 25mbit Broadband only.
UPC Ireland - 35 euros / month ex vat
UPC Nederland - 37.05 euros / month ex vat

On top of that you have to pay a bloody deposit on the modem with UPC here.

Its just Irish retailers skimping to save and in the process losing the long term benefit. I.E.
Go into shop want to buy something
Don't take card
Fine - I'll go somewhere else and buy it, 90 days insurance for me if I purchase with card.

Shop loses a sale, no big deal to me but the shop should be bending over backwards these days to sell their goods.

You should check out Alice if you are in Germany. €25 a month will get you line rental and a 50MB dsl connection or €15 for line rental and a 16MB connection and you only need to give a months notice if you want to cancel.

jester77 wrote: »

I agree with the OP. I find it ridiculous that in 2011 we still have to use cash. A pure electronic system would be more accurate, cheaper and a lot more secure than having to transport cash to and from business's. I can order a pizza here in Germany and pay with card on arrival. It's fantastic as I've often gotten home late from work, too tired to cook and realised I've no cash left in the wallet.

When the irish debt cards catch up with the rest of the world then I'll stop carrying cash around and be more demanding about shops taking cards. Laser is by far and away the most rubbish system I've ever had to deal with. Living in the states when I got something on my debt card it showed up within minutes on my account statement. Same in the UK, got something on card then went to ATM to take out cash and it told me the balance in my account and the actual amount of cash that was free in the account based on the transaction that had just happened. With laser I've been waiting days and sometimes weeks for transactions to show up meanwhile my balance says I've x amount in the bank when that's not the case at all. It's a royal pain in the back side.

syklops wrote: »

This has just gotten ridiculous now so I am unsubscribing. I thought I made some good points but Boggles refuses to engage on any of them. And is guilty of some crazy analogies himself.

Really, I engaged with you 3 times.

I refused to engage when you started comparing a KFC outlet to an ice cream man.

syklops wrote: »

And while broadband might be cheaper than in Germany, business GSM contracts, and business broadband packages are not cheap.

I give up. You win.

You banging on about broadband costs makes me less likely to engage with you at all.

Chances are they have some system already as many pos devices contact a central system for price updates, promotion notification, etc.

Roland Helpful Bedtime wrote: »

Nothing like the same analogy. Had it been a comparison between a fine dining restaurant and a chip van, then fair enough but it wasn't and you know so only too well.

2 are restaurants and one is a chip van.

Neither are comparable to a chip van, you can maybe compare chips, but in regards business models. Then no, not comparable at all.

keithclancy wrote: »

Nah, in NL at the moment, i'm sticking with UPC, Alice has a terrible reputation over here though, everyone I know that used them inevitably dumped them in favour of Unity Media or UPC, the contention was nuts. In the evening you'd be lucky to get 1mbit and the 1 month contract thing was a bit of a laugh as you could be waiting upto 2 months to get the line activated.

Orange (now called Online.nl) were the same.... super cheap (25 euro a month) but not very reliable.

The chick in the Alice ads is hot though

Even then, you cannot get Alice in allot of areas, there still larges swaths only covered by KPN or T-Com.

Ah right, Alice is excellent where I am, but they bought out the previous provider, Hansenet who were excellent, a few years back. So that might explain it. I've been with them 6 years and not once have I had an issue, even at peak times. But I have heard of them having problems in other cities.

Vanessa Hessler, seriously hot