Free advice for local businesses: Don't charge me money to take my money
I would love to support an initiative like Local First Utah, but a few of my former favorite local businesses don’t seem to want me to.
A little background: as you may know, I rarely use cash. That means any restaurant or store I visit has to accept American Express, or at least my Visa Debit Card.
But that isn't good enough for Salt Lake Roasting Company and Lonestar Taqueria, which require either a minimum transaction ($5 and $20 respectively) or add a fee when I use my card (the Roast).
I realize that it costs you more money when I use plastic instead of cash. But doesn’t it cost you even more when a frequent customer stops doing business with you and tells all their friends about it? (Or, in the Lonestar case, leaves without spending $16—because your minimum is $20—and never returns.)
No heartless corporation has ever treated me like that, and I’m confident they never will. That should be a lesson for smaller businesses.
(A sidenote, requiring a minimum purchase or adding a transaction fee violates a merchant's credit card contract. Not only does it alienate customers (like me), but it could cost a business its contract with its credit card processing company.)
A little background: as you may know, I rarely use cash. That means any restaurant or store I visit has to accept American Express, or at least my Visa Debit Card.
But that isn't good enough for Salt Lake Roasting Company and Lonestar Taqueria, which require either a minimum transaction ($5 and $20 respectively) or add a fee when I use my card (the Roast).
I realize that it costs you more money when I use plastic instead of cash. But doesn’t it cost you even more when a frequent customer stops doing business with you and tells all their friends about it? (Or, in the Lonestar case, leaves without spending $16—because your minimum is $20—and never returns.)
No heartless corporation has ever treated me like that, and I’m confident they never will. That should be a lesson for smaller businesses.
(A sidenote, requiring a minimum purchase or adding a transaction fee violates a merchant's credit card contract. Not only does it alienate customers (like me), but it could cost a business its contract with its credit card processing company.)
Labels: Mark
posted by M S Martinez at 2/26/2008 04:11:00 PM
4 Comments:
Years ago, when there was a Barnes and Noble location on 400 South in SLC, I would walk there almost every Sunday afternoon to buy a cup of coffee and look at books. Someone asked me why I didn't buy books at the local bookseller, Sam Weller's. I told that person it was because Sam Weller's wasn't open on Sunday and they didn't sell coffee. Simple as that.
Years later, Sam Weller's installed a coffee bar and added Sunday hours. Now I go there almost every weekend. When local businesses respond to their customers, they are more likely to succeed. When they antagonize their customers, they won't.
I still don't quite understand how Credit Card companies swung it so they could charge fees to businesses -- shouldn't they be the ones subsidizing this to facilitate more consumers to go heavily into debt?
On the subject of local coffee shops, having the New York Times = having Logan's $$$.
Word, you're in complete violation of your contract if you require a minimum purchase.
Lonestar requires you spend 20 bones? I mean I can at least understand why some places have a 4 or 5 buck minimum, but 20?
To Logan, Amex isn't like this, but with Visa, the credit card company isn't the one loaning you money, it's usually a bank. So it wouldn't be quite the direct relationship of consumer debt. Amex is, but they charge businesses twice as much. So who the hell knows.
What's even worse, at Lonestar my total was about $16.50, and they wouldn't make an exception. So I left without my food.
Even more irritating, that was after I waited about 10 minutes in line for my food. (The sign about the minimum wasn't posted on the menu... but on the window where you pay.)
I can't imagine that the 3-6% credit card fee difference makes up for the money they'll lose on the food they cooked that I didn't buy. And I know it doesn't make up for the time I lost waiting for food I didn't get to eat.
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