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Dominos Australia has taken a controversial step in having five of its stores go cashless for pizza pickups in the name of reducing pickup time and queues. Dubbing the new system "tap and take" Dominos hopes that it will reduce waiting times, increase convenience, increase safety and reduce costs involved with handling cash so that they can "remain digitally agile and continue to meet consumer demands". The trial is not winning any points with Libertarians who believe that the government is pushing businesses to crack down on the cash economy with concerns about the government taking a big brother attitude to monitoring business cashflow. While a number of businesses in Australia are cashless, removing the option tends to put customers off with a number of businesses just bearing the loss of profit from customers who prefer to pay with cash.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday July 11 2019, @08:30AM
No, I don't care what you have to hide. That's up to you. I no more want my bank looking at my purchases than I do a guy in the street.
And I don't say he can't. What I say is that it won't be an option for much longer. And it's not me driving it. I'm not pushing vendors, utilities, websites, etc. to go card-only. They just are, because it's got so many advantages to them that it's worthwhile and makes more sense.
If you can't spot that trend, then you just haven't been looking. And if my "championing" of it by.... well... literally falling into that lifestyle accidentally because I hate carrying cash around and can't be bothered with change and coins at all, and would rather have something that can't be stolen (I grew up in a not-very-nice area)... if that affects the rest of the world this guy lives in, it's by a pathetic amount.
It's a question of spotting the trend and accepting the inevitable. Fighting it is going to do literally nothing. Did we see any fuss at all when cheques were pretty much phased out across the UK? No. It's going to be like that. Prepare, and get yourself enough cards to cover eventualities now.
I didn't like buying my kid her card. It didn't feel "traditional". But she gets a lot of use out of it. If you haven't seen, even Monopoly sets have "credit-cards" now. They have had for over a decade. It's the norm. It's now actually completely on its head... you take money to a shop, pour it into a machine, and it puts a number in your account, rather than the other way around.
ATM use is dropping. Direct Debit use is soaring. Online transactions are through the roof. Cards are ubiquitous. Did you know that in a power outage last year in a large shopping centre near me, the shops all shut... because the card machines went down. That was 80% or more of their business right there. People just don't have the cash on them any more. Additionally, handling cash without the tills telling people what the change is is actually so long-winded that the shops all decided to just shut for the day, because it wasn't profitable to stay open for just cash transactions and was actually a security problem.
Now... I judge them for not having UPS and backups - on the tills, on a 4G card reader or something, but I bet those shops have prepped for that now. The fact is, though, that cash customers are second-class citizens. Even the traditionally cash-only businesses are forced to change. Everything from taxicabs to newspaper sellers, coffee shops to car parks.
It's not about "you must get on board!", it's about "we're going to leave you behind".