If I could pay by card in your shop – I’d do shopping here
June 9, 2010 | entrepreneurauthor: Karol Zielinski | comments: 19 | views: 1427
Tags: customer, customers' needs, earn money, money, shopping
We have few small shops in our neighbourhood. Some of them are better equipped, some of them are less well equipped. However for our daily needs most of them are fine. Unfortunately I can’t do shopping in all of them. Because they do not meet customers’ needs.
One of these shops is special for me. Not only because that’s the closest shop to our flat. But also because we know (and we like) the owner of that shop.
However I can’t do shopping there. Why? Because I don’t carry cash with me. I simply don’t like to carry cash with me. I prefer to pay by card. But this shop don’t have a terminal to pay by card.
So… what I need to do? I need to go to another store.
Yes, I prefer to go somewhere else for shopping, than pay by cash.
Why do this shop don’t have a terminal for card payments? Because it’s too expensive. Or maybe better… because they think that it could be too expensive for them.
Why the owners of these kind of shops can’t understand that earning less is much better then earning none?! Why can’t they understand that they lose potential customers because of that?
My wife has a great idea: go for shopping to another store, take a bill and write something like “If I could pay by card in your shop – I’d do shopping here” on it. Then give it to the owner of the shop or put it in the door if the shop is closed. That could be a customer feedback, which may reach to the imagination.
People! Do market research, ask your customers about their needs… and meet their needs!
If you want to exist… you need to engage and build a brand! Earning less money is much, much better then don’t earning at all.
June 9, 2010, 12:32 pm
I used to work on a jewellery stall (selling celtic silver rings, pendants, earrings etc in a busy tourist area) and we even accepted visa and mastercard. Not bad for a low-tech cart at the side of the street with no electricity – so if we could do it, shops can too.
June 9, 2010, 2:00 pm
can’t trace cash
June 9, 2010, 2:10 pm
It is likely a question of trading off the incremental revenue from additional customers such as yourself vs the loss on revenue from existing cash customers who will now pay by card. Perhaps the store owner believes that he won’t bring in enough new business (or that his existing customers will not increase their total spend enough) to offset the new losses he will take as existing customers use credit cards.
June 9, 2010, 2:17 pm
That is your personal psychological issue that you don’t carry cash. If you like big brother knowing everything you ever do your entire life, fine. But if you want to shop in the closest shop to your flat, then get your head out of your a** and carry cash. It’s not so hard to do.
June 9, 2010, 2:31 pm
@dan really nice story
Absolutely agree with you. If you could do it, shops can too.
June 9, 2010, 2:36 pm
@Vishal The most important thing is to meet customers’ needs. If you won’t do it – sooner or later they will leave.
We need to realize that sometimes the most important thing is to take a risk.
June 9, 2010, 2:38 pm
You’re a petty idiot. You are likely the only person who they lose, and for you they should spend thousands on credit card industries?
If you want to pay card, go to where there is card. The cash guy does not want you.
June 9, 2010, 2:42 pm
@Anon sure, I agree with you. That’s my private, personal psychological issue. I love to live comfortable. I love to have a chance to choose what I would like to buy and how I would like to pay. Just like you said: I’d like to have a chance to decide whether I’d like to give a possibility to big brother to know everything about me or not.
But guess what… lots of people want to have a choice.
June 9, 2010, 2:44 pm
Btw. on ‘hacker news’ there is an interesting discussion about the same topic. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416629
June 9, 2010, 2:48 pm
@Axel absolutely love these kind of comments. Completely without sense.
Btw “should spend thousands on credit card industries?” – I’m not so rich, so don’t worry… they wouldn’t spend so much money because of me.
June 9, 2010, 2:55 pm
From what I know of cards, the small shops would either have to raise their prices or lose money in order to cover transaction costs. You are also asking them to participate in a system that is largely corrupt with price/interest gouging and horrible customer service.
June 9, 2010, 3:22 pm
And please explain why your choice to not carry cash is any more important than the shop-keep’s choice not to accept cards. Other than the typical “me-generation” narcissism. You are valuing your choice greater than the choice of the shop-keep, and attempting to remove the shop-keep’s choice, while keeping your own. Using your own logic, the ship-keep also wants to have a choice, that being to not lose any more of his/her already very narrow margin to card transaction fees.
The only person you have the innate power to change in this equation is yourself. So, rather than continue to cry me-me-me, change yourself, carry cash, shop closer to home, and be happier.
June 9, 2010, 4:41 pm
@Anon I didn’t say that my choice to not carry cash is more important than anything else. However I am saying that customers’ voice is more important than voice of shop’s owner. I am saying that customers’ needs are more important than the needs of shop’s owner.
I am a shop’s customer, I – as a customer – build a market for this shop. Just like all other customers. If customers want to pay by card – then they will look for a shop, which will give them this opportunity. If customers want to go to the shop naked – then they will look for a shop for naturists. It’s not “me-generation” narcissism, it’s customer’s need!
Shop’s owner wants to have a choice and he has a choice. No one will take him this opportunity. No one even wants to take him this opportunity. He has a choice: meet customers’ needs or not doing it.
“So, rather than continue to cry me-me-me, change yourself, carry cash, shop closer to home, and be happier.” Incredibly poor point of view. If someone wants something else, then he is wrong. I don’t want to change. I don’t want to carry cash. However… I want to shop closer to home, I want to be happier. And that’s why I write (not cry) about it… because I am a customer and I have a right for doing it.
June 9, 2010, 4:45 pm
you speek good england
June 9, 2010, 4:51 pm
@danny I feel sarcasm
http://blog.karolzielinski.com/in-what-language-your-blog-should-be
June 9, 2010, 6:52 pm
Karol,
I appreciate your idea, bu condemn your attitude. You’d rather give 4% of your out-of-pocket expenses to MasterCard and Visa than to the ‘local’ merchant? Who’s offering real value here? The merchant, who hands you said item for cash, or MC/V, for ‘conveniently’ listing all your charges on one bill, which you probably get via email, once a month. There is _no_ value in using CC’s.
You are _not_ the ‘good’ customer you claim to be, but someone who has drunk the Kool-Aid sold to you by credit card companies as ‘convenience’.
Your attitude is American; i.e. lazy & entitled. I suggest you shop for everything online, and also pay shipping company delivery drivers salaries too.
June 9, 2010, 8:58 pm
I agree with Andrew. I don’t like paying with cards. I even prefer to go to the ATM and take out cash to pay for something in a shop. At least when it’s not too far
June 10, 2010, 5:01 pm
It seems this problem would be solved by allowing the shop keeper to add an additional processing fee to cover the Interchange and transaction fees associated with credit cards. Unfortunately the credit card companies do not allow a machine in a shop that does that.
Here, in Canada (maybe just Ontario), the government is considering allowing merchants to add processing fees to any non-cash transactions. This will show customers the true cost of using a credit card.
I would be happy with that.