[KCUnited]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

So anyone following the building war between retailers and credit card companies?

Apparently retailers are sick of paying CC fees. Which makes sense. No place is charging extra for credit card transactions vs cash. I Think there are laws where you can't charge different amounts for payment types. I might be wrong on that, but as of now there isn't anybody doing it.

Now I fully acknowledge that dealing in cash isn't just adding 3% (or whatever the CC fees are) to gross margin. There will be shrink obviously, and it takes physical labor to handle cash.

Walmart is going around all that by trying to get customers to set up an ACH out of their customer's bank account. After they get the ACH fees paid off, there really will be adding money to their gross margin.

It will be interesting to see if they can get any traction. I don't own any credit card stocks, but I've long since thought it's dumb not to. There are giant ass moats for competitors, shit is pretty automated, and I think default risks goes to the issuing bank, it's a ****ing brilliant business model. This would be the only trouble on the horizon.

Anecdotally, some local shops have started passing on CC fees to customers. I don't know if that's legal or not, but I get it.

What are your guys' thoughts on it?

EDIT: Link to article.

It is interesting

One obvious consideration is cash back or points for consumers. Thats an incentive cc companies provide and also the really annoying thing about retailers passing on the cc fee to the consumer, nullifying the incentive

I get it though. Purely anecdotal but I've gotten to know one of the partners in a craft beer and wine bar. He was talking a bit about this and brought up an interesting trend he's observed. Not only are people using cards more over cash but they're also swiping more. No one really leaves their tab open and pays at the end of the night anymore. Instead they close it after each drink and as friends show up and the night goes longer they may have swiped half a dozen times. Similar with groups splitting tabs