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Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

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Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#441

Post by NamTaf »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #261
codegeek wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an american, I find it strange that cash is faster. Most people who pay cash need to wait to get the change back unless they know the total beforehand and happen to have exact change. In the US, credit card machines are very fast even the chip enabled ones. Cash workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount - You look in your wallet/purse - You spend time counting exact change if you do have it - If not, you take…

Cash workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount - I get a 10 EUR note from my trouser pocket - Cashier gives back money - I put money in trouser pocket - Done - Home: I put all spare money in a large glass jar Credit card workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount - You look in your wallet/purse - You swipe card/insert in chip reader - You insert PIN number - You shield your PIN entrie from the people next to…

Credit card workflow in Australia for anything under $100:

- Cashier types in the total to the EFTPOS terminal

- You get your wallet

- You remove your card

- You tap your carda gainst the contactless reader, which registers the payment in about 1 second not 5 as you describe

- Cashier asks 'would you like a receipt for that?'

- You say 'no receipt, cheers mate'

- You put your card away

- You put your wallet away

If you pay over $100, you enter a pin and it takes maybe a little longer because no one crowds around each other at the payment area so there's none of what you describe and it always works despite the humidity you apparently describe.

As we don't have a tip culture, we don't see donation/tips/etc. prompts as others describe. It's only ever whether you want a receipt, and that's a single button press and you can pre-emptively say no to that so it doesn't even slow you down. Cash definitely takes longer here.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#442

Post by ahartmetz »

jshevek wrote: post #427
true_religion wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true. The fastest growing social network within German universities was an anonymous one. This is opposed to the USA, where Facebook was the fastest growing network based on the ideal of knowing exactly what classes Y person on your campus went to.

Does that social network still exist, and can you share its name please?

Jodel https://jodel-app.com/

I had it installed for a few days once. I decided to uninstall it because it took too much attention (there are MANY users in Berlin) and I kind of felt too old. The typical user is a student in the first few semesters.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#443

Post by majewsky »

y4mi wrote: post #381
majewsky wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I pay with cash and the change would be below 5 cents, I usually say "Stimmt so" (i.e. "keep the change") and just leave. If I forget and the cashier puts change on the counter, I just pick the golden and silver coins and leave the rest lying there. I don't remember any unfriendly looks. But then again, I'm German, so I probably just didn't notice the looks. :)

Oh youll them if you paid attention. The cashier's get into trouble if they have an incorrect amount of money in the counter and you're essentially telling them you're too good to bother putting the coins into the donations box sitting centimeters next to you. If that isnt rude, I don't know what is. This only applies to big discounters thought. The smallish shops and bakers don't mind at all.

If there is a donations box or a tip jar, I'm using that. But that's available in maybe 10% of shops (most drugstores, some bakeries, no supermarkets).

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#444

Post by martinald »

kuschku wrote: post #348
martinald wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, such a pain. Especially in restaurants if you take a large group out and want to pick the bill up. It has got better but I have been totally caught out with this on one of my first visits to Berlin with a fairly pricey group dinner and I physically cannot take more than €250 out of the ATM a day without taking cash out on CC which involves horrendous cash advance fees. I also don't buy this cc fee argument. It…

EC cards have 0.125% fees. That’s an entire order of magnitude cheaper than CC. Of course no one is going to support CC if they can save that much money.

If your gross profit (not including rent and other fixed costs) at a restaurant is, say, 80%, do you still think 1% CC fees are silly? To me this seems like ridiculous premature optimisation. If I go to Germany and I'm having a meal with clients I'll phone ahead and see if they accept CC and won't visit if they don't.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#445

Post by ahartmetz »

adventured wrote: post #415
Perseids wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've talked to an Aldi employee as of late and he said Aldi is proud to now have the fastest Card processing of all the German stores (within the regulatory limits: you have to put in your PIN or sign the receipts except for those fancy/scary NFC chips) and the Cash workflow is still faster, according to their own statistics. Consider that I already look into my purse while standing in line to get an overview of my a…

> This speeds up the process considerable compared to the – likely more cash-inexperienced if I follow your description – American cashiers. That doesn't make sense as a premise. The US wasn't lacking in experienced cashiers 15-20 years ago when cash was still king, nor today. There was a decade or more of time where the US rapidly transitioned from cash-heavy in stores over to card-heavy, the cards were universally…

Your parent comment was about Aldi. They have extremely fast cashiers, which is one of their cost reduction tactics.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#446

Post by ryanlol »

hocuspocus wrote: post #434
ryanlol wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note for the European readers: You can call your bank, get your card switched over to Freedom™ mode and enjoy faster payments. Might not want to do this with a debit however.

I have a credit card from Luxembourg that is somehow set up to ask for signature, even though it can do PIN just fine, and I really don't recommend this setting in Europe, it's a massive pain in the ass since most merchants aren't equipped to deal with that. You end up having to sign the merchant's receipt with a pen like you're back in 1970, it takes a lot more time than entering your PIN (or better yet, contactless…

Depends on the country, in many EU countries I find chip+sign payments to be way faster than chip+PIN. Every now and then you run into a cashier that gets confused by chip+sign, but not often enough to justify switching back to chip+PIN in my experience.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#447

Post by germanier »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #428
zip1234 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany the price advertised is the price paid. Not so in America due to taxes and fees.

Germany has the VAT, they just require that vendors hide it from the consumer.

"Hide" as in "the calculation is done in multiple lines on each receipt with the amount of VAT clearly spelled out"? Germany has some hidden taxes in the supermarket (on alcohol, tobacco, and coffee) but VAT is absolutely visible.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#448

Post by germanier »

kuschku wrote: post #432
germanier wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's nitpicking but Rewe has accepted credit cards since 2007.

Some REWEs have, but not all. There's still some where I live that don't. (REWE eG is a cooperative, so it's all a bit more complicated)

Basically there is Rewe Dortmund (with stores across NRW) and Rewe anywhere else (including NRW). The latter requires credit card acceptance for all Rewe-branded stores. If a store does not have that, an email to Cologne usually changes it.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#449

Post by rleigh »

frenchy wrote: post #421
kbeckmann wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-american I have to ask: why sign up for new credit cards all the time?

Because credit card companies offer incentives to sign up for their cards. A lot of people here regularly carry a lot of debt on their cards, and the credit card companies know if they give those users more cards to juggle around their debt on, they can leach more money from them. For financially responsible people, that means you can sometimes get a few freebees if you're willing to deal with the hassle. I don't kno…

I'm British, and while some people have credit cards, most people I know don't. I have a bank debit card and I use the single card to pay for pretty much everything I don't pay for directly with cash. I have zero debt, because I always pay up front for everything.

I do get lots of junk mail for credit cards, have done for decades, so I could get one tomorrow if I desired. But I don't see any real value in doing so; why get into debt if you can avoid it.

Re: Why Germans pay cash for almost everything

#450

Post by kuschku »

martinald wrote: post #444
kuschku wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EC cards have 0.125% fees. That’s an entire order of magnitude cheaper than CC. Of course no one is going to support CC if they can save that much money.

If your gross profit (not including rent and other fixed costs) at a restaurant is, say, 80%, do you still think 1% CC fees are silly? To me this seems like ridiculous premature optimisation. If I go to Germany and I'm having a meal with clients I'll phone ahead and see if they accept CC and won't visit if they don't.

> If your gross profit (not including rent and other fixed costs) at a restaurant is, say, 80%, do you still think 1% CC fees are silly?

That's a question, but that's not what things look like.

Many German businesses are operating at razor-thin margins, or even at losses. From farmers (which lose around 13ct for every liter milk sold) to small restaurants (often making losses on all of the food, and only minor profit on the drinks) to any other kind of business.

If you are a 4 people company and you're trying to compete (and do so successfully) with american multinational chains, then you don't have enough profits to pay 7% CC fees. You'll be lucky if you can afford the 30€/month + 0.125% EC fees, and many businesses can't even do that.

> If I go to Germany and I'm having a meal with clients I'll phone ahead and see if they accept CC and won't visit if they don't.

Trust me, these businesses prefer not having your business. You'd only make losses for them.

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