I agree, hence why the private BBQ birthday function I attend last night, was swimming with rather cheap alcohol because it was all supermarket bought stuff. I drank my Carlsberg!
I also drank a whole bottle of white wine which cost £4.99 
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I was always told that mixing swimming and alcohol was dangerous 
Are you a teenager??? 
Actually, the atmosphere at home is far superior because at least I can blast out ABBA, Rick Astley and Aha! through my Amazon Echo
I had a blowout last night, I’m 53 and my head hurts this morning!
I think we have digressed somewhat from the thread title here 
Getting back on track, this is NOT how to withdraw cash:
Probably forgot their debit card.
No, seriously, to get the crashed ATM train back on the rails, ATM’s are just old hat for me. Let’s face it, how many people also feel quite uncomfortable stood at an ATM when they’re taking money out? Example, several years ago, I was stood at an ATM in a large South Coast city, when I became aware of some idiot attempting to peer over my shoulder. I’m not ashamed to say, I turned around to him and told him to Foxtrot Oscar with the threat of immediate physical action from me if he didn’t oblige. I stopped my transaction at that point anyway.
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Accidents happen now and again!
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No offence but did you expect them to go to Barclays on the spot and get a card machine for you? If they point blank would only accept cash, regardless of your belief of it or not, they didn’t have a card machine to even process your payment. What did you want them to do? Of course they point blank refused it.
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There’s no excuse for a business not to have a card machine these days though.
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Unless their business would struggle with fees, perhaps?
Maybe the small corner shop?
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There are the fees but how much business are you going to lose if you don’t take cards.
I use a lot of small businesses and they certainly aren’t cheap so maybe they factor it in.
But the corner shop (for example) usually has a regular customer base that knows the drill. Those folk don’t go into the shop expecting to use a card.
Maybe I’d qualify “small” with “small & low value stock”.
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There’s costs in taking cash, balancing the toll every day, banking the money, accounting for mistakes and unbalanced tills.
Sometimes small shops don’t factor that in but that just means it’s a hidden cost they’re not aware of of counting, the cost doesn’t go away.
Doesn’t mean cards are cheaper, just that cash isn’t free.
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That’s fair, but I’d come back to the point - it’s the merchant’s choice to trade with cash. The customer is happy with that. All good.
And for the record, I use cash about as rarely as everyone here. I just like having the idea of cash in the economy…
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It is definitely down to the retailer whether they want to accept cards. But the fees aren’t all that much - a super quick google resulted in this - 1.69%. I’m quite sure the margins at some of those takeaways and corner shops is considerably larger than 1.69%. And while there’s a cost, handling cash isn’t free.
I would also suggest paying 1.69% on a sale is much more profitable than paying nothing on no sale.
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Yes exactly this. My barber said he doesn’t want to have to take cash to the post office every day.
Other people who own small businesses will tell you they don’t mind the fees as it just makes it so much easier in many ways taking card payments.
My brother runs his own small business selling florist supplies, with a lot of his work being based around amateur floristry groups and until last Christmas operated on a cash only basis.
I bought him the “SumUp” card reader for Christmas and he has said it was the best thing ever for his business.
His sales now far outweigh the 1.69% fees.
Card processors will offer you concessions on your fees if this is your pattern
I’ll tell you how it actually works, an owners time is free. An employee at a corner shop will get accommodation etc and will also work that for free.
Why? Because that extra hour isn’t coming out of any funds, they’ll pay some away in cash and jimmy the bills a tad and get a little reduction somewhere along the line and it’ll end up as roughly even.
I can tell you we don’t make as much as you think. Had a look at the bank balance the other day @ the Chinese. £10,000 in the bank. How on earth since we take £1500-2000 on a single Saturday.
Will admit card fees are affordable enough though, but we did use to actively discourage card by saying the card machine was having issues and that we were preferring cash. (We’d offer to try the machine if they didn’t have it. Oddly enough, always went through 
)
Furthermore, back when my family owned a kebab shop, making a profit never happened. We saw the amount of time and work you needed to put into it, sold the 50% to our partner and got out before signing lives away for a job.
You know how these shops survive? Staff live upstairs and are largely cost free, they get to eat from stock, they get some pocket money, all the drinks they want etc.
Pretty much any independent kebab shop and Chinese will run that way. Not sure about others, but I guess chicken shops are going to be 50/50 since chicken is cheaper and quicker to roll out, might be easier to make good on.
The fact that measurements and pricing isn’t really done on items on non-chains probably cut into margins significantly as well. That and these days publicity is hard to come by, so Just Eat and Uber Eats etc put a focus on quantity, (and cut into margins further).
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