How do you feel about these types of surcharges?
Picture was taken at Puzzle Coffee ~ Southern Cross.
Picture was taken at Puzzle Coffee ~ Southern Cross.
Copied this over from a reddit post;
Per ACCC:
If there's no way for a consumer to pay without paying a surcharge, the business must include the minimum surcharge payable in the displayed price for its products. This occurs when a business doesn’t accept cash and it applies a surcharge to all card payment types.
The same ACCC page also says that the reserve bank estimates that debit surcharges are 1% max and that if a business wants to charge the same surcharge for debit and credit, it cannot exceed 1%. So I would absolutely be dobbing this shit into the ACCC.
Interesting. Unfortunately in the past I've found the ACCC to not be very effective at enforcing businesses following their requirements, but it's good to know
What I mostly don't understand about the weekend surcharges is why businesses think it makes good sense to frame it that way instead of offering weekday discounts. People hate paying surcharges but love discounts.
I'm no expert but I think there are reasonably strict laws around pricing advertising, especially for dining. If there weren't, despite looking ridiculous on a menu, just about every business would be like "hey buy my bagel! It was $25 now it's only $12.50". It's misleading advertising.
It woudn't be misleading though. It's only misleading if they are advertising it as normally $25 when it is never actually sold at that. It's quite common to have things like special lunch deals and there is nothing about having different prices for different times.
What does seem to be changing lately is that businesses are upset that they have to pay staff more on weekends, and they want to use the approach of putting on surcharges because they know it upsets people. They want people thinking about their hip pocket and how they don't want to pay more for their weekend bagel so that they will support moves to cut the wages of their workers.
I feel like it makes sense to not be able to call it a weekday discount, because then it would be on discount more often than not, which seems like something that wouldn't be allowed
I don’t mind surcharges if staff are being paid more on those days. Otherwise go fuck yourself.
Surcharges are okay so long as there’s a way to avoid them if you’re keen to avoid them.
If the workers are working on a holiday, they should be paid more. The business can afford that by charging more on those days. Makes sense to me. (Strictly in the scenario where the business is compensating their workers fairly from the profits. If they're just making profit hand over fist they can get stuffed)
I hate credit card surcharges though. Nobody uses cash.
I am fully on board with the +15% on holidays, it's a fair request given that a hospitality venues employees are usually around 30-40% of the revenue.
I know I'm in a minority but I personally prefer it to be diffused into the regular menu pricing. I'd rather pay $5.50 for a coffee everyday than $5 but $6 on a weekend. I suppose it doesn't make much sense from a financial standpoint, especially if I wouldn't visit that shop on weekends very often, but I'd still prefer it
It's definitely better than the common occurrence of being charged a completely different value to what the person verbally tells you will be charged.
I would like the eftpos terminal to say the real amount being charged.
Would it be hiding if they did that? Having a mandatory surcharge seems rather worse, since they're basically pretending that their prices are lower than they actually are, and chucking a surcharge on after the fact.
American here. I’ve never seen a weekend or holiday surcharge. The credit card surcharge is irksome but I get the reasoning behind it. The other two are ridiculous and I would just walk out.
On weekends, Australians are paid around +25% of their base wage, before casual loading etc.
But given that these types of venues are most lively on the weekends and that Fairwork mostly did away with Sunday rates, it should be part of the standard pricing if most of the volume is on those days.
We made it unlawful to display the pre-GST price as the regular price back in the 90's.
With the exception of the holiday surcharge, the growing culture of advertising pricing that isn't what will be charged needs to be dealt with at a government level.
The surcharge is probably less than the tip you'd feel obliged to leave. And you don't need to tip in Australia.... 😕
It would be irksome, if you could also pay cash, but having them only accept card doesn't seem great.
Not dealing with cash is actually the cheapskate option. They're not staying back to count it, drive it to the bank, have the cashiers count change, risk of robbery and whatever effect that has on insurance premiums. If anything, cash should have a surcharge.
I don’t have a problem with the holiday surcharges. The weekend and credit card ones need to be bundled into the menu price though. Seeing a weekend surcharge would make me think negatively of the cafe before I’ve even ordered.
I hate credit card surcharges but understand that there's a cost involved in the convenience and it's either the customer paying for it or the business taking it out of profits.
What really gets me is the lack of a cash payment option if I really don't want to pay the CC surcharge.
It seems to be something that happens across the franchise, since the one near Flinder's also does something similar.
Personally, I find it rather scummy. We're not America, it seems silly for us to have to whip out a calculator, and have to do maths to figure out what the "actual" price we'll be paying is. Especially since a fair few card terminals seem to just go "surcharges may apply", and only update the price after payment is made.
Just throw it in with the other things and bump up the price of their coffee. For a 1.2% increase in price, that's negligible, and would take just as much effort.
I don't mind the weekend/public holiday surcharges. I'm glad that their employees get paid well for working on those days, when the rest of us are enjoying a day off. But I hate credit card surcharges even thought they're only about 1.5%. These days I carry cash!