On our way back from the Ford dealer where we put in an order for the missing bit of silver trim, we stopped off in the suburb of Dickson to have lunch at the Asian Noodle House. This is a great restaurant with good food at good prices, but when it came time to pay they told me there was a $30 minimum on EFTPOS cards, which are an Australian version of debit cards. So I had to walk a few blocks to the bank where there is an ATM and then back to pay. I don't mind walking much, even if it is 34C today, but I'm sure some customers mind a lot more. It's hard to get any hard numbers on the EFTPOS fees charged by banks to merchants - it could be somewhere around 40 cents per transaction. Credit card fees are higher, which is why Aldi, for examples, charges a surcharge for using a credit card - but no extra charge for an EFTPOS card. Now I suppose someone could come into the restaurant and order a $3 coke and then try to pay with an EFTPOS card, but that's going to be rare. It makes sense for the restaurant to either build the expected value of EFTPOS fees into prices or charge a fee for transactions with EFTPOS and credit cards rather than forcing the customer who spends $24 but has no cash to walk to the bank and back. I guess the restaurant thinks it is so good that it can afford to do this.
2 comments:
Love the food from there - tasty and good value. Ironically, growing up, our phone number was only one digit different from theirs, and on adjacent buttons on a phone. Means we got at least three calls a week wanting to order a laksa...
Yeah it's great, they just pissed me off at lunchtime today.
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