Cash…it’s just as good as money
I went to Best Buy this evening, since I couldn’t go during the day, and noticed an odd thing as I was waiting in line to pay for my item. It seems that the Best Buy on 86th & Lex. doesn’t like cash.
There were four registers available, but one was in use and was going to be taken up for quite a while since there was a couple there buying a new computer, printer, monitor…the whole setup. The other three had customers with only an item or two, and it looked like all three were transacting rapidly.
As I was standing there, one of the women manning a register yelled, “Credit or debit, next customer,” and the third person from the front went over to her. A woman manning another register also yelled out, “Credit or debit, next customer,” and this time the fourth person from the front went over. Then the first woman yelled, “Credit or debit, next customer,” followed by the second, and so on. It appeared that these two were handling only credit or debit and only one register was handling cash.
I was on line for about ten minutes (10 minutes, wtf?!) and throughout that whole time, credit and debit customers went ahead about ten times while only about six or eight cash customers got to go.
Since when is a credit card transaction faster than cash? Why would credit and debit customers get preferential treatment? One glance at the line, and it was easy to see that most people were probably paying with cash since most had one or two DVDs, so why not have two cash lines, or better yet, WHY CAN’T EACH REGISTER HANDLE BOTH?
For the record, I was paying credit and cut about four people ahead of me who were stuck waiting to pay with cash. And as a further indication that I should play the lottery tonight, there was a cab just sitting there as I walked out of the store. It took longer to wait in line than it did to get home.
Related posts:
I would still prefer being held up in line by somebody paying in cash rather than someone writing a check. This is why they created debit cards, stop writing checks people!
I have seen this at the 6th Ave. Best Buy as well. I think it’s for convenience (as in the convenience of the cashiers and managers, as opposed to the customers), because then they don’t have to cash out or balance a non-cash register at the end of the day or shift.
yeah i agree that’s pretty rude and frustrating, but i work at express and they do the same thing. apparently it takes like 2 hours to count out just a few cash drawers at the end of the night, and they like to minimize the amount of cash drawers they have to count out. if no cash transactions are taken throughout the day, closing the drawer out is as easy as the click of a button. also it minimizes mistakes and overages/shortages by only leaving a few people in charge of cash.
but i also used to be a bookkeeper at a grocery store/drugstore and every cashier we had took all forms of payment, and i managed just fine counting out several cash drawers at the end of the night.
Having had a retail job in the past, I know exactly what was going on. Chain stores like all employees (sales, stock, etc)to be “cashier” trained for times when the store gets busy and there aren’t enough cashiers working; however, they usually only allow cashiers to take cash transactions. Also, employees who are not cashiers who are asked to take cash usually decline to do so because of the possibility of being fired for errors.