«Good morning, a pack of cigarettes, I’ll pay with the ATM Thank you”. That of having the pos – the machine for reading credit and debit cards – and accepting any payment in electronic format is a certified legal obligation. Also regarding the sale of tobacco. It is a truth that has been clear for at least a year, when a specific case concerning the world of tobacconists and related products was clarified at a national level. Yet a Pordenone it happens that the opening question of the article is followed by this answer: “No, if you buy a pack of cigarettes you cannot pay with your debit card. To do so you must also buy something else.” It happens in a well-known shop in the neighborhood that gravitates around Largo San Giovanni.
It Wallet, the digital wallet launches in July: driving license and health card on the Io app. Here’s what changes
THE FACTS
The request, which is legitimate, is in line with the payment formulas that are now the most used throughout Europe: electronic ones, without the use of cash. And the trader in question would only have two options in front of him: accept the debit card as a means of paying for the pack of cigarettes (as for any other product) or not sell the selected item at all. Instead, the surprise arrives: the sales assistant, with a decisive and slightly regretful (but still firm) tone, announces that «the commission for paying with a debit card for the pack of cigarettes is too high for us traders, so if you want to proceed you have to buy in combination with another product subject to VAT”.
In essence, more money should be added to the five or so euros of the pack of cigarettes in order to complete the purchase. Otherwise, in that specific resale, the operation cannot be completed. The alternative? Only cash. What emerges, despite the fact that it is an isolated case in a city that has adapted – sometimes grumbling – to new international norms and trends, is practically a kind of “tax” entirely paid by the customer.
THE KNOT
At that point we leave, without having completed the purchase. And we try to go deeper. It is also the other tobacconists in the city, who mostly accept payments with debit cards, who explain to us how it is not possible to make the customer pay for another product in addition. The point, highlighted by many, is that relating to commissions. We must start from a given fact: a tobacconist, for example, earns something like 75 cents on a single pack of cigarettes. Frankly, very little. If you then use a standard POS, another 20 euro cents in commission arrives on the merchant’s head. And the profit then drops to just 55 cents.
However, there are tools that for payments below 15 euros – for example – allow you to reduce the very commissions that disturb traders so much. And there are quite a few Pordenone merchants who have relied on that formula to stay within it.
«Now it’s time to adapt to the new standards – explains Fabio Cadamuro, provincial manager of Fipe for merchants -: many people pay with ATMs. It’s obvious that this can only make people turn up their noses over a coffee, but we all have to get used to it. We traders first and foremost.”
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Read the full article on
The messenger
