Typisch Deutsch - do you accept credit cards?
🇩🇪 Lieber auf Deutsch? Klick hier
Keeping up with your customers is a future article I am working on. This is just one piece of the puzzle.
The photo here is from my local newspaper here in Wiesbaden, Germany. The article is about the use of cash versus plastic in the region. Germany has stuck to cash for a very long time. There is a chart in the following document where the survey showed less than 50% of Germans preferred to pay by card. No real surprise and actually, that’s just fine.
On Tuesday, I went to my barber and saw he had just installed a new contactless payment device. I said to him that I am fine with cash but my 20-year-old boys almost never have cash with them and they will love this. He said that was the situation with his clientele, mostly between the ages of 20-40. OK, yeah, I am the old guy there. I feel young going there. Give me a break!
My barber has since removed the device saying he did not want to pay the fees. One of my sons has moved to a new barber. Go figure.
“There is hardly any demand for card payments here”
Cash or Card?
I don’t want to talk about the use of cash vs card here but the quote from the newspaper got me all worked up that I am now writing this!!!! “there is hardly any demand for card payments here” is the translation from the article. I heard the same point being made in the late 1990s when businesses were asked why they don’t offer 0800 (toll-free) calling. At that time toll-free calling was seen as a nuance as “school kids will prank call the businesses during breaks and plus any reasonable customer will pay a few cents to get excellent service from us”.
The person quoted above was from the farmers’ market in town. A market I never go to. I pass by often and see the goods for sale but I don’t buy them. Is it because I know they don’t accept cards? Not sure but if I knew they all took cards would I more likely stop and pick some veggies on my way home? Perhaps. It is like going to the doctor for a bad cough and the doctor prescribes what will make it better but doesn’t notice you have a second head growing. Don’t ask, don’t know.
My mission is to help businesses (who want help) understand this digital age: how to best use the tools out there. My guess is that this seller doesn’t need my help.
