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POST Cashless the IKEA way

There’s an interesting case study about this at IKEA in Gavle, which is about 100 miles north of Stockholm. According to the New York Times, managers there decided to go cashless temporarily last month after they realized that fewer than 1 percent of shoppers used cash. The economics of this decision are compelling. They found that employees were spending about 15 percent of their time handling, counting and storing money.

The usage statistics make for interesting reading. It turns out that to date only around 1 in every 1,000 customers wanted to pay with cash and that was mainly for low value transactions in the cafeteria (do they still call them “Swedish meatballs” over there?). For those few, IKEA has been giving them the food for free rather than mess around trying to bill them.

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"Washington restaurateur Bo Blair, whose company Georgetown Events operates eight fast-casual and three sit-down restaurants in the District, decided to experiment going cashless when opening Surfside in Dupont Circle in 2015.

Usually, cost-conscious small businesses operate cash-only to avoid card processing fees.

But cash also has hidden costs, Blair said: Armored vehicles taking money to banks. An extra hour for workers to close out the register. Employees swiping money from the till. And some of his places had been robbed."

From "Do cashless restaurants discriminate against the poor? D.C. lawmakers think so. - The Washington Post".

 

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Yes, that’s right. Cash is so much hassle that it’s cheaper to give out free meals rather than handle the stuff.

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