Originally Posted by
Jaimito Cartero
Did they lower their prices when they started adding the credit card surcharges? If not, then that makes it even a bigger ripoff.
30 years ago, my wholesale business charged a 4% credit card surcharge. This worked ok for a few years, but a customer complained to Visa/MC about it. They said it violated the contract. I adjusted prices where necessary, and sales actually went up. I’d never charge my customer a surcharge these days. It’s just shooting yourself in the foot.
If you have a million dollars in sales annually, the $20-35k you pay to process the cards can look like a huge amount, plus you might have to buy some terminals.
However, making it easy on your customers is crucial. Chasing away business for 3% is just dumb.
They did raise prices on a few items.
This place has Mon & Tues night specials - take out only, and really, really reasonable. Something like $9.99 for a spaghetti & meatball dinner. They raised the price on it to $11.99. Pizza for $7.99 and now $8.99 (or near that)
My guess is they were loosing their shirt on those specials. They did a booming business on those days and I'll bet most people charged.
Their food is decent, though I've never tried the specials. We usually ordered regular entrees on the weekend and the bill never was lower than $50 - $60.
The other place that I heard was doing it stopped after they got creamed on Yelp and Facebook.
It is really bad business to surcharge like that. Just raise the prices to cover the fees.