When I worked at Target many years ago, one of my roles was the Cash Office.
I can confirm it was incrdibly tedious and expensive work. The store would do $100k in sales on a Saturday, and Sunday morning i would spend 3 hours counting uo the $10k of that which was cash. Plus another grand or so in checks.
Then there was the change to deal with making sure we were well-stocked on all the various coins. It’s been a while but I think we sometimes ordered Ones, Fives, maybe even Ten dollar bills too. All of which of course cost a premium over face value tl have delivered to the store. Plus I am sure it cost a decent amount to have the Twenties and higher picked up a few times a week. Then there was the cost of equipment - the registers themselves, the safe, the cash counting machine, the software, the special envelopes, the cash cart we used to move cash between the registers and safe, the double-locked doors in the cash room. The opportunity cost of dedicating a whole room to that which could have been retail or office space. The insurance on it all.
Aa much as I hate the control and privacy issues, I also absolutely understand why businesses hate using cash.
When I worked at Target many years ago, one of my roles was the Cash Office.
I can confirm it was incrdibly tedious and expensive work. The store would do $100k in sales on a Saturday, and Sunday morning i would spend 3 hours counting uo the $10k of that which was cash. Plus another grand or so in checks.
Then there was the change to deal with making sure we were well-stocked on all the various coins. It’s been a while but I think we sometimes ordered Ones, Fives, maybe even Ten dollar bills too. All of which of course cost a premium over face value tl have delivered to the store. Plus I am sure it cost a decent amount to have the Twenties and higher picked up a few times a week. Then there was the cost of equipment - the registers themselves, the safe, the cash counting machine, the software, the special envelopes, the cash cart we used to move cash between the registers and safe, the double-locked doors in the cash room. The opportunity cost of dedicating a whole room to that which could have been retail or office space. The insurance on it all.
Aa much as I hate the control and privacy issues, I also absolutely understand why businesses hate using cash.