Re: Halves And Dollars Going Out Of Style In US - Why?
- From: John Doe <nobody@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:47:26 GMT
Just an observation:
I recently took on a retail cashier job (liquor store) for a few
weeks, and among the unexpected things that I have learned is:
People have become divided into two basic camps:
a. Those who carry very little money at all, using credit and debit
cards for even the small transactions (under $10). My guestimate is
that about 30% of the transactions at my register were of these types.
This percentage is likely to grow.
b. Those who never use plastic, and only use coins and currency. Oddly
enough, many people often carried fairly large amounts of money. One
day I had 5 people in a row make purchases with $100 bills. Perhaps
this is due to the high fees from ATM machines making it necessary to
make larger withdrawals than they would otherwise. Also, many people
either get paid in cash, or cash their paychecks when they receive it.
(Only once do I remember a "south of the border" customer using
plastic)
Also notable:
Of the male population, it seems that maybe half do not use wallets
for their currency, opting for money clips or simply wads of bills
(often carrying over $100 in this fashion, and often much less than
neatly folded). This was a big suprise to me, having always carried a
wallet. I have only once or twice in my life met a man who used a coin
pouch for their change.
Women making purchases rarely handed me change. (Warning: sexist
statement coming that some may disagree with) In most cases, women's
purses were so crammed with junk that looking for change was more
bother than it was worth.
In cases where it would have benefited a customer (male or female) to
give partial change, resulting in a net decrease in the change they
carried, the time that was involved in having them looking for any
change was much more than the time it would take me to give them
change, even if they ended up with $.95 of change (I had a penny jar
by the register; more often than not people would not take a penny to
help with their purchase; I would have to take one or two for them to
reduce their change load.) Needless to say, if there was anybody in
line behind them, they were even less likely to look for correct or
partial change.
In general, I don't think most people like change at all. Many people,
myself included, at the end of the day simply dump out their change
into a handy bowl or jar, and do not put any change into their pocket
next morning. Only when the jar becomes full, or they are short on
cash, do they draw from the loose change drawer (some people use this
as an informal savings account). The penny jar has been replaced by
the change jar.
If people do not like change, they probably want to minimize the
variety of change they carry. There is probably a large percent of
people who wish we got rid of the penny and only had nickels, dimes,
and quarters... and probably quite a few that would like to get rid of
the nickel as well.
Other observations:
A lot of people DO collect the state quarters. One day, shortly after
the new Washington State quarter came out, I picked up a roll from the
bank and brought it to work and swapped out some from the till. Some
regular customers would ask if we had any of the new quarters, and
were very pleased to get one if we had it. Any store that could be
known as a good source of these coins when they came out would
probably gain a lot of happy customers.
People were generally not interested in the new dollar coins. Most,
when asked, did not want one. Most did not even know about them.
Again, a few were interested in them, but not at the same level as the
state quarters. In some cases a customer would say "I already have
one".
Nobody ever asked about the not-so-new nickels.
So, did I find any interesting coins? Not really.... the only one I
bothered to take home was a nice looking 1948-S lincoln cent with some
nice red toning left in a few areas. I was tempted once when someone
brought in a nice crisp $100 bill of the old design (before the color,
large head and watermaked bills came out), but I do not collect
currency (and no, it was not counterfeit; I checked).
.
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