Retailers Not Accepting Cash May Cut Customer Base

Cash-handling specialist Volumatic released research today which suggests businesses that refuse cash payment are letting down their customers.

Volumatic, which conducted the research with independent financial firm Enryo, argues that more customers now want to use cash in order to manage their spending better because of the cost-of-living crisis.

Mike Severs, Volumatic’s sales and marketing director, said: “Cash is not only alive and well but is gaining popularity across all demographics and age groups once more – and now both industry groups and consumers are fighting back to protect what is quite simply the most flexible payment method we currently have.

”The latest research, which also had input from cash machine network Link, argued that a cashless society is a long way off, with 71% of people using cash to pay for something in the two weeks before the survey was conducted and a quarter (25%) not expecting their use of cash to change in the near future.

The research is the latest salvo in a battle over the use of cash, which some businesses are now refusing to take as payment. Severs added that nearly half (45%) of customers have been somewhere that has refused or discouraged payment in cash, and that they had been inconvenienced by it.

He said: “The refusal of cash as a valid payment method began in the height of the pandemic back in 2020, when misinformation about cash posing a hygiene risk sparked concerns that it could help spread Covid. “But three years later, long after the World Health Organization confirmed that cash actually poses no greater threat than any other payment method in spreading any viruses, it seems that some businesses are still forcing consumers to go cashless.”

Severs said businesses that do force customers to go cashless might be cutting their customer base at a time when everybody is trying to encourage an economic recovery.

About Volumatic

Volumatic manufacture and supply products to lots of different companies in the UK, US and Europe. As a cash handling company with a history dating back nearly 60 years, find out more about the vision, values, history and people that make Volumatic a global leader in security and intelligent cash handling products: https://volumatic.com/