Hacker News Reader

They phrase it as surcharge sometimes, or just cash vs credit prices at most gas stations. Toilet paper isn't 3-5% of revenue.

View on HN

If you have enough cash customers, total card transaction costs are not 3-5% of revenue. If you don’t, you’re definitely putting 3-5% back into your pricing to cover the fees.

But the ones in the second case don't put 3-5% back into their pricing, they do a credit surcharge.

You're right. But in my anecdotal experience, there are about half as many adding the surcharge as providing the discount.

Ultimately, my point is (not even addressing the legality of Visa's compulsory pricing attempts) the cost of upfront analysis to set pricing appropriately is easily dwarfed by the cost of labor and throughput when adjusting the price by employees at the point of sale. Maybe the merchants adjusting at sale are getting a benefit in the form of customer awareness, but I have doubts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com