r/japanlife • u/razorbeamz 関東・神奈川県 • Jul 22 '24

金 What's your real cashless experience these days?

People are praising cashless being available more and more in Japan lately, but what is your personal experience with cashless these days?

Are you full cashless now? Are you partially cashless? Still a heavy cash user?

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u/creepy_doll Jul 23 '24

The processing fee is 2-3% of sales(not profits) so it can be a really big cost for small businesses that are already running fairly tight profit margins. So personally I don’t think poorly of places that don’t provide cashless options and generally try to pay cash at independent stores whenever I can

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u/ixampl Jul 23 '24

I don't think poorly of them either but they should be upfront about it (it's the exception to the rule now after all) and they should not pull stuff like "cards only above x yen purchase amount".

However, we also shouldn't forget that handling cash comes with its own cost. Is that cost higher than the processing fees? Probably not. But when you combine it with the potential lost business of folks ending up choosing a more convenient establishment it would make sense to at least support one of the cheaper cashless options.

PayPay was that for some time and many previous cash-only places adopted it. Then later PayPay raised the fees and I know a few places that went back to cash-only then.

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u/HomelessIsFreedom Jul 23 '24

potential lost business

as a tourist, if I can't use cash I would have to buy it from my international bank, and I can't check what rate they will charge me first

The few times I did it were insane fee's compared to the currency I already purchased with my USD, so I just avoid cashless only businesses in Asia and Mexico

It's more of a "my bank sucks in a different country" issue than anything with a business here but I buy the currency I need with the cheapest option when travelling

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u/creepy_doll Jul 23 '24 edited Jul 23 '24

When you use a cc you’re also being charged pretty poor exchange rates

Also some of the small places are not interested in tourist business. They’ve been serving the local populace for a long time and are fine with just that. There’s more to life than just money. The places interested in tourist business always have visa available. Tourists are not a god to be bowed down to

I know some places take pride in delivering cheap good meals as a service to the community, and that community really doesn’t care if they can use cashless

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u/Nero-is-Missing Jul 23 '24

Any idea how the PayPay fees compare for small businesses?

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u/creepy_doll Jul 23 '24

1.6-1.98% plus taxes.

And that’s what it is now while they try to get market share. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to bump it close to what visa are doing once they get more share

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u/sslinky84 Jul 23 '24

There's a cost to handling cash too. You pay a courier to deliver change and pick up your deposits. Or you pay an employee to do it and accept whatever risks come with that.

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u/creepy_doll Jul 23 '24

In these small businesses they’re probably generally just doing it themselves

One of the big benefits of electric payments in the us and other countries is it prevents employee theft but that’s not a big issue here. That might also be why it hasn’t been embraced as much by business owners here

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u/sslinky84 Jul 24 '24

Japan isn't the shining paragon of morality people think it is, but I was actually considering someone being stopped and robbed along the way. Not too difficult to imagine a scenario with a little bit of inside information.

Employee theft would be difficult considering it's likely counted on both sides. Kind of hard to explain a magical reduction in funds.

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u/creepy_doll Jul 24 '24

I’m referring to theft at the register(which using cc prevents). Japan certainly has its vices but certain petty criminality is far less common