Jokes on you. Merchants prefer credit cards because there is less loss than cash. 2.5% is nothing compared to 5-10% loss at the register. Plus easier and more accurate accounting.
Where did you get this number from?
[1] https://www.ihlservices.com/product/the-cost-of-cash-handlin...
What actually is the source of such costs? The cashier still has to be paid even if the customer is using a card. Presumably there isn't anywhere near that much theft from registers, or people messing up giving change?
"Does IHL Group have any connections to merchant providers?"
> IHL Group sells market intelligence, vendor directories, and lead generation data to the electronic payment industry.
Cash handling costs is a real issue though. Not counting under-reporting income, credit cards cost the most at US intercharge levels of 1-3%. Then the all-in cost of cash handling. The lowest cost method is debit.
BTW, I used to handle around $7M/year in credit card transaction in the USA, and if you got actual hand-written partial numbers on a signed contract, then we could avoid nearly 100% of charge backs, as we always delivered on our end. I think in 14 years, we had around 10 charge back attempts, and our merchant provider loved us. The only time I ever magically lost a charge back was to a Visa executive for ~$10k, and our merchant provider just shrugged. Whatayagonnado?
Bad service = card always.
Tax fraud, essentially.
E.g. you go to the Minnesota State Fair, merchants may offer to not charge sales tax if you pay cash. It is shockingly brazen sometimes.
> How could a business possibly operate in this reality?
Extremely lax enforcement on the part of the specific US state's department of revenue
I hand the cash to the cashier and they respond with "thank you, have a nice evening", while eventually handing me a printout of my order from their tables organiser software, instead of the legally required fiscal receipt.
Cost of doing business