Noticed my Aldi bills lately haven’t been rounded up or down, they’re figures like 46.59 or 84.48. Not all of them because some work out to what would be a rounded figure, but not all of them like they used to. Not just the one store either.
What if somebody pays cash?
I assume they’d have to since Switzerland doesn’t have anything smaller than a 5 centime coin. Just weird that they’ve suddenly stopped doing it.
According to this, these prices have to be rounded down individually to the nearest 5 cents. FAQ
To be more precise, the amount has to be rounded down if the customer is paying in cash.
What has happened is pretty simple to understand - Do to the increase in digital payments at the check-out, Aldi have taken the step and have changed their software to round down if the payment is in cash or leave it as it is if the payment is with card or with a digital payment method.
I’ve no idea how many transactions are made per year at Aldi supermarkets but all that unnecessary rounding down must add up to something which in future Aldi can now claw back.
Now see that Lidl are doing the same if you pay by card.
If each product is priced to the centime they would be then totalled and, if being paid in cash, rounded off. I am assuming that each product would have a price of x.x8 or x.x9 with very few ending I’m x.07 or less.
Wouldn’t rounding the total be more advantageous to the consumer than rounding each product up?
We are literally talking a few centimes per purchase though.
Have to ask yourself why in a country that doesn’t have any coinage lower than 5 centimes are prices are shown as .8 or .9 to start with.
Petrol prices worldwide are priced to a fraction of a centime.
And we do a one centime coin. A search shows Switzerland had a 1-centime coin, and it was withdrawn from circulation on 1 January 2007; the Swiss National Bank still says it can be exchanged at nominal value until 31 December 2026.
I recall in the nineties or the naughties a store called Pic-Pay priced to the centime and would give you the 1c coin in change. A real pain in the coin purse the were. They would accept them back but nobody else would take them. Pic-Pay got absorbed by Denner before (I think) Migros bought Denner.
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I suppose if you add it all up over the course of the year you might just have had enough for a coffee.
Not really worth worrying about in my opinion.
Handling cash is expensive. I fail to see a problem, please explain.
Almost certainly cheaper than the fees from debit / credit cards.
Please explain how the rounding affects the CC fees in relevant amounts.
Credit card fees are a couple of percent, so cards cost a business more than cash
It does not make any meaningful difference in CC fees, however CC fees are still likely more than the cost of handling cash.
You may be surprised. There are a lot of hidden costs with cash - from maintaining a float, security, secure transport and shrinkage costs.
I thought it was only crooks who washed their money?
Normally they are not. The Swiss equivalent of the prices like 9.99 in other countries is 9.95. But sometimes you have discounts like 33%, then the final price no longer ends with 0 or 5.
Once I have seen a weird price tag in Migros. A discounted avocado costed something like 0.89 CHF. But Migros rounds the final bill anyway, no matter how you pay it.
Also noticing recently that more and more of their packaging only has info/instructions in German. Only if they’re packaging things for eastern Europe will you get French and/or Italian. 