Noah Broessel of Pop Culture Paradise in Tempe, Arizona read Jim Cocker's response (see "Jim Crocker of Modern Myths, LLC on Passing Along Credit Card Fees") to his earlier comments (see "Noah Broessel of Pop Culture Paradise on May Comic Sales") and has this to add to the discussion:

Jim Crocker brought up some good points in general and I agree you never want customers to feel "evil" about using plastic.  A positive atmosphere in your store is a must and I suggest accepting all cards including Amex which is actually cheaper but a lot of stores don't accept it.

I guess it's possible offering an extra subscription discount for cash is a violation which doesn't make sense to me since it's up to you the retailer to even offer the discount.  If you have something in your store priced at $5.00 but tell a customer it costs more if you use a credit card that is clearly a violation.  But I know the Arco gas station by me is a lot more recognizable than my comic book store and they offer a cash discount.  In fact, they recently raised their debit card fee from .39 to .59 regardless of the transaction amount.

I made no suggestion of "charging a fee to accept credit cards," just giving customers an EXTRA discount if they paid cash.  If I offer you a subscription discount of 17% off but say "hey if you pay cash I'll give you 20% off" that's not punishing customers for using their credit card in my opinion.

Jim stated, "A business that can't invest the 20 or 30 cents required to ring up my (possibly substantial) transaction in the manner of my choosing isn't long for the world."  Well, for what I consider a normal purchase of $5-10 or more that's fine but let's look at some of my experiences running a retail store.  I've seen people use a credit card on ONE comic @ $2.99 a lot; ONE comic from the .99 cent bin; ONE soda @ 50 cents; or how about this, ONE gaming card single that sells for 15 cents.  I told the kid just to take it -- my credit card fee is at least .20 so it's not even worth my time.  Many of the college students that come into the store never have $1 on them.

Because we're sort of a college store maybe Jim doesn't deal with it as often as I have.  I do agree with him that not accepting credit cards is very foolish.  The last comic store around here to do that was appropriately named Caveman Comics (hey, at least they lived up to their name) and they went out of business 1-2 years ago despite having cool stuff and killer deals.  Remembering the owner yelling, "Real men carry cash!" always brings a good laugh.

I'm also sad to see Jim say "whenever I see a business that charges me extra for use of a credit card, I turn around and leave if at all possible" because I like to support  stores run by owners, know their products and
give me a good deal and great service.  If I love Magpie's Pizza but they ask 30 cents for a credit card transaction under $5, I'm not going to skip them and eat grody old Domino's Pizza instead.  For those people I wouldn't get angry if they preferred cash, in fact I WANT to help them save money, I WANT to pay them cash if possible.  The last thing I would do is leave and never go back.  If I have to use a credit card on a transaction that's under $5 at a small business I tend to apologize but hell, I just turned 37 so maybe that's just me starting to slowly slip away from the "new" generation.

So the bottom line Jim is you got me pegged alright, YES, I hate credit cards, but not to the point that I don't use them or realize I need them.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.