3.5% to 4% fee for paying with a credit card everywhere

[Ms. Toad]

68. It doesn't matter how you rationalize it -

You are spreading the cost of accepting credit cards across all customers, as a cost of doing business (i.e. a business expense). If your business is going to continue, that cost is either (1) spread out over all the customers or (2) passed through to the customer responsible for incurring it. You have decided to spread it across all your customers.

Nothing wrong with that - but every expense of the business is ultimately paid by the customer. Either passed through to a single customer responsible for the cost (e.g. bottle deposits, in the past) - or - spread over all customers (rent, employee expenses, taxes, advertising, etc.) Most businesses (all, by contract or law in the past) spread them over all customers. There is at least a minor trend to charge for credit card purchases. I don't know whether it will continue to spread is anyone's guess.

But your decision that it is worth the business expense is no different from a store using a loss leader to get people in the door. Both losses/expenses are justified because of the increase in volume - that's a business decision. But a store can't stay in business unless it passes the cost of doing business on to the customers.