Hey @BigRiccs. We did it at the beginning of the pandemic and lockdowns, and instantly regretted it. Even though no one knew for certain that the virus could or could not be passed around on bills, some people just didn’t care no matter what the consequences. So we stopped that little experiment quickly.
We used to have a 50-50 split between cash and cards. Since the pandemic it is more like 80-85% cards. Even with that, we would never consider being cashless mostly because it would exclude the entire portion of American society that is “unbanked.” We are an ice cream shop (similar business model to yours). Our customer mix is all over the map — from people who have more money than anyone should have to people who come here for their weekly family/date night. These days we take pride in telling folks that we will accept payment however they want to give it because they are spending money with us and we want to make that easy for them to do! That always goes over well, trust me.
As for your employee issues, I’ve had those. But I’m the kind of person who will not hesitate to teach employees proper cash handling procedures and then expect them to be followed, or else. You can guess what the “or else” is. If someone can’t do basic money handling then they are in the wrong business as far as I’m concerned and they need to find work more suitable to their skill set. These days, my teen Gen-Z employees do just fine after a little training and reinforcing. My drawer is always spot on so it’s just not a worry for me.
But that’s just my experience. I wish you well in your decision. If you do decide to go cashless, though, be prepared for some blowback — on Yelp, Google, etc. In my experience, customers prefer choices and, like I said earlier, going cashless will exclude people on the lower end of the socio-economic scale who can’t (or don’t want to) have cards. For me, getting that sort of reputation (fair or not) is just not worth the risk.
I've been cashless since I started my business 8 years ago.
There's been some who are rude - but that's the only issue I've ever had, I don't want their custom if they're rude to me or any staff.
How busy it is tends to lead to how strictly I stick to my own rules, if someone wants to pay cash and has the right change (and is polite) then I'll do it if I can do their order straight away.
For order tracking and customer notification all my ordering is online too, this is something I get a lot more issues from in some areas (food truck so I move about) so I'm looking forward to the day when I can do SMS alerts for non online orders too.
