Meet the butcher’s shop which has given cash the chop

A Victorian butcher has done away with cash in his Melbourne shops, using card as the only means of payment.

Cannings Free Range Butchers owner Sam Canning told SmartCompany he had been thinking about abolishing cash payments for six months before he went cashless at his store in Melbourne’s Hawthorn last month.

With eftpos payments now even easier to make, Canning said getting rid of cash had streamlined business operations.

“We’re going multi-store, so I needed all that kind of stuff to be streamlined,” said Canning.

“It’s amazing. I don’t have to count any money at the end of the day. I just go around and settle all my eftpos machines. The tills balance every night perfectly and I know any transaction that has been made, the money has gone into account.”

As a butcher, he said there were hygiene concerns around handling cash, and said there was always difficulty getting to a bank during the day and balancing tills.

“Balancing tills was always an issue, whether it was 5 cents or a hundred dollars, it was an issue every day.”

Canning said around 75-80% of his customers paid with card anyway, so he thought this was the next logical step in the process.

He opened his new Kew store yesterday and said 150 customers came through, all happy to pay by card.

However, he has come up against some opposition from a small percentage.

“We got a little bit of flak on social media, but all in all, pretty good.

“In the first week we maybe had one walk out a day but we were trying to minimise that and so we had a little bit of cash on hand, so we could say ‘we’ll take it this time’.”

Canning said he was resigned to the fact he may lose some customers, buy said he found just as many who loved the idea.

“In another month, it will all be forgotten.”

Bruce Mansfield, chief executive of eftpos, told SmartCompany it was good to see small businesses taking up the challenge to go cashless.

“Using eftpos rather than cash means that business owners get their money quickly, securely, conveniently and cleanly.  

“They don’t have to go to the bank or the ATM, and there’s no need to worry about the security of your day’s takings, or to add up their earnings. Their customers can also access their own money … in near real time … and at low cost compared to other payment types.”

There are about 6.5 million transactions using eftpos every day in Australia.