Extra Income from Change

Have you ever been to a store and as soon as you pay for the items you bought, the cashier asks you for change because he/she can't break your bill? This has happened to me countless number of times. As usual, my brain got aroused again into thinking why do some of them ask for change even though you can clearly see coins in the cash register?

One thing that I have observed is that a lot of items are priced awkwardly. Here in Manila, let's say a specific item has a price of 49.97 pesos. If I give them 50 pesos, they won't be able to give you 0.03. Why is that? It's because we do not use the 1 cent coin anymore. The smallest coin amount is 5 cents. The next is 10 and then a quarter, and so on. I mean, why not make it divisible by at least 5 so that they can give you an exact change? Why does it have to be awkwardly priced?

I understand that a lot goes into production of these merchandises. From the procurement of raw materials to the machines that were used, the labor, the packaging, shipping and then mark up if sent to a third party dealer. I guess it's much better to round it off so as not to have customers expect problems with change. Believe it or not, I've seen a number of customers arguing with the cashier and even the managers when it comes to inexact change. I'm actually one of them.

Come to think of it, if they don't give exact change to let's say 50 customers a day, that would yield 1.50 per day. That's approximately 45 pesos a month and 540 pesos in a year. Sometimes, they don't even give change up to a peso. That's extra income for the store.

Well, I'm not really mad about it. I'm just curious why they are doing it. For some, I have observed that they are just too lazy to count coins. I mean, hello!? They have a cash register or a calculator and in an instant they can know how much the exact change should be. I have noticed for some, not to undermine their abilities or something, that they are having a hard time computing for the number of coins or the combinations of coins for a particular amount.

Some stores are just not that good in handling money that they do not have change most of the time. It's understandable for small to mid-sized businesses but for large supermarkets, they should have change ready for their customers. It's excusable though since a lot of times, a lot of customers would want to break their bills and the establishment can run out of coins in an instant.

As for the customers, if you have spare coins, try to use them. They weight a couple of times more than a paper bill. Well, I'm just thinking out loud and I'm somewhat obsessive compulsive to these kinds of things especially when it comes to numbers. I hope you understand. However, if you still have change, you deserve to have it.