02/10/2026
I'm sure you have all heard the chatter about banning card surcharges by now, so here's our 2 bobs....
We decided mid last year to add a surcharge to card purchases to help us stay as competitive to online prices as possible.
No lie, we had a customer on our first day of the added surcharge spend under $30 and when we made sure she was aware " just to let you know there is a 1% added surcharge for card transactions" her response was "oh, I have cash - I'll use that instead".
We are talking an extra charge of less than 30c which she would have quite happily made us absorb that price for the convenience of us having an eftpos machine for her to pay, but the second I mentioned the surcharge she whips out cash 🤦
If our customers couldn't pay with cash we gave everyone the option to pay their bills via direct deposit (no matter how small) so the customer wasn't forced to pay the surcharge - it was alot more work on our end to settle each days takings but we didn't want everyday Aussies to be handing over the surcharge to the banks if it wasn't necessary.
All we can ask is if this continues. The surcharge may be gone from YOUR invoice but it simply shifts to US absorbing it instead.
Owning and running a small business can be tough. Rising costs on just about everything and we get hit real hard by freight charges 🚛. Even compared to our close friends in Cairns... turns out living in paradise truely does comes at a cost 😬 but we try so hard to keep our prices low and match online prices where we can.
With all this said, we WON'T be increasing our prices to cover the costs of surcharging this year, instead we will trial it for a few months and see how responsive our customers are. If card payments rise than we will revisit everything over our Christmas holidays and reassess.
Please consider bringing cash 💵 next time you visit us and help us keep our costs down so we can remain being open for you.
Cash is king and we need to keep it alive!! 💸💸💸
Also please note : this isn't just our business. All small businesses are going to feel this change. Please consider how you pay everyone going forward and show your appreciation in doing so 🥰
Thank you for taking the time to read and more importantly thank you for your ongoing support.
Stewart & Jay
