Coin shortage... is back

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storewanderer
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Coin shortage... is back

Post by storewanderer »

I had been noticing a couple stores lately with signs up about coin shortages. I did not think much of it and was thinking it was old/outdated signage.

However this weekend at one store I went into I was aggressively told "NO CASH THERE IS A COIN SHORTAGE" when I approached self checkout and a second store I went to and paid at a full service register, the customer in front of me was getting change in dimes and pennies as those were the only coins the store had.
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/y ... -shortage/
Alpha8472
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by Alpha8472 »

The coin shortage is getting worse again. Many retail stores are saying that they are running low on coins again. I work in a pharmacy and the coin supply is getting smaller and smaller. People are paying in big bills and taking all of our change. Customers are not paying by coins as much as before. It is getting almost as bad as last summer. We have to beg people to pay in change, otherwise you end up giving out up to 99 cents in change.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by BillyGr »

Alpha8472 wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 1:15 am The coin shortage is getting worse again. Many retail stores are saying that they are running low on coins again. I work in a pharmacy and the coin supply is getting smaller and smaller. People are paying in big bills and taking all of our change. Customers are not paying by coins as much as before. It is getting almost as bad as last summer. We have to beg people to pay in change, otherwise you end up giving out up to 99 cents in change.
If the customer was actually due 99 cents change, it would be easier just to give them $1 back and not worry about the single penny. It won't make much difference in the long run, we have a small individually owned store here that the owner did that when a purchase came to $xx.02 all the time.

Maybe more stores should start some bonus programs - one of the chains here has done that, offering an extra percentage on store gift cards when you buy them with rolled coins.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by Super S »

I have seen the signs posted at a few chain stores, but other than that, I have seen no evidence whatsoever of a coin shortage.

As far as stores not accepting cash, the only store I have seen this at is, ironically, a Habitat ReStore in Vancouver, WA but they were still doing this due to Covid despite restrictions easing up. (Odd that a thrift store was doing this)
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by Brian Lutz »

I was at a Walmart yesterday in Marysville and saw that in that particular store that none of the self checkouts were allowing cash transactions, only cards. A WinCo in Edmonds was only allowing cash transactions at half of the self checkouts, None of this seems too unusual right now, but typically Walmart has at least a couple of self checkouts allowing cash transactions.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by Alpha8472 »

I looked at the cash register at work. We are out of quarters. We have not gotten enough quarters from our armored truck delivery. There is a coin supply problem at the armored truck company.

My store has a cash recycler, so the customers are also not paying much in coins. More people need to search their houses and pay with coins.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by storewanderer »

I was also in 3 different grocers tonight that had "NO CASH BACK" signs taped to their pinpads. These were hastily made signs but were typed up. These were at regular registers, not self checkouts (two of the stores don't even have self checkout).

Also coin shortage signs are universal everywhere I went except Safeway where I saw nothing about it, saw some new stuff posted at Smiths but so far asking you to round up/donate your coins and none of that "load coin change to your loyalty card" thing yet.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by BillyGr »

Alpha8472 wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 4:50 pm I looked at the cash register at work. We are out of quarters. We have not gotten enough quarters from our armored truck delivery. There is a coin supply problem at the armored truck company.

My store has a cash recycler, so the customers are also not paying much in coins. More people need to search their houses and pay with coins.
Sounds like the store needs to put up a large sign that they will purchase that change at value (since most of those machines (that's what I'm suspecting you mean by cash recycler) charge a fee for the service.
That way, people would be willing to go to the service counter and turn in the coins there for paper money, to get more for it (by not paying the fee) and the store would then have those coins to use as well.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: August 3rd, 2021, 12:37 am I was also in 3 different grocers tonight that had "NO CASH BACK" signs taped to their pinpads. These were hastily made signs but were typed up. These were at regular registers, not self checkouts (two of the stores don't even have self checkout).
That doesn't seem to make sense - not very likely that anyone asking for cash back from a card purchase is going to be getting odd (coin) amounts. In fact, most people will take increments of $20 (like they get at an ATM), so that helps the store have less of those otherwise not useful bills (as only a few would be used for change if someone had a $50 or larger) to process later on.
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Re: Coin shortage... is back

Post by storewanderer »

BillyGr wrote: August 3rd, 2021, 10:38 am
storewanderer wrote: August 3rd, 2021, 12:37 am I was also in 3 different grocers tonight that had "NO CASH BACK" signs taped to their pinpads. These were hastily made signs but were typed up. These were at regular registers, not self checkouts (two of the stores don't even have self checkout).
That doesn't seem to make sense - not very likely that anyone asking for cash back from a card purchase is going to be getting odd (coin) amounts. In fact, most people will take increments of $20 (like they get at an ATM), so that helps the store have less of those otherwise not useful bills (as only a few would be used for change if someone had a $50 or larger) to process later on.
I went to a different location of two of those chains tonight- one did not have a no cash back sign but just for fun I paid it with debit and no cash back prompt came up- when I asked about cash back the clerk said we are not doing cash back right now. The other had no sign about cash back and I decided not to experiment anything there.
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