By JADE RUSSELL
Tribune Staff Reporter
jrussell@tribunemedia.net
STRAW Market vendors said trying to embrace credit card machines has had complicated results because of high bank fees and lack of free WiFi.
For older vendors who have worked in the market for decades, learning to use a machine is challenging.
The vendors spoke to The Tribune last week after Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper told reporters that the Ministry of Tourism and the Tourism Development Board encourage them to explore digital payment options and credit cards, modernising their business to benefit from the tourism industry.
His comments were in response to concerns about cruise ship staff warning passengers not to carry cash off ships.
Velma Roner said sometimes using credit card machines is beneficial –– but not when dealing with small transactions of $15 or less.
"By the time you take that to the bank," she said, "they have to take their money off."
"What are you getting from that? So that little, small thing is not beneficial to you."
Ms Roner and other vendors said the lack of WiFi in the market has made facilitating credit card payments challenging.
She uses data from her phone to provide an internet connection for her machine.
She said when the chairman of the Straw Market Authority was first appointed, he said he would introduce free WiFi, but has not done so yet.
"Sometimes tourists try to log on to get to their bank to see what's going on and they can’t log on because they don't have any data or anything like that, so you lose a sale right there," she said.
Teressa Eneas said at least 70 per cent of vendors in the market have machines that accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Apple Pay, and she acknowledged that tourists with credit cards sometimes spend more than those using just cash.
However, some vendors have lost faith in the system because of experience with customers finding ways to get their money back.
She said she replaced her previous bank "because the customers made a purchase, and the customers called them and tell them they didn't make the purchase, so for that reason, I had a loss".
Comments
TalRussell 1 month, 1 week ago
Anyone else noticing the rush toward a ['cashless society'] with a [80 per cent drop in cash transactions] by year 2027 --- Unfortunately, it will result in concessions [going to a sum few] but left fend with hooking to [shantytown wifi connectivity'], are the comrade straw, produce and fish stall operators, so can process credit card payment transactions. --- Yes?
Sickened 1 month, 1 week ago
A cashless society is very, very scary. When a corrupt government realizes how easy it will be to confiscate, freeze or limit access to your own money... we will be in a load of hurt.
rosiepi 1 month, 1 week ago
The straw market vendors rent space from the government in a venue built expressly for them, in the choicest of locations to capture sales from incoming tourists for them. And they pay an extremely low rate of rent.
No administration has ever met their demands. When they don’t pay their rent and are pressured to do so, and or are facing eviction they go to the press. When they need to accommodate customers using credit cards they complain about the cost, is the gov’t to pay this too? When they have to use their own phones for internet they complain. And one can presume that if the government installed wifi and added that fee to their rent, their complaints would appear here. Again.
ThisIsOurs 1 month, 1 week ago
The cost of doing business is too high. Thsts not a complaint but a reality and its artificially high due to successive govts inability to innovate and at the same time placing strangleholds on Bahamians attempting to do so. #TobySmith. The kickback tax is also a real thing. It triples prices, then has the tax man trying to replace those liberally awarded dollars by increasing taxes on the poor yet again. 2.5 million for an elevator? 100k to travel to Grand Bahama? Now the toilets need to fix. If only we hadn't padded the elevator contract by 2 million dollars.
concernedcitizen 1 month, 1 week ago
some of the contracts are just ways of getting money out of the Treasury to family and friends .In 2023 we did the most tourist ever and the most FDI and we still add another half a billion to the debt .Now we got the PM and four MPs flying off to Botswana .I think some of this trips are just to tote the U S cash to outside banks and investment ..The PM looks like a smiling Mugabe as they rob us the tax payers blind .
ThisIsOurs 1 month, 1 week ago
I'd like to see a Papa Doc style clawing back of all the money ferreted away out of the Bahamian treasury.
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