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NewsDay

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Desperate consumers turn to supermarket ‘cash back’

Business
PLASTIC money usage in retail shops has increased sharply in the past few weeks, as more people resort to the system in order to get cash back.

PLASTIC money usage in retail shops has increased sharply in the past few weeks, as more people resort to the system in order to get cash back.

BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA

Long queues at CABS Jason Moyo  Avenue branch
Long queues at CABS Jason Moyo Avenue branch

As banks struggle to meet high demand for cash, their customers have resorted to going to retail stores as a secondary source.

A snap survey conducted by NewsDay at retail stores in Harare’s CBD showed that many people were purchasing few goods to get cash back at a value worth more than the purchases.

On average, consumers were requesting cash amounts of between $20 and $100.

In an interview recently, Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president, Denford Mutashu said there have been reports of retailers refusing to give cash back.

“Retailers should also give reasonable cash back to customers. Manufacturers, suppliers and distributors should not demand cash payments for goods and services from retailers. There have been reports that some retailers are refusing to give cash back. However, it should be stressed that retailers are not banks, hence, they might not be able to meet customers’ cash back demands,” he said.

“There is a sudden surge on the use of plastic money. The system, though, is still very slow and frustrating on the part of customers.

And false transactions also take up much of the customers’ time, as one would have to get the transaction reversed at their parent bank.

The surge came about at the peak of the cash shortages. At times the retailers would not have the cash at all.”

Mutashu said it was important that retailers ration cash backs or not to give at all, as it would threaten their profits.

NewsDay visited three TM Pick n Pay retail stores in the CBD and found that nearly half of the customers queuing were purchasing goods using bank cards, while nearly three quarters of that number was requesting cash backs.

Food World marketing and sales director Tendai Chisvo said they have disbursed more point-of-sale (POS) machines, as the rate of plastic cards usage had gone up.

“There is an increase in the number of customers using plastic cards to purchase groceries. We have recorded a lot of usage of our different point-of-sale machines throughout all our branches in the country. As such, in order to limit transactional time in processing those cards, we have upgraded our POS machines to an electronic fund transfer (EFT) system, a move from GPRS,” he said.

Chisvo said the EFT system uses the internet to process the transactions, reducing the time it takes to process purchases.

As the economy braces for the introduction of bond notes into the market due to the unavailability of cash, many consumers have been left with no option, but to use their cards to purchase goods and now use retail stores as secondary banks.

The survey revealed the most used cards were from CBZ Bank, People’s Own Savings Bank, ZB Bank, MBCA Bank, Cabs and NMB Bank.

Spar Zimbabwe managing director, Terence Yeatman said over the last few weeks, plastic money accounted for half of their sales.

“Plastic money normally used to account for 10% of our sales. Over the last few weeks, this has increased to 50% in some of our Spar stores. The cash back facility has also seen a huge spike in use, while we remind our Spar customers that we are not a bank, we are trying to assist them in this regard and are trying to best manage the current situation.” he said.

“All Spar stores have installed point of sale machines, for the use of plastic money for our customers’ convenience. We are fully supportive of the government and the Reserve Bank’s policy to address the situation and will work with all stakeholders as we move forward.”

At almost all the till operators, from the different retail stores, there was an array of POS machines for local and Visa cards.