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349 points andrewl | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.999s | source | bottom
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nayuki ◴[] No.45902294[source]
We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue. The vast majority of retailers would round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05, but a few would round down to the nearest $0.05 in favor of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination...

Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly cotton paper), colorful banknotes (instead of all green) that are easy to distinguish, $1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills).

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revicon ◴[] No.45903410[source]
There are several US states where, by law, retailers are not allowed to give preferential treatment to credit card paying customers over cash paying ones. Which means, in those states, retailers will be required to always round transactions to the cash paying customer's benefit, where in other states the retailer is allowed to round to the nearest 5 cents. This is going to cost large retailers millions.

Interestingly many of them had already put the work into updating the cash register software to allow for this due to the penny shortages during covid.

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1. bongodongobob ◴[] No.45903436[source]
It doesn't cost anyone anything. They can just raise prices 3 cents or whatever.
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2. phantom784 ◴[] No.45903749[source]
It gets tricky because sales tax is added on top of the sticker price.
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3. UncleSlacky ◴[] No.45903952[source]
Then include the sales tax in the sticker price, like every other country does.
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4. revicon ◴[] No.45904010[source]
The statistics on consumers evaluating the purchase of something that is $9.99 vs $10 is well proven.

Switching to round number prices would cost retailers a whole lot more.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243599...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23547242_Penny_Wise...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243590...

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5. phantom784 ◴[] No.45904024{3}[source]
Unfortunately I think this is much easier said than done. No single store is going to want to make this change, because it'll make their prices look higher than the competitors'. It'd require legislation, (and even that'd likely be state-by-state legislation).

It also means a company wouldn't be able to advertise a single price for a product nationwide, since sales tax rates vary by state (and many times even within a state).

Also worth noting that Canada also doesn't include sales taxes.

6. zahlman ◴[] No.45905634[source]
The rounding is applied to an entire-after tax bill, not to shelf prices.

Again: Canada actually did this many years ago. The effect you predict did not appear.