Sunday, December 11, 2005

A fil for your thoughts :: The EclectEcon

The EclectEcon has had a long, quixotic quest to ban the penny from Canada and the US. In this post (link above) he turns his attention to the fil were his argument holds a fortiori. The preference by most customers for rounding to the dirham supports the argument.

In The Emirates Today article he cites he wisely skipped over this tricky bit:
Sometimes customers want only what is owed to them, causing headaches for retailers.

“Once a customer waited for hours because she would not let us write off five fils. Her bill included 55 fils and she insisted paying that amount and would not take the 50 fils change from us,” said Esquerra.

Esquerra said she kept some small change for such occasions. “We don’t get it from the banks, so I have saved some for customers who are adamant.”
Is there a cultural reason that a customer might refuse to have her change rounded up in her favor?

2 Comments:

Blogger EclectEcon said...

One possible explanation is that these customers derive more utility from the special attention they receive than they would from a few fils.

At any rate, I expect such instances are very rare, despite having been reported. If they weren't extremely rare, shopkeepers would keep more fils on hand to give such customers.

6:55 PM  
Blogger Tim Newman said...

One possible explanation is that these customers derive more utility from the special attention they receive than they would from a few fils.

LOL!! I think you're right.

4:08 AM  

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