The world we live in is the world we ride in. To help take good care of it, we have decided to eliminate pennies from our stores.
For all cash transactions where pennies would have been used, we will be rounding down in favor of the customer to the nearest nickel. You might wonder why we might want to do this? The answer is simple, it's good for the environment and good for business:
Making pennies wastes taxpayer money - As of 2010, it cost 1.79 cents to make each 1 cent coin, meaning that taxpayers lost 0.79 of a cent for each of the 4 billion pennies the Mint produced that year; which represents a $32 million loss in 2010.
Rounding down won't raise prices - At Mike's Bikes, all transactions will be rounded in favor of the customer, so they will essentially function like a 1-4 cent discount on all cash transactions. Economists also have proved that eliminating the penny won't affect prices; we believe that the savings to the environment and the economy will more than compensate for the risk of any possible jump in prices.
Pennies waste time and money - The average American wastes 12 hours a year handling pennies. The National Association of Convenience Stores and Wallgreens estimate that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds per cash transaction. By eliminating pennies, Mike's Bikes will save over $5K a year; rounding up to the customer's benefit allows us to share this saving with our customers.
Pennies are worth less than CA minimum wage - pennies are so worthless now that it doesn't even pay the California Minimum Wage of $8/hour to pick them up off the street.
