In an era of debit cards and direct deposit, a handful of grocery stores--including three Whole Food shops and Tesco offshoot Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market on the West Coast--are banning the use of personal checks at its stores as a way to cut operation costs.Yep, checks are out at some grocery store checkouts.
"Supermarkets used to be a repository of checking, cashing payroll and personal checks, but in an age of direct deposit and debit cards, that's not something that is relevant to their customers anymore," says Mac Brand, a Chicago-based food industry consultant, to the Los Angeles Times.
Processing checks is a time consuming and costly endeavor because it requires human interaction. In response, several grocery stores have moved to a no-check policy as a way to drive down business costs.
Fresh & Easy's 70 stores in California, for example, only offer self-service checkout and has banned checks and manufacturers' coupons as a way to automate the process.
However, a few concerned consumers say they use checks to purchase groceries as a way of keeping their budget under control. Their demand? Checks, please.
"Every time you take something away, you run the risk of severing your relationship with a customer," Brand adds.
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