Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
Can they do that? Only round down??? Seems like that would be kinda stupid and unfair
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They're only cheating themselves, so I don't know why anyone would complain.
If you assume every transaction has equal likelihood to end in any digit from 0 to 9, then there's a 10% chance of it ending in any one digit...
With proper rounding:
The final price ends in a 0 or 5 (20%) -- no rounding
The final price ends in a 1 or 6 (20%) -- round down 1 cent
The final price ends in a 2 or 7 (20%) -- round down 2 cents
The final price ends in a 3 or 8 (20%) -- round up 2 cents
The final price ends in a 4 or 9 (20%) -- round up 1 cent
Over a hundred transactions (assuming equal distribution), you'd have (20 x 0) + (20 x -1) + (20 x -2) + (20 x 2) + (20 x 1) = 0 - 20 - 40 + 40 + 20 = 0.
With always rounding down:
The final price ends in a 0 or 5 (20%) -- no rounding
The final price ends in a 1 or 6 (20%) -- round down 1 cent
The final price ends in a 2 or 7 (20%) -- round down 2 cents
The final price ends in a 3 or 8 (20%) -- round down 3 cents
The final price ends in a 4 or 9 (20%) -- round down 4 cents
Over a hundred transactions (assuming equal distribution), you'd have (20 x 0) + (20 x -1) + (20 x -2) + (20 x -3) + (20 x -4) = 0 - 20 - 40 - 60 - 80 = -200.
So, over 100 transactions, they'd be down $2, or 2 cents per transaction.
I have no idea what an average cash transaction at Superstore is, but it's likely well over $10, so losing an average of 2 cents per cash transaction probably isn't keeping Galen Weston up at night.
Also, if something that small is enough to make someone choose to pay cash instead of with a card, it actually pays off better for Loblaws because they don't have to pay the card processing fee. There probably are people out there who would look at the total and think "the final price ends in 63 cents, so, if I pay cash, they'll charge me 65 cents; but if I put it on my card, it will only be 63 cents".