CNE Vendors Step Up Their Credit Card Accepting Game

Good for the CNE! Not only was this year’s Canadian National Exhibition among the most exciting in recent memory, but the vendors who set up shop at the annual summer-ending event certainly stepped up their game. (We’ll get back to that in just a moment.) For those who live outside of the Greater Toronto Area and may not know, the two-week extravaganza, also referred to as “The Ex”, transitions the by-the-lakeshore grounds into an exhilarating theme park between the middle of August and Labour Day each year.

Complete with rides, concerts, contests and a vast array of incredible eats, The Ex is a must-experience event every Toronto summer. This year, however, was especially exceptional for a reason that many may not have expected. “It was incredibly convenient this time around,” exclaimed Warren, a Guyanese-born Torontonian who never misses the yearly festivities, “I didn’t actually need to bring any cash with me.”

Commenting upon the freedom to use his credit card to make purchases as The Ex this year, Warren spoke to one of our Canadian POS Corporation team members during his stop at the Food Building. “I took out $100 cash from the ATM before I came here,” he detailed, “I figured I would have to buy all of my food and everything with cash. That’s usually how it goes. But this year, it seemed like more of the vendors took the card, so I just used it instead.”

Among his reasons for using his credit card over cash, Warren cited the accumulation of rewards points and the flexible payment process associated with the card. “More of the vendors should take the cards, it just makes it easier on people,” he insisted, “When you have to walk around this place with all this cash on you, you never know if it could get lost or stolen. Plus you end up buying more when you have your card because you don’t have to worry about how much cash you have.”

Warren raises an important point. While credit cards have long been known to provide ample conveniences to consumers, many merchants are hesitant to accept them as methods of payment. Apparently, there is still some fear that the rates associated with credit card acceptance are too exorbitant to make it worth their while. A frequent visitor to the CNE, Prisca noticed this throughout the summer.

“Always appreciate the acceptability to use credit in places, and happy to hear that the CNE allowed for this,” she says, “but, in the five times I went this year, the one consistent thing I noticed is how many vendors around the CNE and food spots in the food building in particular said ‘cash only’.” We’ve commented upon the ancient “cash only” phenomenon in previous blogs. Evidently, some merchants still subscribe to this dying trend.

This is why Canadian POS Corporation is insistent upon providing Canadian business owners with the lowest rates in our industry. We understand that it’s important for merchants to feel comfortable with the fees that they are paying in order to provide their customers with the freedom to pay with credit and debit cards. This is because we also know how much it means to Canadian shoppers to be given this freedom.

If you’re a business owner who still subscribes to the “cash only” concept, you may want to give us a call at 1-877-748-2884 to learn more about the top-of-the-line POS terminals that we offer, and the bottom-of-the-line rates that we have available. If the food vendors at the CNE are willing to finally accept plastic in addition to cash, it may be time that you do the same. After all, people shop all year round. No need to wait until next summer to step up your game!