Payment Trends April 2024 | Biz To Biz Podcast | Episode 240

You are now watching the Biz to Biz podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Steven Seagal of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we'll be discussing payment trends for April 2024. It is April 29th, 1:07 PM Eastern Time. Yeah, how you doing?

Doing good.

I'm feeling better. My teeth don't hurt. Oh, they're sore. My mouth, my side of my mouth is a little sore. Pause. Uh, from oral surgery.

Well, that's good you're feeling better.

I am feeling a little better.

My—

I'll be happy when this— when I can get back to my regular scheduled eating protein eating schedule. I'm on mushy food for—

I'll make you a filet mignon in the blender. How's that?

Oh, no thanks, bro.

Blender filet?

I don't eat meat.

Okay, how about a blender chicken?

I don't eat chicken.

Okay, how about blender—

I'm not eating no blended fish.

Okay.

No, I can't eat none of that. It's because it'll get in me too. I can't even eat a salad, bro, for 30 days.

How about a delicious chicken broth?

I don't eat chicken.

I don't know what kind of soup. What kind of soup?

I had— I did have last night, I had, uh, roasted red pepper and tomato soup.

Okay, that sounds good.

It was— yo, for 3 days I've been on a liquid diet. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday— well, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I'm like, yo, there's gotta— I can't— I don't want just broth.

Yeah, tomato soup. You could make a soup out of butternut squash.

But I wasn't After reading it, it's— it was— I wouldn't— shouldn't have ate it.

Oh, okay.

But I can— I said, you know what, in technically in time, yeah, it had been 3 days. Okay. It had been over 72 hours since my surgery. So I said, I'm having this soup. My stomach was rumbling and tumbling. I was hangry. And yeah, so it was time to put some, some calories on.

All right, so So on another note, Steven Seagal, the funniest TV show he's on, it's this Steven Seagal lawman show where he like, right, he's like a policeman riding around with the cops.

I can't stand that.

And it's— I know what you're talking about. So one night, like, that comes on like late at night, right?

Yeah.

So I'm watching it, the cops are like arresting this guy, and the guy's like Man, I'm getting arrested by Steven Seagal!

I've seen that clip before.

That's the funniest shit ever. It's like I was like so happy.

It's like, it's like Shaq when he was with the Miami police. Oh, that was terrible.

Yeah, they, and they film it, people, and he was arresting people. Yeah, they're like, oh, I'm getting arrested by Shaq.

Yeah, no, no thanks. I, I, my, uh, Alfred Justice, that's all I think about, right? Is that Steven Seagal?

No, his was Steven Seagal. Lawman.

No, I'm talking about the movie Out for Justice.

I don't know. Yeah, he has that movie.

That's the one.

The guy Marked for Death. That's another one.

Out for Justice, I think, is the one where he put the cue ball inside of the towel when he was in that pool hall. Oh my. When I was a kid. Yeah, that was the most awesome shit ever, dude. Like Steven Seagal was whooping ass in that bar. He destroyed everyone. He broke the pool stick in half and he was— Yeah, the one guy came out and broke the pool stick.

And then he just looked at the guy, then he did it, and then he just beat the crap out of him.

That was— I'm gonna have to watch that because that's a terrible—

it is terrible. It is a terrible movie. They are terrible, but it's kind of funny.

Those '80s and early '90s action flicks were just violence. Yeah, straight violence. And I can't— no wonder I'm the way I am.

Yeah, they just whooped booty.

They whooped ass.

Yeah, they whooped their face.

So let's see what you got going. First, number one thing on here is the tipping thing. I will say this. Yeah, after you mentioned it last week, now I had all day yesterday, right, to not do anything.

Okay.

And I didn't do— I just didn't do anything. All right. And I'm, you know, I did a lot of scrolling and I would be lying if I didn't say that I seen a bunch of people talking about tipping, especially on LinkedIn.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, we had 21,000 people view that post, 21,605 impressions, impressions, whatever. 71 people commented. There's also quite about a lot of likes. A lot of people wanted to know whether the sea bass was fresh or frozen.

I'm not talking about that specific post that I've seen. No, I'm saying like people just in general. Uh, one that made me chuckle was Target set up a— they're on their app, you can buy straight through Target and they'll deliver it to you, right? I didn't know that.

Yeah, they do that.

Well, The person asked for an $86 tip because of the cost or whatever, you know, like the percentage of— right, I don't know how they figure it out, but the tip would have been $86. So obviously, I don't know, 10% of what is that, like $800? Exactly right. So that's a big tip for a delivery.

Yeah.

I mean, I could see if it's like, you know what I mean, like, uh, well, I don't know, the $800 could have just been sofa.

It could have been like one TV.

No, like, these aren't even $800 anymore. No, no, but I'm saying like, you'd have to buy like a 900-inch TV for it.

No, but I'm saying like, I had two guys come here, clean the carpet in the office, right?

How much did you tip them?

$20 each. They were here for an hour.

That's a good tip.

Okay.

And I mean, I might be old school, but you know, like $20.

They were like really happy.

That's what I'm saying. I gave a guy who delivers my water $20 and he was ecstatic. Yeah, you know what's crazy?

I went online to like get extra bottles of water for the office.

Yeah.

Because we've been drinking a lot more water. And so when I did that, there's a line on there and they're asking for a tip for the driver. I'm just saying.

I mean, I'm cool with giving a tip to a driver for that.

I'm saying, well, I would rather just give the guy cash.

And I guarantee you he would rather have cash, right? He's going to actually spend it on something that he needs rather than get taxed on it.

Well, usually like a couple of times a year, I give like the regular UPS guy— we don't have a regular FedEx, but we have a regular UPS guy that comes. And the water guys, the same guy, I usually give them like a $50 gift card.

There you go.

Couple times a year. Here you go, boom. 'Cause that way I know they're gonna spend it. Usually I give them—

They're gonna take care of you, man.

No, but usually I give them Amazon. Everybody uses, buys Amazon.

Yeah, 'cause the— It's easy. I was having a few issues with my water bottles. They were, you know, when you get 'em, I use Crystal Springs because I like their water, whatever., and, they were leaking. Right. After I tipped them that money.

Yeah.

I haven't had no leaky bottle since.

Well, that's good. But the other thing is, is like you go to a concert, like I went to a play and you go to the concession stand, the person standing there, oh, can I have a bottle of water and a popcorn? Right. I don't even want to say how much it was. It's a crime. How much it costs. And then on the screen, they're asking for a tip, and I feel like really bad.

No, man, that's not fair.

No, no. So I'm about to press the button for the tip, and the person behind the counter says to me, oh, don't do that, we don't get the money.

Exactly. I'm like, how can you never tip? Like, that's like going to McDonald's and tipping them. I don't understand how that can be a thing.

Like, no, but I want to know, why are the employees telling me— like, I've had valet guys tell me, plenty of people, I've had at the food concession stands at stadiums tell me that they don't get the tip money. Don't get— don't put the tip on there.

Do you think that they're saying that because they don't want to be taxed for it, so it makes them—

no, I don't think they're getting it. I think if they got the money, they would let you do it, but they're going to get taxed on it. But they say they don't get the money. But who cares if you get taxed? They're going to make more money.

If everybody— if you go to the concession stand, like at the Marlins game, believe it or not, Allen, what, that little bit of extra tipping can put them in a different tax bracket.

I understand that, but they're telling— they're saying they don't get the money. The valet guy, my mom, he slipped them a dub. Yeah, take it. And if it's the regular dudes like that, I know all the time, like at my mom's building, If I see the same person there and they don't take my cart across the street and they—

you slip them a $20.

I slip them a $5 or a $10 for a $10 spot so they remember me. Sometimes I give them $20. Christmas time, whatever. I mean, it's not like I go there 3 times a week.

I'm not trying to assassinate you, man. Relax.

No, but the tip thing is tipflation. I saw another article where somebody was saying like, who's all the tipping to blame on? Is it the business's fault? Is it the— Is it the credit card processor? No, the technology companies. A lot of time the processor doesn't even know that the business is doing that 'cause they just turn on the tip option on their point of sale. They can just turn it on. They just turn on the tip button and then it pops up and then they program it. And someone—

So like at McDonald's, for instance, Do you think they're getting the tips?

I don't know.

How the hell can you do that? Like, how? Yo, like, you need to pay your workers more.

Well, not bad if they give them the tips, great. If they're not giving them the tips, I think the business owners need to be—

I'm not tipping you at McDonald's, bro.

Well, I'm saying if— then hit zero. You—

I, I definitely—

I had zero at one place.

That's like going to the grocery store. Yeah, you doing self-checkout and pressing the tip button. Like, what the fudge?

I'm waiting for Publix to start asking for tips at the checkout.

They ask for money all the time.

They say that— no, give the people money. Publix, they don't ask for money.

No, I'm talking about for this charity, this bullshit.

Oh yeah, they're always asking for charity.

No thank you, sir.

Yeah, I say I gave at the office.

I, I say I have my own nonprofit and it's Six Daughters. So tip me.

No, but it's, uh, no, but it's this whole tip thing is crazy. Somebody was writing that they went to eat at First Watch somewhere and the tip button on the, on the tablet said 20%, 30%, and 40%, or 25, 30, and 40. 40% on a breakfast?

That's a lot of money, man.

And the breakfast is not— and the breakfast there is like $15, $20 per person.

Yeah, no, I know. That's insane, bro. That's just not okay.

Yeah. But I've been told many times by employees, or the one thing I really don't like is, like, we posted a thing on LinkedIn. It was about this restaurant that had a 4.75% security fee on top of the bill. Or restaurant, which everybody didn't like that. People were saying that, I would say half the people said they would deduct that from the waiter's tip.

Right.

Or like, I went to a restaurant once and they included the tip, but they didn't say anything like, oh, the tip's included. And there was still a tip line on the credit card slip. That's kind of sneaky. Yeah.

I mean, I will say that the tipping thing is— they've crossed the point of no return.

So it's jumped the shark.

Jumped the ship.

The shark, they call it.

I've never heard that.

Yeah, they say like for TV shows, did that TV show jump the shark? Like they went over the top too much.

It was definitely over the top.

Yeah, tipping has gotten out of control.

Yeah, let us know what you think.

Yeah, what do you think? I mean, you know, some restaurants, some businesses add a fee to the credit card processing, but you know, do you deduct that from your tip if you see that?

I mean, I don't want to be— I don't go out enough to, to like really— the, like, the last time I've had a tipping situation, I just gave him cash. And you know what I mean? The fees, the fees are crazy. Everything you— everything's got this fee, this fee, this fee. Like, they don't go out— they were calling on the post that he posted, it was a security fee, right?

What the f—

What is a security fee? Do you mean I'm paying for your security guards? Or is it like a cybersecurity fee? Like what security am I paying for? And why am I paying for your security? I don't get it. Like I didn't get that at all. The woman commented under Toast with the Toast instructions, label it whatever you want to label it basically.

Yeah.

Jedi training fee, you know what I'm saying? Like, what? Whatever, I don't know.

Yeah, Toast, they're giving specific instructions to the restaurants, different options on how to name the fee to add it on. If you go out to eat and it's $100 and they put a $4 charge on there, I'm not really punishing the waiter for that. I think the restaurant should have signage or it should be on the menu if they're going to do that. That way, something I'm going to care, but I'm going to care if it's not posted and it's a surprise.

Right.

You know, I prefer to just see it on the menu. And restaurants, you know, they want restaurants to post like cash price, credit price. I think that's asking too much. I mean, the price of food is changing so rapidly. These restaurants are— I hate it when I go to a restaurant and I see sticky things, not, you know, like little stickers on the menus.

You just mentioned the price of food, and there was something I wanted to talk about.

Yeah, no, but I'm saying like they put stickers on the menu and write a new price on there. I mean, it's going to come a time soon where you're just going to have an electronic menu because the price of food's going up and down. The other thing is, what about this thing? What do you think about dynamic pricing? So dynamic pricing, I know what it is, it's like Uber. It's, it's really busy, so, or it's rush hour and they charge more money. For your raw.

I think a restaurant should be able to do that. Absolutely not.

Wendy's wants to do it.

I know, and they're gonna get away with it, I think, because every time you go to Wendy's, yeah, it's you. I mean, people who have kids, yeah, like their 4 for $4 thing, right? That's going to be 4 for $40.

That's bad.

I mean, that's crazy. But so this article I was reading, um, about Publix Publix profits are up 49% to $4.3 billion in 2023 compared to $2.9 billion in 2022. And what this article is saying is that this is a strategic thing with a bunch of grocery— basically, Publix has a monopoly of grocery stores in, in Florida because there's not You don't have— there's not— you don't— what's the other option? Winn-Dixie, Whole Foods. Ideal. You have Ideal, Winn-Dixie, Aldi, Aldi's, Trader Joe's, Publix, Whole Foods. Yeah, so there's like 5, right? Other than that, it's like, you know, you got your mom and pop, small, local— I call them bodegas. There's not a— there's not one freaking bodega in South Florida, which just—

well, maybe in Miami, not here, not in Fort Lauderdale.

It's So sad, bro. I mean, whatever. But yeah, so like they're saying that there's— it's not just because of inflation. Yes, there's a lot of inflation happening in the whole United States. But them specifically, she said that the grocery store chains contributed to inflation, which reached a 40-year high of 9% in 2022 by exploiting supply chain bottlenecks and coordinating price hikes with one another to increase profits. That is messed up.

One thing I will say this, I think that on groceries themselves that they make, you know, like cans, canned goods and dry goods, they don't make a huge profit on. But one thing, if you notice in grocery stores, especially in the last, I would say 3 to 5 years, right? The amount of cooked food has increased dramatically. I mean, at my Publix, there's an entire row of cooked meals to buy, like pre-made dinners. What do you mean?

Like, oh, like in the TV dinners?

Yeah, like pre-made dinners by the deli. Yeah, yeah, of all kinds of different stuff.

I mean, Publix deli, I don't eat meat, but from what I, I mean, from what you can Obviously, if you aren't blind, you could see that they obviously make good sandwiches and whatever comes out of the deli is great. My dad loves it.

But it's crazy. You go to Publix, a chicken or rotisserie chickens, they're like $7, $8, $9, right?

Depending on the size.

Right. And then if you go to Costco, they're $4.99.

Right. I mean, is the chicken at Costco not a chicken and it's just got the tube in its head and it's just growing?

I don't know what exactly. So I have no idea. I don't know where they get the chickens.

I think there's a lot of— there's a lot of chickens, and I don't— I, I just don't see how there's that many chickens to feed us. I don't know. There's a— I mean, Wingstop ran out of chicken wings and they were selling chicken thighs. I'll tell you one thing, how do you have chicken thighs But no chicken wings.

I'll tell you what was driving me crazy for a long time was that I saw videos where they were taking chicken from the United States, kill the chicken here, send it to China to get processed, and then ship it back. I don't want to eat that chicken.

I'm not eating none of that shit. I'm in my backyard.

I don't want to eat—

trying to get my veggies popped.

And I don't want to eat any of that plant-based food either.

I don't eat that bullshit either.

Tried it for a while, not eating that.

I mean, anything in moderation, like I call it junk food. So if I want to eat something quick and easy, or if I'm, you know, if like a cheeseburger for instance, I crave, I still crave burgers. Right. You know, I mean, I've been a vegetarian for almost 25 years now. So like.

You don't slip a burger once in a while?

I'll take a bite.

Okay.

It doesn't agree.

Let's get into—

I had a bite of some steak the other day, yo. I mean, I might— I'm definitely going to listen to this doctor friend of mine, and once a month I'm going to go have a steak.

Okay, so let's see. Another story is Walmart all of a sudden says they want to remove self-checkout because loss— because they're taking too many losses.

They're taking hella L's, bro.

They're getting robbed blind.

Hey, I know some people who Man, yeah.

If you go to the self-checkout at Target, when you walk up, there's everything. I mean, you're on—

what is that, closed caption television?

No, no, they got a TV screen and the person will be talking. They'll be saying, oh, did you, uh, there's an item you didn't scan. Yeah, yeah, they're watching you.

Oh, for sure, for sure. I mean, there's TVs everywhere.

I know, but they don't have that at Walmart. Walmart, it's a free-for-all.

So it's You think that, right?

No, no, I'm saying it looks like a—

you remember me talking to you about that? There's a— so Walmart, there's cameras in all those.

Of course there's cameras. Yeah.

And the general public doesn't know that, right? You know what I'm saying? People are just thinking, oh, I'm going, I'm scanning this shit. But you know what a social credit score is?

Well, they have a score at Walmart. I heard that they wait for the people to steal more than $1,000 and then they hit you with the felony. Yeah, then they pinch them because that's a felony. I've seen some videos of it where they arrest people and then they're like, I wasn't stealing that much. And they're like, yeah, well, we have you on camera. You stole like from 5 different Walmarts.

Exactly.

They caught some guy who also was— he was stealing TVs from Walmart and then he was trying to return them. He bought one TV, but then he stole like 20. Hey, he tried to return.

I never knocked the hustle, man. It's a big corporation, bro. Like, Walmart has trillions of dollars. Come on, man.

They caught him. He had a whole truck full of TVs outside.

Yeah, Walmart. I hope you guys don't take away self-checkout. I love it. I don't steal though. I mean, I actually go— self-checkout is very convenient if you have two items.

Yeah, if you have a few items, it's very convenient.

I like the way that they're doing it at this one. The self-checkout is kind of like Target. Right, at this one Walmart that my wife drives. It's up on way the hell out somewhere, okay? University. It's in Davie, okay? And, um, we're in Florida, by the way, so Davie, Florida. Um, it might be— no, that's Davie. So, but there's like— it's a similar layout, like just like Target. They got the screen up here and there's actually people, right? Like 2 people assigned to the area. So they're, they're just there but there's also the self-checkout at the other end of the place where the line is all the way to the back where the damn milk is.

That's crazy.

Yeah. What about this FedNow stuff?

Yeah, the FedNow thing, you know, ACH has been on the rise all for the last few years, but like the FedNow thing is not like catching on the way they thought it would.

That article I shared you, they— to me it made it seem like They try to make it seem like banks are adopting it, but then later on in the article, just how many banks are in America? 80,000?

More than that, probably like 100,000.

Well, in the article it said like 80.

Yeah.

Right? There was less than 1,000 of these banks that are using FedNow and the guy—

Well, there's no need for it.

The CEO or whatever, the guy who's running the FedNow for the government, was like, he's got— he's got— we're gonna be in the upper 5 figures in no time. I'm like, bro, you're at 800 banks. Yeah, that's a big— you're talking about a lot.

And they don't even have to do— and some of the big banks haven't signed up. But the thing is, you already had RTP, which is the Real-Time Network. That's been— that almost all the banks have that. So there was the Fed now— doesn't make any sense. They're just repeating what the Real-Time Network does, which is mostly used for you know, like transactions between businesses. So it doesn't make sense, the whole Fed now. And also Zelle, right, is moving money in real time. But now there's a thing in there, if you sent Zelle and then all of a sudden some guy ripped you off, if you do it within 24 hours, you can get your money back.

I did see that. Shout out to Zelle. So, you know, because there's been a couple of times when I sent my rent and I was like, Dude, I really hope that's the right one, you know, it's because it's like, ouch.

No, but let's say you bought something and then it's not the right thing, but you can't pay with Zelle for buying purchases. No, but I'm just saying that's how FedNow works. That's how they want it to work. They want it to be a real-time Fed.

No, they want you to tap your phone and you're out.

That's never gonna happen.

It's just China.

Yeah, well, China is— everybody pays with WePay and WeChat. That's how you pay over there.

That's what I'm saying. That's what— that's what the FedNow is That's what they want.

But people don't want that. We have a credit system. What people don't understand is, is in the United States, we have a credit system. The credit system is people have credit cards and it's unsecured credit. Outside of the United States, credit does not work the same way.

No, we know. We talked about this. Right.

We've talked about it a bunch of times. So yeah, if you're going to— if you're in a cash society like China, you can only spend what you have. Yeah, that works. But that's not how businesses and people operate in the United States. Been operating on a credit system for 100 years. Okay, now you want to change to a cash system? I mean, that's not— people are not going to go along with that.

A cashless?

No, a cash system where you can only spend what you have.

Oh, that will get cash or credit.

Yeah, right, right, right, right, right. Cash. You know, there's a big difference. I don't know. Now they're trying to get neobanks to use it, fintechs to use it. People don't want to use it because real-time payments comes with real-time.

No one trusts the government.

Exactly. But it also, real-time payments comes with real-time fraud. So when you move, even like now, like if I'm ACHing out money to, to a vendor, it says, oh, you're sending this money. Make sure you're sending it to the right person because it's gone and there's no, there's no getting your money back.

Right.

So yeah, you got to make sure that you're doing that. And then the government's trying to cap late fees on credit cards to $8 and not let banks jack people up. They're late and all of a sudden they raise your interest rate from 17% to 28%.

I almost got scammed yesterday. I was this close to giving my— So I'm sitting, I'm sitting with my wife at the— not sitting, but real quick, we were, uh, I was, I was out somewhere with my wife and I get a phone call. I'm like, I should answer this, you know, you answer your phone, right? Right. We say that all the time. So I answer it and it's— they say it was Capital One Bank, right? And I'm thinking to myself, I don't— I know I have this on autopay.

Right.

So how the hell would I have missed a payment, right? And he's like, yeah, yeah, so you're gonna pay the $60 late fee, right? And I'm like, what? Uh, I'm gonna go home and make a payment. He's like, no, no, before you get off the phone, you know, you got to make sure you verify your information with me. And then he's like, can I have the email address that's associated? And I give him my email address and he's like, no, that's not the one that we have on file. And I'm thinking to myself, it's the only email address that I would have used, right, for this account, right? And he said it again. So how about, uh, you didn't know? He's like, well, just give me your Social Security number. And then, you know, and I just hung up the phone.

I'm like, definitely a scam.

Oh yeah, he was trying to scam the shit out of me, man. I would— that was, that was a good— they had me going because then I went home and checked and I'm like, I'm looking at my credit cards, I'm like, all my The one, the Capital One, the one card that I have with Capital One, that's not due till the 4th, right? It's not late. It's not May 4th, bro. May the 4th be with you. But it's not. So yeah, I'm glad I was always at the laundry.

And the other big thing that was in the news is this whole thing with the non-compete. So the FTC came out and they're gonna, you know, they put the kibosh on the non-compete. So now businesses are gonna have to change what they're doing.

And I think I think that's a really terrible idea. I think we should have a— we should probably talk about that again.

Okay.

In the future. The non-compete thing is—

well, we can do a whole podcast.

That's just bad. That's bad. That's going to be bad. The— what they're opening up for, people are going to be stealing people's ideas left and right, and that's just a really shit—

well, you can do other things in the— well, you can— yeah, but still, we'll talk about that. Yeah, we do a big— we can do a whole podcast.

The non-compete thing is terrible, man.

No, it's going to be hard for businesses, you know, to function.

I could go start my own payment processing company tomorrow.

You can't steal my customers. But then again, who knows how this is going to— until that's what I'm saying, until it goes to court.

I wouldn't do that. I'm not that type of person. But still, anyway, people are that type of people.

Well, that's the problem with it. If someone could steal an idea, someone could steal customers. It's kind of a problem. There has to be some problem. There has to be limitations on it, and right now there's no limitations.

Yeah, I don't want to get— dive into it. Yeah, I've signed so many non-competes, it's crazy. But yo, man, that's the podcast for the day. Payment trends of April. You got any, uh, comments about tipping, FedNow, Walmart, and the, uh, inflation with the food, we'd love to hear from you. Get at us, follow us. Subscribe to the channel. Peace.

Peace out. Carpe diem. You've been busted by Steven Seagal.