Bangkok's Chatuchak market to go cashless, get automated parking lots and air-con toilets as part of upgrades

 

File photo

 

BANGKOK: Tourists heading to one of Bangkok's most popular shopping destinations, the Chatuchak market, could do away with cash payments by June, as part of several upgrades that will be made available later this year.

 

The Bangkok Post on Friday (Jan 26) reported that the State Railway of Thailand (SRT), which manages Chatuchak, aims to begin turning the weekend market into a cashless commercial area by June.

 

Shoppers will pay for items through using a single card for their purchases or by QR code, said the SRT's director for land development Siripong Preutthipan.

 

Full story: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2018/01/26/bangkoks-chatuchak-market-to-go-cashless/

 

-- THE STAR 2018-01-26

I bet the locals won't go cashless - how do they set up QR codes with local and farang prices...? will they have two QR symbols on the label ?

No - locals pay with cash - Tourists will be made to pay with QR at 5 times the real price. Another scam..............

42 minutes ago, webfact said:

using a single card

This is like a food centre using coupons. They do this to ensure they know what everybody's turnover is so that the owners can either

1. Charge the market trader a fixed percentage of the take. Payment cards and coupons are great in this regard because the commission is deducted at source and the remainder paid over to the market trader. No need to chase payment.

2. The rents can be pitched accurately and to the maximum to ensure the successful traders are being charged in line with their takings.

 

There is also the added benefit of people not changing their remaining balance back into cash like a free tip for the owners of Chatuchak.

So tourists first have to find the office to buy that paycard, then be in the qeueu to get one, go shopping and hoping that they put sufficient money on the card...then go back to the office and be in the qeueu to get a refund of the leftover cash.

 

I remember my first time on chatuchak, i got lost of course and even couldn't see the skytrain anymore so i took  a taxi home as soon as i saw one.

 

i 'm sure it will always be possible to pay cash.

 

What they should improve is to ban all cars from the wednesday plantmarket.

58 minutes ago, Thian said:

So tourists first have to find the office to buy that paycard, then be in the qeueu to get one, go shopping and hoping that they put sufficient money on the card...then go back to the office and be in the qeueu to get a refund of the leftover cash.

So, if I see something at the market, overhearing someone saying that the price for that item is, say 100 baht, but then the seller wants to charge me the 'falang tourist price' of, say 500 baht, after I arrive at the booth with my 100-baht filled paycard; does that mean that I will have to return to the paycard queue to top-up the card? (Why bother?)

4 hours ago, lonewolf99 said:

I bet the locals won't go cashless - how do they set up QR codes with local and farang prices...? will they have two QR symbols on the label ?

No - locals pay with cash - Tourists will be made to pay with QR at 5 times the real price. Another scam..............

I haven't been there in 20 years. Guess, I won't be going there anytime soon, considering these "improvements"... 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Shoppers will pay for items through using a single card for their purchases or by QR code, said the SRT's director for land development Siripong Preutthipan.

 

Soon they will also arrange a piss-up in a brewery, so I've heard.

Why don't they introduce this with the new spidercard that we can also use for the bts , metro and buses? 

 

 

I bet that these 'cards' will be very easy to top up, but a right pig to try and get the money back that you have not spent on it !

Chutuchuk market going cashless...

It will never work. There are over 4000 stalls and tens of thousands of people there at the weekend who would have no idea about the new system. They will probably put in about 4 places to buy coupons so you will have to queue up for 3 hours to get one !!  Imagine the chaos at 4 pm on a Sunday when people want to cash in their card !  probably a lot of dodgy money changing hands at the market too.

The only one laughing will be the revenue department so they can collect some taxes.

 

Money laundering, illegal copies and fake goods will be history. The illegal copies and the fake goods are going to be taxed too ???

10 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

I bet that these 'cards' will be very easy to top up, but a right pig to try and get the money back that you have not spent on it !

It is most certainly not customer friendly. In a food court it's easy to estimate how much you are going to spend and buy a card accordingly. It's also a very small area. Not so in a market which is huge and you could spend 100 or 10,000 baht. Another stupid idea not properly thought through. Is there any other kind in Thailand?

Going cashless won't likely have any impact on dual pricing. QR codes and/or cash cards have nothing to do with the price of an item being sold, rather it's just the mechanism for the vendor to receive payment. The price of nearly all items at JJ are currently negotiable, and would continue to be so in the future regardless of whether the purchaser is Thai or a foreigner.

 

Going cashless provides great benefits for the market owner, SRT, but is actually a detriment to the individual vendors. As other have mentioned, SRT will most likely use the data gained from clearing transactions to deduct a commission, or set stall rental rates. Because of this, I would expect vendors to be eager to extend additional discounts and accept cash under the table from all customers, not just Thais. The downside to the vendors is that SRT would most likely have people routinely checking for this, and punish those vendors found to be accepting cash.

 

As for customers, I don't see any benefit at all to cash cards. They wouldn't be any more secure than cash, and then there's the issue of having to top them up when needed, or cash them out. As the poster above noted, sometimes we spend 100 baht, and sometimes we spend 10,000 baht, with most purchases being impulsive.

 

 

 I wonder what a vendor will say is I offered a litle less on an item and offered to pay cash?

This is the final nail in the coffin, thats it, Im going home

On 1/27/2018 at 8:44 AM, sanemax said:

This is the final nail in the coffin, thats it, Im going home

I am not going home, but I refuse to transact business with a vendor that will not accept cash.