MONEY

Cashless parking options attract younger customers

Nichole Dobo
The News Journal

WILMINGTON – After parallel parking on North Market Street, L.B. Nesmith stopped to deposit a coin in the parking meter.

For a quick shopping trip on a Monday morning, he picked the low-tech method for paying. The meter also allows motorists to swipe a credit card to avoid a dreaded parking ticket.

"It probably would bring more people in to Wilmington," Nesmith said of the ability to park without fiddling with a pocket full of spare change.

Paying with a credit card for a purchase that could be handled with a few quarters, dimes and nickels might strike some people as odd. But businesses hoping to attract younger customers might consider adding more electronic payment options.

Slightly more than half of adults ages 18 to 29 prefer plastic to cash – even for payments of less than five dollars, according to a new survey from CreditCards.com. The trend isn't just that age group. Consumers who are younger than 49 prefer credit about 46 percent of the time. Those who are older than 50 prefer cash 77 percent of the time.

And this generation is also more likely to prefer living in a city over the suburbs, according to "Millennials – Breaking the Myths," a March report from Nielsen. About two in five say they plan to live in a city.

"As a result, for the first time since the 1920s, growth in U.S. cities outpaces growth outside of them," according to the Nielsen report.

When it comes to shopping downtown in any city, the issue of parking has long been a debate. Businesses worry that lack of easy options will send people off to expansive asphalt parking lots of suburban malls. Motorists try to avoid getting socked with a ticket for an expired meter.

Within the last few years, more cities in Delaware are moving to meters that allow for paying by credit card.

At Rehoboth Beach, for example, a smartphone application allows people to refill a meter with the tap of a button, saving them from a sprint from the boardwalk to the car. Credit cards are no longer accepted in the meters – motorists must link a credit card to a smartphone application to pay the parking meter with plastic.

And in Newark, home to many University of Delaware students, electronic meters line Main Street. City officials have experimented with similar smartphone technology. Newark also is considering a rule that would wipe out remaining time on high-tech meters if a motorist leaves before time runs out.

Gemma Buckley, owner of the 9th Street Bookshop in Wilmington, said she believes there is ample parking in the city for her customers, and she would not be in favor of following Newark's lead.

Sometimes Buckley makes change for customers to feed the meter, she said, but the electronic payment adds convenience for those who want to pay that way.

"The credit card does seem to give people another option," Buckley said.

And for many 20- and 30-somethings, a cashless experience is more the norm.

"I think those people mostly use cash because that's the way we've always done it," Matt Schulz, a senior industry analyst for CreditCards.com said in a recent interview with USA Today. "But Millennials have grown up doing things like going to school and using a prepaid card to pay for lunch. For a lot of younger folks, cash is just something that they don't carry around."

USA Today reporter Lisa Kiplinger contributed to this report.

Contact Nichole Dobo at (302) 324-2281 or ndobo@delawareonline.com. On Twitter @NicholeDobo.