Taiwan is a cash based society. Not many people have credit cards, debit cards aren't really a thing here, and there are no such things as checks. Most everything is paid with cash, so it's not uncommon to see somebody with a huge wad of bills (the biggest bill is around 30 usd) going to pay for a thousand dollar TV. While most bills are paid by taking the bill to a convenience store and paying cash.
Online buying is becoming more and more popular here, even though it's still light years away from the convenience of something like Amazon. It's usually individuals and small businesses that sell things online. But without credit cards, how do you pay?
Well Taiwan has come up with quite a few ways to handle this problem. One way is direct transfers, but since you can't do this online, you need to go to the ATM and transfer your money from your account to that's person's account. Granted this seems a bit unsafe, so usually this way is only used to transfer money between friends.
Cash on delivery is a big business here, with Taiwan having three or more big delivery companies which only deal with cash on delivery service.
The final way is what you see above. Many companies allow things to be sent to a convenience store near you. You then go to that store to pay cash and pick up the package. It's a very convenient and safe way to buy things online. In fact more and more people seem to being going to convenience stores just to pick up packages.
The picture above is a package from the very popular books.com.tw which has their packages solely delivered to 7-11 for their customer's to pick up. Which I must admit confused me the first time I heard a friend say "I need to pick up my new books at 7-11." Cause when you think of 7-11 and books, you think of trashy romance novels with Fabio on the cover.
