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Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

maxinomics.com

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Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dollar is great!

I've gotten poor treatment after giving 10% on a $18 drink before. Edit: so I guess I'd ask what is the approximate reference price for your "A dollar" comment? Cause if it's a $5 can of beer, vs a $20 cocktail those are very different tips.

$18 cocktails are pretty expensive. I work at a brewery so I’m not used to that.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#52
post #41

> Deadweight loss happens when a person who is willing to pay more is charged less than the amount they're willing to pay. > Tom is willing to pay $6 for coffee and the shop only charges him $4, the deadweight loss is $2. That is a consumer surplus, not deadweight loss.

Came here to point that out as well. Deadweight loss is when the consumer surplus is lost because they are eaten by additional costs like taxes.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#53
Wait staff are not paid enough. At least in my state, the minimum wage for tip-accepting employees is horrific. I was a waiter twice and understand all of that so I always tip and try to be generous.

Also, I'm pretty bad at math in my head so I usually guesstimate tips too high.

A downside of tipping on the checkout systems I see is the baked in 15 / 20 / 25% options. OR tap custom and probably stand there like a moron for 5 extra seconds trying to figure out how to work the thing while the next person is waiting to order.

SO I click 25% or whatever the top one is and get out of the way, but it's less than I'd normally have tipped.

I hope overall it leads to servers / wait staff bringing home more.

Anyway, as a former waiter with math insecurity issues there's my $.08 (inflation).

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#54

Some (many?) countries have demonstrated that no-tipping can work just fine. > makes them less competitive to any nearby coffeeshops that haven't raised prices Maybe I'm an outlier but for me I'm sick of the mental game of "Am I good member of society for the % I selected, and how much will my date judge me if I choose what used to be the norm -- 10%-15%... and am I the sucker if I choose a high amount while other pe…

It seems different in the US, where everyone is expected to tip as part of the overall price, like the article describes, and there is tipping Europe where the tip is not needed to boost the wage to an acceptable level but is simply to reward people who have gone above and beyond.

In many restaurants in the UK, a "tip" is automatically included for large parties to reward the extra work required but can be removed on request if they didn't think your service was good.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#55
My main grocery store does pick up, which I use, and flat out says no to tips, instead just adding a 2 dollar charge for doing pick up. Thats the main reason I shop at that one.

If a coffee shop on my way home made it obvious they don't expect tips or even don't accept them, I'd gladly deal with the higher prices. Having someone else make the decision on what total price to me is not too expensive, but also not make me wonder if I'm being stingy, would entice me as a customer.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#56

Is there any empirical backing for this narrative? Some of this reads as pretty counter to intuition. Most suspicious in my mind is the core presupposition (not a contention, a presupposition--the article doesn't even argue for it!) that rich people will step up to the opportunity to fulfill their noble obligation to give more to the less wealthy. Having known some pretty stingy wealthy people (and some very generous…

Having owned a bar in the past I can tell you right now the most wealthy people either didn't tip at all or very little. Fellow service industry people tipped the best.

This leaves me wondering what percentage of a typical service industry worker's salary is usually spent on tipping, and whether it couldn't be the case that if they stopped giving and taking tips entirely they would be better off in aggregate. I guess it depends on what fraction of their income is spent on "tippable" expenses.

I know that in my own case there was a period in grad school where it was only slightly below 50%, implying that almost 10% of my wages were spent on tips... what exactly are the "best" tip percentages that service industry people leave like?

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#57
> Deadweight loss happens when a person who is willing to pay more is charged less than the amount they're willing to pay

That's not what a dead weight loss is. DWL happens when transactions don't happen for some reason (like price controls) and people who would have benefitted from the transaction at the market price can't do so

What the author describes is instead a situation where the consumer keeps the surplus, rather than the business. Regardless of how much a person tips, no wealth is being created or destroyed, it just affects moves from the consumer to the producer.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#58
post #25

As a bartender, I know that I will make more money from tips than any business owner would ever pay me, even if prices were raised 20+% and tipping was removed. I’d rather risk a slow shift with less tips than work a job with a slightly higher hourly rate and no tips. I know there is a lot of bitching online about tips, and I agree that since COVID I’ve seen some absurd situations with asking for tips when the custom…

I think most complaints are coming from customers who don't want to have to consider the wellbeing and livelihood of underpaid employees, who require charity to survive. In most every transaction these days, customers are guilted into providing wages for essentially unpaid employees, and I'm sick of the mind games.

> don't want to have to consider the wellbeing and livelihood of underpaid employees

For me, I want employees to be paid fairly by their employer, which would calculate how much an item/service should cost, instead of shifting this obligation to me.

Examples: going to a new coffee shop. In MOST places (in Vancouver at least), they'll just call you to the counter to pick your order. But some will get it to you. But you only discover that after having paid. So how to tip?

Ordering food for delivery. Giving X% of the order doesn't do, because you might have a cheaper order from a restaurant that's further away, or an expensive one 2 blocks from your place. And you don't know yet if the delivery person is going to be walking and take 30 mins to arrive, or bike. Or if they have a bunch of other deliveries on the way and the food will arrive cold.

So... I would like very much to just be told: it costs X.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#59

Cash tips seem like the way to go primarily because you're not relying on the employer to calculate and distribute them to line employees and because they're not being reported as income and taxed. That might not be the "law", but that's pretty much de-facto what happens everywhere.

> they're not being reported as income and taxed.That might not be the "law", but that's pretty much de-facto what happens everywhere In other words, it punishes the most virtuous; those higher on the spectrum unscrupulousness benefit the most. Not a good arrangement.

For tipped employees, most of whom are getting all their federal and state taxes back at refund time, giving them the money directly does nothing other than increase efficiency of the overall system because you cut a party out of it.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice coffee shops have tiny margins so they can’t afford to do that.

I also hate tipping everywhere, but coffee shops might also like to adjust their prices slightly for customers that don’t mind paying a bit more for well paid staff and for those customers to whom price is a major concern when choosing where to purchase their coffee. Dynamic pricing makes some sense in the concept of trying to capture maximum demand, it just feels horrible as a customer.

we are not machines, if i'm paying more (or even less) than the person in front of me at the line:

1- I'll make a scene

2- I'll never come back

3- It is probably a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen

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