Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#241

Post by Mikeb85 » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #237

Mikeb85 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were to facepalm any harder I'd knock myself out... This is legit among the worst takes I've ever heard. Edit - especially puzzling to hear since software has little to no marginal costs and is almost all capital costs and labour. First of all, typical rent for a coffee shop sized space in a major city is around $8-10k per month. So factor that in. Second, baristas don't get paid on demand... They get paid hourl…

Anywhere you read suggests margins are a lot higher on cafes than restaurants so my point stands I think. I've also been seeing figures like 80 cents thrown around for the true cost of a latte with $7lb beans and $3gal milk, cup included, not rent though. All businesses bear overhead costs, but at least you can sell your used espresso machine for the price you paid for it when your cafe tanks and can get away with st…

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SBUX/starbucks/pro...

Starbucks margin is 10%... And they're the biggest, most profitable and among the most sophisticated operators.

It's hilarious that you're still arguing about COGS when I plainly spelled out what the biggest actual costs are...

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#242

Post by mrguyorama » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 7:35 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #230

mrguyorama wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CC fees should be paid by the product or service transaction. Maybe it's legal but it's not cool that you are basically charging your employees for the right to get a tip from a credit card transaction you are already processing.

So, instead you should not accept CC and expect the employees being happy with higher take from tips and less tips in general as losing people paying by CC would result?

No, instead a business owner should understand that if they want to process CCs, there are fees and they should pay them. Making your employees pay CC processing fees (which is what they are doing) is immoral. Simple as that. Stop being an entitled ass. If you want to run a business, you are required to do business things. It's not free lunch.

My dad is an independent contractor. If he needs a new tool to finish a job for someone, he doesn't make them pay for the tool, because that's just what it means to run a business.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#243

Post by cdkmoose » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #167

willnonya wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution seems clear, stop tipping...

The problem is, it requires everyone to stop tipping simultaneously for the owners to start paying wait staff properly. If only a small fraction of people stop tipping, they'll get shamed as assholes and nothing gets changed.

Or you could change the wage laws and be prominent in announcing it and then people can stop tipping on a known date when the law changes

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#244

Post by RegnisGnaw » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 8:44 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #129

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I own a coffee shop and the employees don't always get 100%. For cash, yes its 100%. For CC they get around 97.8% (I pay 2.2% CC fees).

The CC fees should be paid by the product or service transaction. Maybe it's legal but it's not cool that you are basically charging your employees for the right to get a tip from a credit card transaction you are already processing.

I pay for the credit card processing fee for the item part of the bill.

For example, if someone came in and bought coffee for $20 and left a $10 tip. My credit card fee is $0.66 (2.2% of the $20 which is $0.44 and 2.2% of the $10 which is $0.22). So out of the $10 tip the wait staff gets $9.78 ($10 - $0.22).

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#245

Post by dTal » Fri, Nov 11, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #233

selfhoster11 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but why should it be our wealth? Billionaires seem to have a lot more spare cash sitting around, let them pay for it.

Back in the occupy wallstreet days I did some rough calculations, I wondered "If we appropriated the wealth of every billionaire, how much of a boost in the economy would we have?" It turned out surprising low. It was something like (iirc) 3 months of the economy and the money would be gone. And then who are we going to rob? They are massively relatively wealthy, but accumulated wealth is nearly nothing compared to t…

What's missing in that analysis is that the billionaires not only accumulate wealth, they also redirect flows. It's not just a question of repossessing Jeff Bezos' private jets; it's also a matter of reclaiming the vast sums of money spent on a yearly basis keeping them flying (a nontrivial fraction of the cost of the jets themselves).

Or to put it another way - if you stripped away all of Bezos' liquid assets, don't worry - he'll have more for you to take next month, courtesy of the massive rent-seeking apparatus he would still sit atop.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#246

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 9:37 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #32

pwdisswordfish9 wrote: post #6

> If a coffeeshop wants to pay their employees more they will have to raise prices This does not follow purely from the facts presented. Consider: "If a coffee shop wanted to pay their employees more, the coffee shop itself might take a smaller cut and keep prices the same."

Lol foodservice margins are already miniscule. No, you'll pay more.

[deleted]

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#247

Post by pwdisswordfish9 » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #215

asdff wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that for restaurants, the price of a good portion of meat at home isn't all that cheaper, but for coffee shops? That $6 lattee probably cost them thirty cents of milk sugar and beans and less than a dollar in labor to put in front of you.

If I were to facepalm any harder I'd knock myself out... This is legit among the worst takes I've ever heard. Edit - especially puzzling to hear since software has little to no marginal costs and is almost all capital costs and labour. First of all, typical rent for a coffee shop sized space in a major city is around $8-10k per month. So factor that in. Second, baristas don't get paid on demand... They get paid hourl…

> assume $20 per hour times 8 hours per day for EACH barista. 2 baristas, that's $360 per day

No, it isn't.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#248

Post by pwdisswordfish9 » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 9:56 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #241

asdff wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere you read suggests margins are a lot higher on cafes than restaurants so my point stands I think. I've also been seeing figures like 80 cents thrown around for the true cost of a latte with $7lb beans and $3gal milk, cup included, not rent though. All businesses bear overhead costs, but at least you can sell your used espresso machine for the price you paid for it when your cafe tanks and can get away with st…

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SBUX/starbucks/pro... Starbucks margin is 10%... And they're the biggest, most profitable and among the most sophisticated operators. It's hilarious that you're still arguing about COGS when I plainly spelled out what the biggest actual costs are...

> It's hilarious that you're still arguing about COGS when I plainly spelled out what the biggest actual costs are...

That's not exactly out of trend, considering how this subthread began.

You wrote:

> No, you'll pay more

... when that was not the question. The question was whether "they will have to raise prices" is accurate.

(If the author had omitted "have to" and just wrote "if a coffeeshop wants to pay their employees more then they will raise prices" (as you more or less have done here), then that would be fine. There's a reason they didn't, though. Inserting the "have to" is a rhetorical sleight of hand. It's a form of hyperbole that makes it sound like the price increase is an unavoidable consequence that follows naturally from the facts and a set of common logical axioms, even though it doesn't.)

The other commenter's choosing to argue about cost of goods, even though that isn't the issue you're prosecuting, is a lot like your choosing to argue that they will raise prices, even though that wasn't the issue I was prosecuting.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#249

Post by Mikeb85 » Sat, Nov 12, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

pwdisswordfish9 wrote: post #247

Mikeb85 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were to facepalm any harder I'd knock myself out... This is legit among the worst takes I've ever heard. Edit - especially puzzling to hear since software has little to no marginal costs and is almost all capital costs and labour. First of all, typical rent for a coffee shop sized space in a major city is around $8-10k per month. So factor that in. Second, baristas don't get paid on demand... They get paid hourl…

> assume $20 per hour times 8 hours per day for EACH barista. 2 baristas, that's $360 per day No, it isn't.

Yes, my bad. Arithmetic error, $320, happy? Happens when you have a 3 month old and get no sleep.

The point is that COGS is *NOT* the important cost to consider for a cafe. Starbucks' financial reports corroborate all the things I've said regardless. Amortisation and depreciation, real estate, labour, etc... are all more significant costs than ingredients.

Re: Why Is Tipping Everywhere You Checkout?

#250

Post by tamiral » Tue, Nov 15, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

1-more wrote: post #143

lbriner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. This is often the case in the US where it's default 18-20% for parties of more than 6-8 in my extremely unscientific recall. What's funny is that now 20% is already the default so they just made it a bit easier on the diner is…

basically the same up in Canada large groups of people 6+ in smaller venues, 8-10+ in other for the group tip... and some even ask for another tip afterwards...