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Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

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Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#161

Post by the_snooze »

JohnFen wrote: post #151
the_snooze wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This makes for an uncomfortable situation where I now have to ask the waiter or bartender if they receive this as a tip. I don't even ask. If it looks like a tip and is computed like a tip, it is one. How the owners and workers hash out their payment structure is none of my business as a customer.

If I'm tipping, my intention is that the money goes to the workers, not the establishment -- so it is my business as a customer. A tip is a gift, and I want to know that the gift is going to who I intend for it to go to.

I think the "gift" idea breaks down in practice when tips have become common and expected, instead of rare and meaningful. It leads to moral hazard where the establishment rationally gives up its responsibility of paying its hired staff.

"Tips as gifts" does work in situations where there is no establishment. For example, musicians on the street with a tip jar.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#162

Post by bruckie »

TheDong wrote: post #17
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Six months ago I was at a burrito place and saw as I was paying that there was a new 3% fee for paying with a credit card. I have not gone back there since. Asking $11 for a burrito was already iffy and by then I'd started to curtail fast food purchases. I can't even imagine paying an 18-20% fee that isn't meant to be the entirety of the tip.

A 3% fee for a card makes perfect sense to me. That's not far off from what the merchant is losing for credit card customers, so their options are: 1. Charge the same for credit cards as cash, and make cash paying customers effectively pay more, thus applying a regressive tax to the poor (who are less likely to have credit cards) 2. Charge more for the credit card paying customers, and they can avoid this extra payme…

Since most people pay with cards these days [citation needed], it seems like it would go over much better if the 3% processing cost were built into the normal price, and then you offered a 3% discount (or 2.91% for you pedants out there) for people paying in cash. The card users don't feel like they're being nickel-and-dimed, and the cash users feel like they're being treated specially.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#163

Post by maxerickson »

jghn wrote: post #135
quickthrowman wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Far more common here are ~3% "kitchen appreciation fees" that get paid directly to the kitchen staff. I'm AOK with these but some people really complain about them. It’s annoying because they could price it in up front. A restaurant bill looks like a utility bill these days with all of the line item charges, just include the damn fees in the price of food!

The argument, which one can choose to agree with or not, is that this allows them to scale BOH pay with how busy the night is. That's similar to how tipping works for FOH staff, but at least in my state BOH staff are not allowed to share in any tip pool.

Are they changing the percentage day to day? If not, it scales the same as higher food prices...

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#164

Post by anotherevan »

American tipping culture is getting exported because of the software, too. Here in the Antipodes, tipping is not the norm at all, but the American produced point-of-sale software has tipping options on by default and they don't get adjusted.

Hang around Australian Reddit groups long enough and you'll see the occasional rant about it.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#165

Post by ttepasse »

cadamsau wrote: post #130
Two4 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why the US doesn't have basic consumer protections, like products and services must be advertised at their total cost to consumer. Why not have supermarket prices marked with sales tax included? Why allow companies to advertise one price and charge another? Why is this not a voter issue?

There’s thousands of different tax regimes in the US - dozens to hundreds in every state, thanks to city taxes and the like. All businesses would need to advertise the right price everywhere. Doesn’t scale. It’d be neat to see a campaign to popularize a term like “final price” or “all-in price”. It’d encourage the creation of products that always show the right price even as taxes change. And consumers would be empow…

If only we had something like automated calculating machines which can query a library of tax dats and calculate the amount through arithmetic and then display it.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#166

Post by BenjiWiebe »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #105
bdangubic wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3% is the cost of doing business. you wanna charge customers for electricity too? what’s that - like 1% more? uniform / apron cleaning - 0.12%? anything else? :)

Incorrect. Visa charges 2.5-3%. It's not part of the burrito like the electricity.

Exactly. The Visa fees are a percentage (sometimes plus a per-tx fee as well). Electric bills don't usually double when the customer spends twice as much.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#167

Post by sys_64738 »

Two4 wrote: post #125
xscott wrote: post #6

The other one I'm seeing lately is a semi-stealth "service charge" on the bill. Something like 18% to 20% added to the bill without really standing out. This used to be something they'd do for "larger parties", but now I'm seeing it even when I'm eating solo. This makes for an uncomfortable situation where I now have to ask the waiter or bartender if they receive this as a tip. Then I need to decide if I want to tip…

I don't get why the US doesn't have basic consumer protections, like products and services must be advertised at their total cost to consumer. Why not have supermarket prices marked with sales tax included? Why allow companies to advertise one price and charge another? Why is this not a voter issue?

> Why not have supermarket prices marked with sales tax included?

It's always been that way in the US so we've come to expect it. It's a bit like 20% of that sales price Europeans pay is VAT.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#168

Post by everforward »

thankyoufriend wrote: post #102
jaco6 wrote: post #19

I work at a Dominos and we of course accept and expect tips on delivery, because without tips the drivers would make But at checkout for carryout orders the card terminal also now opens a tip menu. I would never tip on this screen because the employees are already paid a true hourly wage, albeit a low one, not a server rate that is below minimum wage. Furthermore there is no way for the customer to know if the employ…

As another commenter crudely pointed out with their "not my problem", your boss is supposed to make up the difference between your FWIW, I always tip 20% because that's the society I grew up in, but it always leave a bad taste in my mouth when I'm not exactly sure what I'm tipping for, my wage has been stagnant for several years and all of my own costs are going up. Ultimately it just leads to me going out less, whic…

Delivery drivers incur expenses (gas, depreciation, oil changes, etc) that can result in their “net wages” being below minimum wage.

I don’t think claiming the mileage fully recoups those costs.

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#169

Post by [deleted] »

esperent wrote: post #114
muzika wrote: post #2

Let’s have restaurants raise prices to cover employee salaries, and make it illegal for them to ask for tips. Customers who want to tip need to do so without solicitation. (Not sure how this would work with credit card terminals though).

As the owner of a bakery/cafe - thankfully in a country where tipping isn't normal - changing prices to cover costs isn't a simple thing to do, unfortunately. Customers are extremely sensitive to price changes, and expect certain price points. We have 7% inflation, and our suppliers have no problem raising their prices to reflect that. But we can't match them easily. 50k and 100k VND are prices that customers orient…

[deleted]

Re: Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return

#170

Post by thankyoufriend »

everforward wrote: post #168
thankyoufriend wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another commenter crudely pointed out with their "not my problem", your boss is supposed to make up the difference between your FWIW, I always tip 20% because that's the society I grew up in, but it always leave a bad taste in my mouth when I'm not exactly sure what I'm tipping for, my wage has been stagnant for several years and all of my own costs are going up. Ultimately it just leads to me going out less, whic…

Delivery drivers incur expenses (gas, depreciation, oil changes, etc) that can result in their “net wages” being below minimum wage. I don’t think claiming the mileage fully recoups those costs.

Good point - it's much more complicated than I made it seem. I think we should just pay everyone a living wage and make it much simpler :)
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