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Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

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Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#61

Post by godelski »

jackson1442 wrote: post #11
exabrial wrote: post #2

Yes. If you business wants to collect a "tip" up front, before services rendered, it's not a tip (Doordash, Instacart, etc). If 100% of the proceeds don't get straight to the employees, but some end up in the pocket of the business, it's not a tip. This last one is going to be to hear, but if you pay your employees below mimimum wage and allow for tips to make up the difference, well..... Always tip, in cash, direct…

delivery services just need to rename it to a "bid" because that's really what it is.

Economists would probably love this, but I don't think consumers would.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#62

Post by tkuraku »

godelski wrote: post #58
tkuraku wrote: post #38

I think tipping should be outlawed. The price should be the price. Workers should not be subject to inconsistent pay for the same amount of work. In addition it gets rid of any bias in wages (more attractive people or people of different ethnicities might get higher tips for the same work).

We don't have to outlaw it but we should do something more difficult: make it not the social norm.

Not sure how to do that when business can just decide not to pay fair wages and rely on strangers to supplement employee's income through tipping.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#64

Post by denkmoon »

pirate787 wrote: post #19
exabrial wrote: post #2

Yes. If you business wants to collect a "tip" up front, before services rendered, it's not a tip (Doordash, Instacart, etc). If 100% of the proceeds don't get straight to the employees, but some end up in the pocket of the business, it's not a tip. This last one is going to be to hear, but if you pay your employees below mimimum wage and allow for tips to make up the difference, well..... Always tip, in cash, direct…

I worry if I don't tip, they will vandalize my food. It's a hostage situation. I limit my use of the services because of it.

In australia we have no tipping culture and I've always been very against it, but I've found if I don't tip the quality of delivery driver is just abysmal, but if I do tip, I get "regular" service - ie. they come to my door in my apartment building, not just leave it in the lobby, and they usually don't completely fuck it up (ie. squished pizza from holding the box vertically).

It sucks but I just view it as an extra cost for using uber eats.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#65

Post by syngrog66 »

Not exactly tipping but very similar: Panera became very annoying in recent years by hassling me every time I ordered at the cashier about whether I wanted to "round up" to ostensibly donate to some charity or other.

Here's my take: I might already be doing charity work or donations elsewhere, and I'm at my limit. And I went to Panera for food and a place to sit a while. If Panera's ownership or rich executives want to donate somewhere as individuals, do that. If they want to make the biz itself donate, do that. If you want to pass this cost on to customers then simply build it into the pricing. But DO NOT hassle each customer and waste everyone's time with cognitive clutter. If anything it feels like a form of intentional guilt-tripping or griefing. What Panera offers isnt unique enough that a person cant go choose an alternate service.

Anyway, not a rant on tippping itself, but a very similar structure. I believe tipping too should just be built into the prices a business charges. Massively simplifies each transaction and reduces griefing and psychological games. (Really, its another case of a more general rule, imo: simplify, simplify, simplify...)

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#66

Post by noah_buddy »

tmnvix wrote: post #41

I've never experienced the US tipping culture, but have been aware of it for a long time. Am I remembering correctly that the 'standard' tip has been increasing over the past few decades? I don't mean just the dollar amount, but the percentage that is expected. Why has this happened? Is there some standard explanation or justification given for this?

I think it’s gone up because of the cultural marking of “cheap tippers.” You see it lambasted in movies and TV (in Reservoir Dogs it’s even a significant point of foreshadowing). The scale as I understand it is:

For delivery, tip 10-20% on the subtotal based on the size of the order and the service/delivery time (and perhaps your relationship with the deliverer or business, in cases where they have a dedicated pool). Often these people live off tips and their wage doesn’t even cover gas/maintenance on their own vehicles.

Dining in? Outside of very bad service, I’ll tip 18-20% of the subtotal. Service industry is hard and there’s a lot going on. Even with a bad experience, sometimes it’s not your waitstaff’s fault and they’re trying to roll with it themselves.

Take out/coffee/etc: tip 10-15% based on your relationship to the business and price. If I’m going to a pricier coffee place, I may tip less because I do have a upper limit on what I’ll tip for anything paltry (a buck or two for a latte and a muffin).

Moving guys/tradesmen: May slip em a ten if the job was a pain or they were real punctual.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#67

Post by tptacek »

adam_arthur wrote: post #29
tptacek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, tipping is in general a system that shifts some of the employer's costs to customers explicitly, rather than hiding them in prices and wages. It's an idiosyncratic system, but not an irrational one: wages and prices are stickier than tip levels.

Yes, thus higher tippers subsidize lower tippers by reducing the list price of goods. If tipping didn’t exist and were instead embedded in wages, the employer would just raise the list prices commensurately. There’s a fair argument to be made that restaurant wages would decline in aggregate without tipping though. Certainly there would be both winners and losers

Which is generally what you want: for less price-sensitive customers to subsidize the more price-sensitive customers; see: any demand curve chart.

Of course, raising prices is exactly what happens when you eliminate tipping. But prices are sticky; people react strongly to price increases. They can, to some extent, modulate their tipping behavior (from 25% down to 15%), but if all they can do is take or leave prices, some customers will switch restaurants.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#68

Post by bscphil »

giardia wrote: post #44
notch656c wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed the expected tipping percentage go up after most customers started tipping in credit. Tipped workers had to up their game because they can no longer do tax evasion with everything on the record. Back in the days where most paid their restaurant with cash, tips were more like 15%. The move from 15 to more like 20 to 25% almost perfectly corresponds with the amount needed to make the same earnings after tax.

I've always done 20% because it's easy to do in my head. Nowadays it's a low tip for those tip prompts and I punch it in manually if I tip at all. When I delivered food my tip spread was funny. Many people wouldn't tip at all, many would just let you keep the change or give you a token amount (~5-10%), and a few people would give you over 50% tips. Not many gave me 15-25%.

> When I delivered food

A "token amount" is pretty reasonable if you take tipping at face value, no? It's supposed to be a reward for good service. Waitstaff engage with you many times over the course of about an hour, and every person at a table receives service. It's fairly reasonable in this case to tip in proportion to the total bill. On the contrary, it's roughly the same amount of work for a delivery driver to deliver $100 of food as it is $10. Tipping the driver a few dollars (at most) seems not unreasonable in this case. The tip cannot possibly be reflective of any service rendered and it's essentially random what driver you will get, so you're not being biased or harming a particular person.

This is, of course, wholly separate from whether the tipping system is a good idea on the whole.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#69

Post by nayuki »

crtified wrote: post #40

Is this a thing in countries other than the USA?

The tipping situation is numerically very similar in Canada, unsurprisingly.

But at least in Canada, the waiter brings a wireless point-of-sale machine to the table for you to pay. Whereas in American, they take your credit card all the way to the cash register (unsafe!), bring the receipt to your table, make you write the tip and total on the receipt, and collect the receipt.

Re: Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes

#70

Post by DrThunder »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #42
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks. I don't want a welfare state and I don't want to tip either.

You already have a welfare state, but it goes to businessmen instead. The more money you have, the easier it is to pay fewer taxes. Money want to trickle up.

Give us an example of how higher taxes have benefited the low class. Maybe you could use a high tax haven like California?

I think you've made the mistaken assumption that government has your best interests at heart. Has the government trickled down that tax money to worthy causes? Do you expect that same government who gives these wealthy businessmen so much to suddenly invest MORE tax money wisely?

It seems to me that we have constant tax increases with no benefit except to pad elitists pockets in Washington.

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