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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

#91

Post by acdha »

FireBeyond wrote: post #52
acdha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your local laws about that - in some cities you can report those non-tip charges since as they are basically fraud.

Doubtful. If they were on the bill that you were presented before handing over your card, you're assumed to have read and accepted the charges before payment. The only exception would be if it was misrepresented as a tip, or tax (Telcos used to do that one, phrasing their fees as taxes, to the point that "you are not allowed to call a charge a tax unless that charge in its entirety is going to a governmental entity")…

If it wasn’t on the menu before you ordered, it’s unlikely to be legal.

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

#92

Post by tzs »

Walmart has an interesting option when it comes to tips on grocery delivery.

If you have a Walmart+ membership ($98/year or $12.95/month) you get free home delivery on grocery orders of $35/month or more, and tipping is handled just like most delivery services--you don't have to but most people will feel guilty if they don't.

But if you add the Walmart InHome add-on to Walmart+, which adds $40/year or $7/month, then the delivery people are not allowed to accept tips. If you want to show your appreciation Walmart says you can leave a note or comment on your delivery survey.

Note that if you just have groceries delivered once per month, and order the minimum amount for free delivery ($35), and leave a 10% tip (the minimum most people who tip out of guilt will probably leave) that will come to more than $40/year in tips so InHome might actually be a decent deal.

BTW, it is called InHome because no tipping is not actually the main point. The main point is that instead of just dropping your delivery off outside they will put it where you want, including inside your house. They will even unpack it and put things away in your fridge and cupboards if you want. I think I'd find that kind of creepy because I really don't like other people in my home, but I can see how some people could find it useful.

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

#93

Post by do_not_redeem »

bdangubic wrote: post #89
do_not_redeem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting thought experiment: what if a store let you pay by bank wire (let's say $20 fee) Would you stick to your guns and say that cash users have to subsidize expensive wire fees? Or is that too much, and the fairness ends at subsidizing the expensive credit card fees? If so, why the distinction? If you could pay by bitcoin, should cash users pay the bitcoin transaction fees too? :) Also, do you really think…

if paying by bank wire costs $198 and you want to offer it as a method of payment - it is on YOU. amazing people here don’t understand that there is a cost of running a business. you don’t want to pay Visa 11% - don’t. you don’t want to pay apple 30% - don’t make ios apps. it is that simple mate

So your point of view is that businesses shouldn't be allowed to give customers choices that have different costs and charge them fairly? Every option has to cost exactly the same for everyone?

How do you feel about shipping options then? Should Amazon charge the same for 5-day ground as they do for overnight shipping?

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

#94

Post by bdangubic »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #93
bdangubic wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if paying by bank wire costs $198 and you want to offer it as a method of payment - it is on YOU. amazing people here don’t understand that there is a cost of running a business. you don’t want to pay Visa 11% - don’t. you don’t want to pay apple 30% - don’t make ios apps. it is that simple mate

So your point of view is that businesses shouldn't be allowed to give customers choices that have different costs and charge them fairly? Every option has to cost exactly the same for everyone? How do you feel about shipping options then? Should Amazon charge the same for 5-day ground as they do for overnight shipping?

you do realize you are comparing apples to oranges? charging customers for usage of credit card is specifically forbidden so any business doing is in breach of contract!!

this has nothing to do with shipping options. you cannot charge me money for using a credit card mate, it is 2024 (soon to be 2025).

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

#95

Post by britzkopf »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #85
rootusrootus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is effectively no special below-minimum wage in the US either. The servers have to be paid at least minimum wage, with tips or not.

On paper, this is true. In effect, however, it often is not.

How does this rule get circumvented?

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

#96

Post by atmavatar »

dataflow wrote: post #34
acchow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a broken system but it will never go away since tips are tax-advantaged (there's no sales tax on the tip). The mental block can be helped a little by adding 1/3rd to all the menu prices as you read them.

> tips are tax-advantaged (there's no sales tax on the tip) Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but the bigger tax that's avoided here is corporate taxes, I think. The tip goes directly to the employee, and it's thus not taxed as corporate income, is my understanding. EDIT: Ah, I missed that corporate taxes were on net earnings rather than gross, so this wouldn't make any difference. Thank you!

The primary corporate advantages to tips is they allow the business to display artificially low prices to customers (since they don't include the tip) and pay artificially low wages to employees (tipped jobs have a lower minimum wage).

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

#97

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

kernal wrote: post #78

They’re finding new and creative ways to add extra costs to your meal in addition to asking / demanding / shaming you to tip. I’ve solved this problem by not going out to any restaurants and cooking at home. And when I do eat out it’s usually at take out places. It has gotten so out of hand that I think a USP for a new or existing restaurant would be to advertise as a no tipping establishment. Pay your employees a fa…

Since eating out got excessively overpriced I've started cooking more consistently than I ever had before in my life. The food is much better, besides being obviously cheaper as well. And I'm not even saying I'm good at it, it's just easy to find a few basic things you like that aren't hard to do well.

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

#98

Post by acdha »

dismalaf wrote: post #77
acdha wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people do think about pricing - not to the penny, sure, but you have to be really rich not to have an idea about roughly where going out will fit in your budget. There are two reasons why tipping is popular: restaurant owners think it motivates employees to flatter/put up with customers and/or allows them to skim some extra income, and there’s a certain type of diner who loves the power imbalance (e.g. every guy…

> Most people do think about pricing No offence but you're kind of proving my point. I said nothing about a difference in pricing because there isn't unless you actually tip $0 (which statistically very few people do). $24 (restaurant includes tip in price in order to pay servers a fair wage) is the same as $20 + 20% tip. Most of the rest of your comment is what I said with different wording. > high-income service wo…

If your argument wasn’t that a no-tip restaurant would seem higher priced, what was the purpose of your second paragraph?

> There's very few high-service income workers.

Yes, we’re in agreement? I was just referring to how the opposition here would trot out quotes from some bartender who makes $75/hour and not mention that they were the upper fraction of a percent and the median was considerably lower.

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

#99

Post by wrs »

bdangubic wrote: post #94
do_not_redeem wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your point of view is that businesses shouldn't be allowed to give customers choices that have different costs and charge them fairly? Every option has to cost exactly the same for everyone? How do you feel about shipping options then? Should Amazon charge the same for 5-day ground as they do for overnight shipping?

you do realize you are comparing apples to oranges? charging customers for usage of credit card is specifically forbidden so any business doing is in breach of contract!! this has nothing to do with shipping options. you cannot charge me money for using a credit card mate, it is 2024 (soon to be 2025).

In the US, credit card surcharges have been permitted since that contract provision was invalidated in 2013. There are some restrictions that vary by state. [0]

[0] https://staxpayments.com/blog/credit-card-surcharge-guidance...

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

#100

Post by wrs »

voisin wrote: post #87
TheDong wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 2. Charge more for the credit card paying customers, and they can avoid this extra payment by paying with cash. Things may have changed in intervening years but about 20 years ago I owned some quick serve restaurant franchises, and the credit card companies banned charging a fee to customers for use of credit cards - there was essentially a most favoured nations clause in the agreement. If you were caught doing thi…

That was invalidated in 2013. [0]

[0] https://staxpayments.com/blog/credit-card-surcharge-guidance...

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