Businesses Offering Self-Checkouts Are Now Asking For Tips As Economy Crumbles

The following report is by the Wall Street Journal:

Zero interaction with employees during a transaction no longer guarantees freedom from the moral quandary of how much to tip.

Prompts to leave 20% at self-checkout machines at airports, stadiums, cookie shops and cafes across the country are rankling consumers already inundated by the proliferation of tip screens. Business owners say the automated cues can significantly increase gratuities and boost staff pay. But the unmanned prompts are leading more customers to question what, exactly, the tips are for.   

They’re cutting labor costs by doing self-checkout. So what’s the point of asking for a tip? And where is it going?

Ishita Jamar, a senior at American University in Washington, D.C., who has noticed more self-serve tip cues at restaurants she frequents, says

Tipping researchers and labor advocates say so-called tip creep is a way for employers to put the onus for employee pay onto consumers, rather than raising wages themselves. Companies say tips are an optional thanks for a job well done.

Businesses “are taking advantage of an opportunity,” says William Michael Lynn, who studies consumer behavior and tip culture as a professor at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. “Who wouldn’t want to get extra money at very little cost if you could?” 

Square, whose technology powers many iPad point-of-sale machines, says tipped transactions were up 17% year-over-year at full-service restaurants and 16% at quick-service restaurants in the fourth quarter of 2022.  

Airport Blues

Travelers checking themselves out for already expensive bags of chips at the airport say a request for an additional dollar or two feels egregious.

Garrett Bemiller enjoyed not removing his AirPods or making eye contact with anyone when buying an early-morning bottle of water at an OTG gift shop at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport a few weeks ago. Seeing the option on the self-checkout screen to add 10% to 20% to his $6 bottle of water caught him off-guard.

“Just the prompt in general is a bit of emotional blackmail,” says the 26-year-old, who works in public relations in New York City. He skipped the tip.

Warren Williamson, 35, had a similar experience at an OTG in Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport in March. “I thought maybe I was going crazy,” says Mr. Williamson, who works in financial services. He also declined to tip.

An OTG spokesman says that all money collected as a tip is paid out to employees, and that tips at self-checkout machines are pooled among staff working that shift.

It is always our goal to create valuable experiences for our guests while taking care of our crew members, and the option to leave a tip if you have received assistance allows us to do both.

He says

How The Cookie Crumbles 

A label affixed to the bottom of the do-it-yourself checkout screen at the Metairie, La., location of cookie chain Crumbl has a clear directive: “Consider leaving a tip if we made you smile.” 

Emily Clulee and Gracie Sheppard, 20-year-old college students, accepted the suggestion to spend extra on their cookies, which cost about $5 each. Their only interactions with employees, they say, was when they were told to step to the side to wait, and then received their order.  

Ms. Sheppard, who works as a server at a restaurant to help pay for college, says she understands the importance of tipping, and would have felt guilty not leaving anything. “But when no one even helps us, I feel like there shouldn’t even be the option to tip,” she says. 

A Crumbl spokeswoman confirms that both employee and customer kiosks provide a tipping prompt upon checkout and that tips are distributed among bakers in accordance with federal, state and local labor laws.

Employers are legally obligated to give tips to workers. Restaurants and other businesses have faced lawsuits over their distribution practices over the years.

Some tipping researchers say that tips given to a machine may not reach human employees, because protections to tipped workers in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act don’t extend to machines. Lehigh University associate professor Holona Ochs, who co-wrote a book on tipping, says that the practice in self-service settings “exploits the high adherence to tipping norms as a way to generate more revenue for the company.”

Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and an advocate for higher wages for restaurant workers says, “some employers are trying to use increasing tipping as a way to not have to pay people more.” 

Chaia Tacos in Washington, D.C., also prompts self-service customers to leave a tip. Ms. Jamar, the American University senior, says she tips if a friend or employee can see the screen. 

Chaia co-founder Bettina Stern says tips on the self-serve kiosks are “a way of acknowledging all our employees do to provide a hospitable environment.” Tips increased significantly after installing the machines, she says, adding that they go entirely to workers. 

A Help-Yourself Beer Fridge 

Corey Gary, 28, who works at a cybersecurity startup, initially thought it was fun to walk right into a beer fridge at San Diego’s Petco Park and help himself to whatever he wanted during a Padres baseball game. Then the checkout pinged him for a tip. “I was confused, because it wasn’t entirely clear who I was tipping,” says Mr. Gary. He still left 20%.

The tip prompt is automatic at all concession locations throughout Petco Park, a spokesman says, and all tips go to employees. “Guests are not required to leave a tip and may select ‘No tip’ at checkout if they so choose.”

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Fox News also reported on this trend, with day trader Shaun MacDonald writing in giving his thoughts on this and tipping:

I feel like if there’s an automatic question to ask for tipping, there should be fine print stating where these tips go.

It doesn’t have to be huge, but it should be in writing on the screen saying these tips help out employees or these tips go to all employees, which includes management. It should be specified.

[12] In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD. [13] Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.

Ezekiel 22:12-13

This is just ridiculous. I’ve seen some of this already at some businesses where I live, and I just laugh every time I see it. People are working less and I have to do my own self-servicing, but they want me to pay them more!? That’s almost grounds for not shopping at these places at all. I hate self-checkouts and don’t use them, to be clear.

But this demonstrates just how broke and on edge these businesses are.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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