Digital Tips At Retail Stores

Random question

Recently I’ve been finding local retail locations move away from having a physical tip jar, and now have digital tips. But it never lets you pick a custom tip. It is always 15, 20, 25%.

I’m suspicious that these tips don’t actually go the employee, but to the managers or owners.

Does anyone happen to know if a digital tip at the registration in locations such as Ice Cream stores, bakeries, Starbucks, clothing stores, etc go to the employee that actually serviced you?

It varies by establishment, theres no way to really tell you. The tip you put in the machine will go to the owner. At that point, there are a few avenues for the employee to get the tip that I know of from experience:
1-the cashier will take the money from the cash directly upon transaction and pull the equivalent tip out
2-the machine prints out the tips accrued over the shift so the employee knows what to take
3-the employee forgets and you tipped the owner
4-some other things I probably overlooked

5. The owner keeps the money and continues paying the worker the bare minimum

6. Not eating the yellow snow is not an option

7. Dont trust numbered list of advices coming from frogs, dogs and bears.

If you want to tip the ice cream shop worker, carry some small bills and use those. Aside from the stupidity of wondering whether it makes it to them, they'll be taxed on anything going through the console while they probably won't report the bills.

If it's too much trouble to keep physical money on hand, then you probably don't care that much about tipping to begin with and you're just being coerced by guilt-based social conditioning. In that case, get over it and slam that zero.

Counter service never deserves a percent, and the ice cream scooper won't go on a date with you because you hit the 25, btw.

Tipping isn't even a thing in the UK, cause it's against the law for stores to underpay workers in the first place to make them rely on them.

Oh my!

I just got back from a business trip to the UK, Manchester to be precise, and in every restaurant there was an added service charge to the bill the server informed me about prior to paying. Mind you it wasn't the 15% - 20% we see in the states, but times are changing.

ugh tip culture, lets not support it. I only tip the barber and ubereats, but because its just expected. I kind of stopped tipping at bars lately, they just treat you like cattle and the drinks are the worst quality. Maybe a dollar or two but still. I'll just pretend I'm from Europe.

I've never considered tipping at a retail store. I'll tip a waiter if they keep up with my refills, that's it.

I don't tip anything when I order my stuff standing up or not with a physical person.

Service fee is a scam. A steak for a dollar with 100,000% service fees is not a one dollar steak.

Carry small bits of cash for service workers, and never round up that donation to charity. All they do is use it as a charitable donation from the corporation to offset their taxes. If you wanna donate or tip, do it directly.

This is fundamentally not how taxes work. Please educate yourself and stop spreading misinformation.

This is easily disproven

So fundamentally, if I went out for ice cream and was given the digital prompt to tip.

Should I tip, or should I not tip?

"Should I tip?" -> This means you emotionally dont want to tip, but is trying to find a logical reasoning to tip

"Should I not tip?" -> This means you emotionally is inclined to tip, but is trying to find a logical reasoning to not tip.

If youre logically and emotionally inclined to tip -> "Shut up and grab my money"

If youre not logically and not emotionally inclined to tip -> "F**k you, ***, *** my *** and get *** out of here".

The actual question is: how is your state of mind when you think about tipping?

There's a grand canyon-sized gap in the difference between how tax laws work and the moral/social quandary of whether or not you should tip in any given transaction.

Totally up to you if you should tip in that scenario. Personally I subscribe to the belief that tips are for service jobs. I tip things like tattoos, haircuts, and wait staff. I never tip cashiers. Amount of tip (from 0% all the way up to 100%+) really depends on how exceptional the service was and other factors (holidays, birthdays, special requests, etc.)

At the end of the day if and how much you tip is a personal decision. Whether or not a company can claim your charitable donation as a write-off on their taxes is not. It's illegal and they don't do it.

Was the waitress hot?

don't do it

Who has a waitress for ice cream...?

i mean the choice to tip was always there - the digital crap just forces you to address it. it's life a real-life pop-up you gotta successfully navigate and find the proper "close" button and not the one that will open some ***.

i used to work in restuarants and other service jobs so i get it, but maaaan i typically ain't tippin if i place a to-go order or something. if i am sitting down and getting served, sure.

tonight however, i did place an online order for some milk tea and did give a 10% tip cos *** it i go to that place relatively often and it's quite good always.

Thx for the input all. :)

Where is my tip for that?

Every ice cream shop has a server.

yep it's for when the service is poor, people can ask to speak to the hypervisor

Go to the local pizza shop

1 pepperoni slice, please

Man takes a premade slice pops it into the oven, and waits some time before letting the cashier know it's done. The Girl then lets me know it's ready

Go to the machine and look down. and see 18,20,25,28 tip percentage on a 4-dollar slice of pizza with 18 pre-selected. Click cancel and inhale the slice in front of her.

lol

I went to a clothing store to buy a suit a few years back. Was non-serviced the entire time (I knew what I wanted), went up to the front to pay and was met with a tip menu all the same. Not gonna tip the random cashier for swiping my suit in when I did all the work. Heck give me self check out, I’ll do it myself!

I needed windshield wiper fluid and looked through like maybe 4 different types and decided on 1. all in all like 7 mins in and out with no help (didn't need it). Asked to tip at checkout lol...

I've traveled through both Europe and the continental united states....

Tipping waiters is by far superior to the European model in (most) countries where tipping isn't the custom.

The service difference is light years beyond undeniable.

When the job you do determines your pay people do a better job. It's also why North Korea doesn't dominate the nasdaq.

Edit -
Oh but more relevant to OP ya those digital tips are definitely at the discretion of the owner. Usually it does go to employees. But I'm not tipping a barista, ice cream scooper, or drug store employee unless they do something amazing.