No tipping is tricky when it's not mandated, because prices always look and feel more expensive comparatively, even if it works out the same in the end. People

No tipping is tricky when it's not mandated, because prices always look and feel more expensive comparatively, even if it works out the same in the end. People are very impressionable to their initial sub-conscious impressions. Hence pricing like $9.99. It seems marketers have been aggressively going the other way over the last few years: do whatever it takes to minimize the sticker shock, then siphon as much as possible from the relationship. - new car for only $149! (every two weeks) - cheap tickets, but charge for seat-choice, blankets, bags, etc. - collect hundreds of tiny taxes instead of one equivalent (simpler) income tax - loss lead then recoup on servicing and insurance - cheap plans with punitive overages - access fee, upgrade fee, change fee introduced at the cash I'm personally finding it more and more difficult to calculate total cost of ownership of products and services. If your prices are advertised at 20% higher than everyone else's, I can't see this working except at the most inelastic high-end restaurants.