5 ms·

It's partially the requirement to do math. Folks just aren't necessarily thinking about the eventual gratuity at order time, and can end up spending more than t

It's partially the requirement to do math. Folks just aren't necessarily thinking about the eventual gratuity at order time, and can end up spending more than they intended when the time comes to calculate the tip. Meaning that, in essence, there's a sort of minor dishonesty built into the pricing scheme that encourages people to spend more. Perhaps we're talking past each other on the wording of things. I'm drawing a distinction between "transparent pricing" and "flexible pricing".

tptacek 14y ago
Buy a bottle of wine at a restaurant and you are almost certainly paying 1.5x to 2x more than the bottle costs in the store right down the street. Bring your own bottle to a restaurant that serves wine and, because the restaurant expects to make much of its ROI on wine, they'll charge you a corkage fee. That's opaque pricing. You can rail against wine markups too, I suppose. Of course, since most restaurants work on razor thin margins and most fail, there's not much point; they're charging what they need to succeed in their market.
jack-r-abbit 14y ago
We also have to think of the tax that will be applied. You got out to eat and order a $7.95 burger/fries and a $1.50 soda[1]... most people already know that it'll be more than $10. It is not so hard to do the math. Since tax around here is in the 8.5-9.5% range, most of the time it can be safe to just double the tax on the receipt to get roughly 17-19% tip... round up if you want to show extra thanks... down if not. Many places will also print on the receipt the various percentages of tip so you don't even really have to do much at all but some multi-digit addition. So unless one has a hard time with "carry the 1" the math isn't that bad. I tend to over tip so I can get my grand total to a nice round number. And it is not uncommon for me to add an extra buck or two if my kids have made a huge mess of the place. [1]But don't get me started on the extortion of $1.50 for a fountain drink.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I just divide by 10 then double.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    ya... that too.

tptacek 14y ago

Buy a bottle of wine at a restaurant and you are almost certainly paying 1.5x to 2x more than the bottle costs in the store right down the street. Bring your own bottle to a restaurant that serves wine and, because the restaurant expects to make much of its ROI on wine, they'll charge you a corkage fee. That's opaque pricing. You can rail against wine markups too, I suppose. Of course, since most restaurants work on razor thin margins and most fail, there's not much point; they're charging what they need to succeed in their market.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago

We also have to think of the tax that will be applied. You got out to eat and order a $7.95 burger/fries and a $1.50 soda[1]... most people already know that it'll be more than $10. It is not so hard to do the math. Since tax around here is in the 8.5-9.5% range, most of the time it can be safe to just double the tax on the receipt to get roughly 17-19% tip... round up if you want to show extra thanks... down if not. Many places will also print on the receipt the various percentages of tip so you don't even really have to do much at all but some multi-digit addition. So unless one has a hard time with "carry the 1" the math isn't that bad. I tend to over tip so I can get my grand total to a nice round number. And it is not uncommon for me to add an extra buck or two if my kids have made a huge mess of the place. [1]But don't get me started on the extortion of $1.50 for a fountain drink.

tptacek 14y ago
I just divide by 10 then double.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  ya... that too.