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I just placed an order with this new service (some HDMI cables for our office). The selection is pretty decent, definitely comparable to Google Shopping Expres

I just placed an order with this new service (some HDMI cables for our office). The selection is pretty decent, definitely comparable to Google Shopping Express. One very odd note though: they ask for a variable tip to the delivery courier (something Google doesn't do). So even for "free" 2 hour delivery, you're paying for delivery. While I see how this is better for the courier, I think it's a big mistake—people hate navigating the social dilemma of how to tip properly, and solving social dilemmas is a key advantage of digital services.

Chevalier 12y ago
Agreed on all counts. At least build the tip into the cost, like the ride-sharing services do. I'd vastly prefer doing away with tips altogether and just paying a living wage, but the least these services can do is to spare me extra work.
- walterbell 12y ago
  For personal deliveries, tip with cash, set online tip to zero. For corporate deliveries, tip online according to corporate policy, no personal decision needed.
  - slayed0 12y ago
    Regarding your first point, changing the tipping medium does not solve the underlying problem. Tipping sucks.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Have you experienced customer service in countries where there is no tipping? It is often entertaining and involves unpredictable "extra work". Perhaps digital reputation systems will provide a stick to replace the carrot of tipping, unless labor laws evolve to impose Fair Reporting on mobile logistics data.
      - chavesn 12y ago
        Wishing for ultra-fast delivery with no tipping is NOT the same as wishing for tipping to go away altogether. Tipping is helpful when there is likely to be a high variation in customer service. In a small-item delivery scenario the customer-vendor interaction is 0-15 seconds. How much tipping variation do you expect there to be?
      - Chevalier 12y ago
        Stereotypes of French waiters aside, service is just fine in Europe. (Speaking as a former resident with very fond memories.) Tipping is just a way for American employers to rip off their most vulnerable workers. Tipping is a truly toxic practice, and it's a burden on customers as well. Why would anyone want to be assigned extra work to evaluate how unhappy they are in order to calculate how much extra they should pay?
        Pyxl101 12y ago
        > Tipping is just a way for American employers to rip off their most vulnerable workers. Could you please elaborate? I don't see how tipping can be involved in ripping off workers in the United States. Employers are always required to pay their workers minimum wage - the federal minimum wage in the worst case, and sometimes the state minimum wage when it applies and is higher. See: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm > If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages[] do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.
        jordanthoms 12y ago
        For jobs where tipping is expected, in most states the expected tips can be taken away from the minimum wage - so a server could be paid $2 per hour + tips.
        npizzolato 12y ago
        While that may be technically true, I imagine any waiter not able to pull in tips to exceed the minimum wage would soon find themselves out of a job, especially in at-will states. In practice tipping just transfers the cost from the employer to the consumer.
stronglikedan 12y ago
There's a pizza chain that does this for online orders, and it drives me crazy. I don't tip until after service is rendered, because tipping ahead of time insures nothing. There's no place to put a custom note on the order either, so I have to order by phone. It's good for them that they have great pizza, because I'm sure this turns off a lot of potential customers, but not me.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  I suspect that when I tip online for pizza it automatically gets bumped to the lowest priority of all of the driver's deliveries. He already has my money, and prioritizing all of the cash-tip orders over mine gives more potential for earning tips. Of course, my sample size is too small to say anything conclusive. After it felt like I was noticing a pattern a couple of times I just switched back to tipping cash.
  - bpeebles 12y ago
    When I've tipped online for pizza, and tip pretty well, I tend to get my pizza very quickly with a driver wanting to please me (like one time an order was messed up slightly and he immediately drove back and brought a new one without me even asking). My vague guess is that if you leave an above-average tip on an online order, the order gets immediately grabbed my a delivery person since they know they'll get at least that much of a tip.
    - doorhammer 12y ago
      Yeah. This is anecdotal, obviously, but I always tip online and tip pretty well. My pizzas always seem to get here as quickly as when I tipped in person, and the drivers have thanked me specifically for it a few times. Be an interesting thing to really do some research on, though. I will say I tend to agree that I'd rather see employees be paid a higher rate by the company itself and then have their performance monitored and be rewarded or punished accordingly. I've worked in a few places that paid hourly folks $14+ an hour, in parts of the country where that was pretty decent money for a job you get get off the street, and they managed to keep really efficient employees who did their jobs well.
SiVal 12y ago
Tipping is a nuisance, something that goes in the "Con" category in a Pro & Con analysis. The vendor is implicitly warning you that you shouldn't count on getting good service included just because you officially paid for it. They're warning you that they have no real control over their service providers, and "it would be a shame if something unforeseeable, like getting caught in traffic, were to happen to a delivery you were counting on", so you'd better work something out with them privately and hope the "service" provider is pleased with the result. Like many people, I have a lot of options when it comes to who I buy from. I now have to pay sales tax to Amazon, and there are often other vendors who are cheaper, or charge no sales tax, or have stores five minutes away where "shipping" is instantaneous and always free for even the smallest purchase. Even so, I'll often pay more and buy from Amazon anyway because of their service. Anything that reduced their service quality would shift some of those purchases away from Amazon. I haven't seen this new Amazon system for myself yet, so maybe there's no real problem, but if "free" 2-hour delivery turns out to require air-quotes around the "free" along with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, "it would be a mistake to disappoint me" attitude from the delivery guy, I'll use the system a lot less.
- sokoloff 12y ago
  The equivalent cost of shipping from a brick-n-mortar store that's five minutes away is almost surely more than 15 minutes of your time (could easily be 30 minutes) and, if you drive, $2-4 at the IRS/GSA rates. For me, avoiding that 15-20 minutes of annoyance is well-worth calculating and paying a tip. (Agree that that's a negative, but it's relatively small negative.)
  - SiVal 12y ago
    You're right that effective B&M shipping cost is not always free. The brick 'n mortar cost of shipping is anywhere from a lot ("I'd have to drive into the city just for that and pay exorbitant parking garage fees, and I've got too much to do this afternoon...") to nothing ("I'll be in that store tomorrow anyway, and I won't need it until Thursday...") In the former case, it's unlikely that the tip would impact my decision; in the latter, it very well might. In either case, it goes in the "con" category and, at the margin, changes some fraction of my Amazon-yes-or-no purchase decisions, always in the direction of no.

Chevalier 12y ago

Agreed on all counts. At least build the tip into the cost, like the ride-sharing services do. I'd vastly prefer doing away with tips altogether and just paying a living wage, but the least these services can do is to spare me extra work.

walterbell 12y ago
For personal deliveries, tip with cash, set online tip to zero. For corporate deliveries, tip online according to corporate policy, no personal decision needed.
- slayed0 12y ago
  Regarding your first point, changing the tipping medium does not solve the underlying problem. Tipping sucks.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Have you experienced customer service in countries where there is no tipping? It is often entertaining and involves unpredictable "extra work". Perhaps digital reputation systems will provide a stick to replace the carrot of tipping, unless labor laws evolve to impose Fair Reporting on mobile logistics data.
    - chavesn 12y ago
      Wishing for ultra-fast delivery with no tipping is NOT the same as wishing for tipping to go away altogether. Tipping is helpful when there is likely to be a high variation in customer service. In a small-item delivery scenario the customer-vendor interaction is 0-15 seconds. How much tipping variation do you expect there to be?
    - Chevalier 12y ago
      Stereotypes of French waiters aside, service is just fine in Europe. (Speaking as a former resident with very fond memories.) Tipping is just a way for American employers to rip off their most vulnerable workers. Tipping is a truly toxic practice, and it's a burden on customers as well. Why would anyone want to be assigned extra work to evaluate how unhappy they are in order to calculate how much extra they should pay?
      - Pyxl101 12y ago
        > Tipping is just a way for American employers to rip off their most vulnerable workers. Could you please elaborate? I don't see how tipping can be involved in ripping off workers in the United States. Employers are always required to pay their workers minimum wage - the federal minimum wage in the worst case, and sometimes the state minimum wage when it applies and is higher. See: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm > If an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages[] do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.
        jordanthoms 12y ago
        For jobs where tipping is expected, in most states the expected tips can be taken away from the minimum wage - so a server could be paid $2 per hour + tips.
        npizzolato 12y ago
        While that may be technically true, I imagine any waiter not able to pull in tips to exceed the minimum wage would soon find themselves out of a job, especially in at-will states. In practice tipping just transfers the cost from the employer to the consumer.

stronglikedan 12y ago

There's a pizza chain that does this for online orders, and it drives me crazy. I don't tip until after service is rendered, because tipping ahead of time insures nothing. There's no place to put a custom note on the order either, so I have to order by phone. It's good for them that they have great pizza, because I'm sure this turns off a lot of potential customers, but not me.

wlesieutre 12y ago
I suspect that when I tip online for pizza it automatically gets bumped to the lowest priority of all of the driver's deliveries. He already has my money, and prioritizing all of the cash-tip orders over mine gives more potential for earning tips. Of course, my sample size is too small to say anything conclusive. After it felt like I was noticing a pattern a couple of times I just switched back to tipping cash.
- bpeebles 12y ago
  When I've tipped online for pizza, and tip pretty well, I tend to get my pizza very quickly with a driver wanting to please me (like one time an order was messed up slightly and he immediately drove back and brought a new one without me even asking). My vague guess is that if you leave an above-average tip on an online order, the order gets immediately grabbed my a delivery person since they know they'll get at least that much of a tip.
  - doorhammer 12y ago
    Yeah. This is anecdotal, obviously, but I always tip online and tip pretty well. My pizzas always seem to get here as quickly as when I tipped in person, and the drivers have thanked me specifically for it a few times. Be an interesting thing to really do some research on, though. I will say I tend to agree that I'd rather see employees be paid a higher rate by the company itself and then have their performance monitored and be rewarded or punished accordingly. I've worked in a few places that paid hourly folks $14+ an hour, in parts of the country where that was pretty decent money for a job you get get off the street, and they managed to keep really efficient employees who did their jobs well.

SiVal 12y ago

Tipping is a nuisance, something that goes in the "Con" category in a Pro & Con analysis. The vendor is implicitly warning you that you shouldn't count on getting good service included just because you officially paid for it. They're warning you that they have no real control over their service providers, and "it would be a shame if something unforeseeable, like getting caught in traffic, were to happen to a delivery you were counting on", so you'd better work something out with them privately and hope the "service" provider is pleased with the result. Like many people, I have a lot of options when it comes to who I buy from. I now have to pay sales tax to Amazon, and there are often other vendors who are cheaper, or charge no sales tax, or have stores five minutes away where "shipping" is instantaneous and always free for even the smallest purchase. Even so, I'll often pay more and buy from Amazon anyway because of their service. Anything that reduced their service quality would shift some of those purchases away from Amazon. I haven't seen this new Amazon system for myself yet, so maybe there's no real problem, but if "free" 2-hour delivery turns out to require air-quotes around the "free" along with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, "it would be a mistake to disappoint me" attitude from the delivery guy, I'll use the system a lot less.

sokoloff 12y ago
The equivalent cost of shipping from a brick-n-mortar store that's five minutes away is almost surely more than 15 minutes of your time (could easily be 30 minutes) and, if you drive, $2-4 at the IRS/GSA rates. For me, avoiding that 15-20 minutes of annoyance is well-worth calculating and paying a tip. (Agree that that's a negative, but it's relatively small negative.)
- SiVal 12y ago
  You're right that effective B&M shipping cost is not always free. The brick 'n mortar cost of shipping is anywhere from a lot ("I'd have to drive into the city just for that and pay exorbitant parking garage fees, and I've got too much to do this afternoon...") to nothing ("I'll be in that store tomorrow anyway, and I won't need it until Thursday...") In the former case, it's unlikely that the tip would impact my decision; in the latter, it very well might. In either case, it goes in the "con" category and, at the margin, changes some fraction of my Amazon-yes-or-no purchase decisions, always in the direction of no.