re: To all the OT Loungers complaining about restaurant add on fees

Not to mention most people look at menu prices when deciding whether to eat there. Better to keep menu price low and tack on fees after they’ve eaten and have no choice

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Not to mention most people look at menu prices when deciding whether to eat there. Better to keep menu price low and tack on fees after they’ve eaten and have no choice

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Keeping it hidden as long as possible, usually until the consumer has mentally and emotionally committed to the item or experience or has made the effort to actually go there in person is the exact motive. This game has been used in the car industry for decades. Its the same design for free apps that later offer in app purchases just to get a normal experience. It's no secret that getting someone invested makes it easier for them to part with extra money on the back end.

You think thats it? You think you got it?

I do like the assertion though that even though it doesnt apply to me, someone who has a career in the service industry cannot possibly be educated and does not have a real career.

Your knowledge of service industry operating costs and appreciation for the work done by front line hospitality and tourism employees definitely proves your expertise in this subject matter.

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LSUfan4444

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you're so mad you're replying to your own reply. It's ok, the internet can be hard. Now get back to bussing tables for tips.

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Yes but the point of tipping is so that business owners don't have to foot the cost of paying their employees above a sub-human wage. Only in the US do you see tipping, nowhere else in the world.

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Omg dude, they would just raise the menu prices then you have no choice. you are paying the tip for shitty service because it's baked into the menu now. At least you have the option to not tip on shitty service.

And im all for getting rid of tipping, but your meals will cost more now and the service will go down because that waitress wont make $200 cash on a friday nght.

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You won't get many servers if you paid them $15-20 an hour before taxes.

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This shouldn't matter.

It matters because, let's be honest, cash tips aren't getting reported for taxes.

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Y'all keep saying "just update the menu prices" but clearly you've never run a business and don't understand how a seemingly simple change has many knock-on effects and costs money. If you change the menu price then you have to reprint all of the physical menus customers see in house. Then you need to update the restaurant website. Most small business don't maintain the website themselves so they have to pay the web developer to make those changes. Then you have to make sure all the third party delivery app pricing has been updated...again more cost. Then you have to update the pricing for each and every item in the POS systems/registers the servers use to input orders and generate receipts ...more time...more money. So as you can see adding a separate line item fee to a tab is the easiest and most cost effective path.

Downvote to your hearts desire.

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To replace that special cash register collecting more cobwebs than unreported cash transactions? Or supplement increasing loss of large cash tips above standard reported tipping %?

With inflation hitting hard in 2022 (and prior couple of years) can small business afford to update prices to reflect this or do they eat rising inflation costs or just add an inflation % amount as a line item addition to menus, online pricing, 3rd party delivery apps, and then receipts (assuming something like this & CC fees would have to displayed)?

Maybe one day technology and coding will advance to the point of being able to adjust items in one table that are then reflected or linked elsewhere as well as adjusting multiple items by a % all at once.


For anyone:

Have processing fees per transaction plus any related costs to take credit/debit cards or wireless pay increased this much recently to justify amounts of some these fees added recently (most complaints about fees seem card related but maybe card/wireless pay used interchangeably)?

It’s not like CCs haven’t been in use widely for decades for businesses with small and large transactions. Unless these businesses just started taking credit cards I can’t believe they haven’t adjusted aspects of their business to account for the benefits of using more CCs and less cash to justify now adding these fees to every single CC transaction (especially the ones that seem higher than their expected fees). When I worked in retail credit cards offered benefits along with their transaction fee expenses including requiring less training, reduced time and labor opening & closing registers, less security and bank fees for handling large amounts of cash, and were often seen as “helping” customers buy more or tip more than planned coming in.

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Have processing fees per transaction plus any related costs to take credit/debit cards or wireless pay increased this much recently to justify amounts of some these fees added recently (most complaints about fees seem card related but maybe card/wireless pay used interchangeably)?

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Like any other business expense, you have to shop around and if you don't, aren't paying attention, they can creep up.

If you are a brick and mortar store, chip cards have made for less fradulent transactions. Online transactions still have a decent amount of risk.

Our merchant account has a three tier price system:

Chip cards that are dipped or tapped cost the least
Swiped cards costs a little more
Manual enrry of card number costs the most.