This is one reason I dislike buying online. Never know when you’re gonna be screwed by stuff like this.
I had to buy lab access codes online for a couple classes and with an applied 25% discount code on one item I still ended up paying, tax included, pretty much the same price as before the code was entered (without tax). Online is convenient when I’m buying things like old CDs or old games or something along those lines, but I hate all the sneaky shit a lot of places will try to pull on you.
Out of curiosity, does Amazon charge a handling fee or ask you to tip the picker? Walmart? Sporting good stores? Pet food stores? Absolutely not.
There are a dozen grocery stores in my area, and the most that any of them charge for a “handling fee” is $1. None ask for tips, and actually ask not to tip.
I’m not arguing about shipping costs. But a tip on top of a handling fee is mildly infuriating.
It would be way more convenient for me to walk to the store and buy this item, but these guys are a few cities over. I’m happy to pay for shipping, but everything else is a cash grab.
Walmart Canada has never had a handling fee or asked for tips. They offer some subscription thing if you want free shipping on everything, but that’s obviously extra.
Amazon is set up as a business to do the picking. That cost is factored in. Walmart has the same market space as Amazon, so not much room to charge more and still be competitive. I can’t comment on the sporting goods store unless you mean buying online from one, in which case it’s still the same situation: a warehouse designed to pick and ship as the business model. Saves them from shipping and storing in the store. But a grocery store? They’re not set up for this thing. And being they’re a few cities over, it’s not incredibly unreasonable to have to pay for someone to pick it, consume a box, consume filler material, consume tape, print a label, and then mail it. If they deliver themselves, it wouldn’t be so complicated to pack it, but it’d probably be the same cost for the truck and driver. If the law hasn’t specified their job can be below minimum wage and covered by tips (serving), then they’re getting minimum at the minimum. Yes, minimum is trash where I am, but nothing says that tipping is required. People were tip-happy when this program was probably set up in 2020
But a grocery store? They’re not set up for this thing.
Since the pandemic (4 years), nearly every grocery store is now set up to handle online ordering, picking, and either shipping or on-site pickup. Even small stores that never had online ordering had to adapt to offer it in order to stay relevant.
But do you think these retail stores are inundated with online orders? Even in a large store like Walmart, I’m often the only person at the pick-up spot, even when their pick-up slot is “full” for that hour.
The implementation for these stores to set up the actual website and backend for online ordering was a much larger task, and there were never any extra fees associated with them doing that; modernizing their business does have a cost, but it also generates more revenue (and profits) at the same time.
And being they’re a few cities over
What does being a few cities over have to do with their cost of doing business? They are in a more populated area, and have a chain of stores, owned by the largest grocery company in the country. The fact that their online shop brings them business they’d never have otherwise, customers are doing them a favour by ordering online.
Shipping costs, which would apply to local and out of town customers, would only differ in the time it takes to make the delivery.
it’s not incredibly unreasonable to have to pay for someone to pick it, consume a box, consume filler material, consume tape, print a label, and then mail it.
I order stuff online all the time. Regardless of whether a place has a storefront or not, I’ve never seen excessive fees like this one. Boxes? Tape? Labels? Literally the cost of running a business, just like printing on paper receipts at a checkout or providing bags or installing security systems…
I can only accept your argument if you can show that companies who aren’t charging extra fees would be losing money through their online ordering system.
The fact is, grocery stores in Canada, despite offering online order since at least the pandemic, are constantly setting profit records. In the US, online grocery store market has grown significantly and is a key driver in the industry’s growth.
We are not small retail businesses who are asking for these extra fees, so your argument makes even less sense.
I don’t think $7 is a particularly hefty fee. If it’s a grocery store they typically aren’t paying employees to do shop for you, it’s an extra service for an extra charge. I think I pay $10 per order from my local grocery.
Walmart’s not going to be a good model, there, as while the chance of abuse being the cause might not be 100%, it hangs out near enough 100 to know more than a few intimate things about it.
If you’re asking someone to collect your groceries, maybe pay them to do so. Tips are broken as a concept, so whatever there.
typically aren’t paying employees to do shop for you
The employees are paid hourly to be at work and do what they’re told, basically. It’s not like asking an employee to pick groceries for an order costs the company extra. The employee is already being paid to be there whether or not they pick your order.
The fee is being charged because they know you will pay it, not because it’s an extra cost.
i don’t know about this place but i know with a lot of other delivery options the “fee” does not go to the employees, it’s just extra money because they can
I was generous during covid to those actually working, 30% usually. Now nobody does a damn thing but have their hand out… Companies need to step us, not us.
That being said I’m not physically unable or too lazy to go to the grocery store.
Not groceries, just a single item, which I can’t find locally.
All other grocery stores that you can order online from in the area are either zero handling fee or a dollar… and they don’t accept tips. Shipping, I’m not sure. It ranges from a few dollars to free from what I see.
Agreed. But until we actually hold these giant companies accountable, please don’t take it out on the worker by stiffing them. If you don’t want to pay the fees, don’t use that service, and tell them that.
I think of it like a bid for the work order. In fact, I think I read somewhere that that's explicitly how it works for instacart: the tip values are shown before the insta employee/contractor picks up the job, and they're encouraged to only take the ones that pay worth their time.
Then that’s misleading to the customer. When you buy something online and have paid for it, it should be collected and delivered.
When you need to pay a tip to get the omployers/contracters of the company to do business with to do their job, there is something terribly wrong with the situation. Tips should be for complementing employers with their good/excelent serice, not to ensure they have something to eat while the company earns enough and underpays their staff.
That’s how an open market should work, companies paying their straff living wages and charging what a product/service costs to be viable. When the product/service is good enough, the customers will come, when it isn’t, they go out of business, freeing employers for work that is values correctly. The US market of underpaying employers and required tips from customers looks more like modern slavery/forced labour.
… handling fee is the cost of the employee collecting them…
The cost to pay them, or as a “convenience fee” for the customer? Because there are no handling fees at any other grocery stores, except for a $1 from one place.
And their pay should come from their employer.
And of this is being delivered, do I tip the driver, too? When is it too much?
Other chains might be trying it without charging yet. Or the orders aren’t so high yet. Who knows.
And their pay should come from their employer.
…It is. Via the handling fee. Let’s put it this way: If the store hires people whose sole job is to walk up and down the aisles filling orders, the store has to get money to pay those people. The store gets that money by charging people the handling fee.
No, they get at least minimum wage. The handling fee is an added fee that goes to the company. Only the tip goes “100%” to the employee, as it states.
If the store hires people whose sole job is to walk up and down the aisles filling orders, the store has to get money to pay those people. The store gets that money by charging people the handling fee.
Nonsense. The store pays cashiers, too, and they don’t charge a cashier fee. Or a stocking clerk fee.
To prove it even further, they don’t offer a discount when using self-checkout.
When I worked in a grocery store, we wouldn’t dream of asking for an additional fee or tip, even when we bagged and walked out someone’s groceries to their car. It was part of the job we were being paid to do.
You are confusing direct payment and general revenue/fees from which the store pays employees. You are correct Handling fee is not directly transferred to the employee. Handling fee is revenue collected by the store. Now that they have a big pool of revenue, they pay their employees from it (the minimum wage you referred to). Read that in context of the next two paragraphs.
WRT cashiers and stockers that was part of the existing business model. The general profit from groceries covered those expenses.
The general profit from groceries does not cover the expense of a different business model of hiring additional employees whose sole job would be to walk around filling orders. Those additional jobs require additional revenue, which the store gets from handling fee.
The next question may be “why a Handling fee” instead of paying those employees from general profit from groceries. The answer is because online orders have a new direct cost, which the store wants to put on those customers that are creating that cost. That’s the short of it.
Handling fee is revenue collected by the store. Now that they have a big pool of revenue, they pay their employees from it (the minimum wage you referred to). Read that in context of the next two paragraphs.
WRT cashiers and stockers that was part of the existing business model. The general profit from groceries covered those expenses.
The general profit from groceries does not cover the expense of a different business model of hiring additional employees whose sole job would be to walk around filling orders. Those additional jobs require additional revenue, which the store gets from handling fee.
Are you implying that stores which are NOT charging a handling fee are losing money?
Regardless of whether they have to hire extra staff to pick items, or to develop a website for online ordering, or to deliver these items in their own vehicles, that’s an expense they bulk into the cost of running their business. They would then set prices for the goods they sell based on those expenses + whatever markup they choose.
I will point out that grocery stores have been making a record profit since COVID, and a big part of that is because of online ordering (and price-gouging🤫). We’re talking companies who don’t charge a handling fee, and some who offer free shipping.
At the end of the day, charging a handling fee in excess of the shipping fee, then asking for a tip, is mildly infuriating.
I think I’m done explaining things. You’re not trying to understand, you’re trying to argue. Sorry to say but your confusion is never ending. And you’re weirdly argumentative over something when you clearly have no idea about business or accounting. Like did a handling fee rape your mother or something? No need to answer, ciao.
I’ve had a small business for 20 years, and worked in other small business’ for longer. I’m also keenly aware of my country’s grocery store industry, as they’ve quite literally being caught in price-fixing schemes, expiry-label swapping scams, and price gouging.
This little extra fee scam is just one more thing.
I appreciate your input, but we really do have two different perspectives on this.
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