More like "free". Amazon preselects $5 tip for the delivery. I don't have to tip the FedEx driver, why should I tip this delivery driver? It's not free if I'm expected to tip.
Pay your workers a living wage and build it into the price.
I think it's paramount that anyone using Prime Now sets this value to 0% in the app when ordering. Otherwise you're just subsidizing one of the wealthiest companies in the world. If you really want to give the delivery person a tip for whatever reason(they had to walk through mud to get to you) then give them cash. Don't pre-tip in the stupid app that clearly shows amazon "well, we don't need to pay well since clearly our customers are happy to compensate".
The crazy thing is with all those fees, service charges, and markups they are still just barely contribution margin profitable.
Amazon Prime Now / Restaurants guarantees a delivery driver a certain wage (say $XX/hr, depends on market). However what that really means is while your tip is technically going to the driver, until they exceed $XX/hr, you're just saving Amazon from having to pay them instead. I still tip, but my generosity went down when I realized that most of my tip is really just a handout to Amazon.
Amazon Whole Foods delivery is the worst offender in this area. You finish your order and on the confirmation screen they add a tiny little line item for a preselected 10% tip. Suddenly your "free" delivery is now $15.
I see when ordering online with whole foods /amazon a note saying that drivers get 100% of the tip.
Something strange by the way, is that tipping is variable. Eg my ~$110 order yesterday automatically tacked on a $7 tip, my ~$50 order of three days had a $5 dollar tip automatically added. Anyone have an idea how they are calculating this?
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.
This is the reason I refused to use Amazon Fresh. I'd rather pay higher subscription prices like with Prime as opposed to tipping every delivery. Even if it's optional, just the existence of the tipping feature adds social pressure.
Amazon Flex does this as well. I signed up to do deliveries last year to see how it worked, and on a couple occasions gamed it such that I was able to deliver an order I placed to myself (which is really just ordering from a nearby restaurant and hoping you get the offer). The advertised pay I would get for the delivery before accepting it was $7-12 (the range is supposed to account for tips, and across all deliveries, when everything settled it was almost always the low end of that range). With Amazon Restaurants, you had to tip when you ordered, and couldn't change afterwards, and my tip was $3. When everything cleared, I got $7, and I knew $3 of that was my own tip to myself. Had I tipped $0, I would still have gotten $7. I always felt it was a crummy thing to do to people -- your tip was just making Amazon give the driver less money. Not being able to change the tip also sucked, as I don't like tipping when I haven't received anything yet. That's more of a "name your price" service fee.
Amazon has dropped out of the restaurant game, but they still probably do this for Prime Now and Whole Foods (package deliveries aren't eligible for tips). The funny thing with restaurants was during peak times, when they didn't have enough drivers, they'd send out guaranteed $22 offers to delivery maybe $20 worth of food, which I always pounced on as it was incredibly easy money. It's no wonder they couldn't keep that business going.
Tips sometimes worked out well, though -- on some Prime Now routes where it was maybe $20-30 guaranteed, I'd get over $60 after tips. So they weren't always keeping everything to themselves. I could never figure out the rhyme or reason behind any of it.
You aren't paying the full price of same day delivery, when you order something same day, even as a Prime subscriber, they recommend a tip of at least $5.
I am guessing he is referring to Amazon Prime Now where you are expected to tip. But generally I do not tip because I think Amazon should pay their drivers. And most of the time they didn't even come to my door, so they don't deserve any tip. Though, I don't use that service as much.
Though thinking back, I did leave $1 or $2 tips here and there, depending on their service.
If you think Amazon doesn't pay well, I think it's a better practice to just mentally add $1 or $2 to the price of what your ordering and call it the tip, rather than stiffing the drivers. If you can't afford it with tip, you can't afford it.
I'm a little confused even after reading the article. What drivers does this refer to? Package delivery drivers? How does one go about tipping said drivers outside of handing them physical money? It's nothing I've ever seen on Amazon.
I believe Amazon did this with Amazon Fresh. The tip option in the app went away, and when I asked the delivery person, he said their pay had been increased and they were good. No tip required. He said it with a smile on his face, but who knows if he was really dying inside.
This is disgusting. Tips are meant for the driver and not for the company. I am truly surprised that so many HN readers have their fundamentals of terms so corrupted that they are choosing to argue about this.
Amazon should be upfront - clearly declare that the minimal wage is taken from your tips. Declare this right in the employment contract and call it a wage subsidy. The fact that they are hiding this and not responding to enquiries shows that they are operating in a malicious and dishonest manner. This is injustice to the driver and Amazon should be prosecuted.
Of all the delivery services out there Amazon Restaurants/ Food Delivery is the only one that pays right. There's a fixed hourly rate of about $16 that you receive whether you make a delivery or not. Any tip that you receive if you make a delivery at some point in time gets added.
All the rest give you a pittance, some even based on mileage. Its a pity!
More like "free". Amazon preselects $5 tip for the delivery. I don't have to tip the FedEx driver, why should I tip this delivery driver? It's not free if I'm expected to tip.
Pay your workers a living wage and build it into the price.
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