I think “free” in the sense that it was the same price whether you picked it up or had the place deliver. You only had to tip the driver. This was for delivery only places like Dominos/local chains near me.
The couple of dollars extra for delivery fees started maybe in the mid/late 2000s where I am (midwest USA).
Plus, delivery services like Uber often have large discounts but tips seem to be priced based on the undiscounted value. Leading to cases of it proposing a $5 tip on an order I'm paying ~$15 for.
People keep saying that, but I paid the exact same price in restaurant and with delivery, since both have people that require a tip and delivery is free over a certain amount
I hate how 'tips' are used for things like Walmart to offer free local delivery when it actually costs 'price + 10%' unless you want to be a horrible person. It would (and should) cost that price anyway if that's what it takes for the driver to get paid even close to reasonably -- just bake it into the price of delivery and don't rely on people's guilt to have it get done.
I would love to see a study on the difference in take-home wages between systems which are setup the same but have one with cheaper out-the-door offerings made through lower base wage and expected tip for the worker. I want to say I would expect the 'tip + lower pay' come out ahead of the 'set wage' on average, but I that may be me projecting my own actions onto others.
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 $15.
Up here in Canada one of our chains, SaveOn, has a self-hosted delivery service with a 10$ flat fee for delivery and no tipping allowed. I much prefer that and, if that fee isn't sufficient, I'd prefer them raising the flat fee rather than add any ridiculous tipping option.
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.
Delivery used to be free from most pizza places and the occasional other restaurant that delivered. Now, almost everyone charges a delivery fee. The idea of tipping on top of that just irks me to no end, although I do it so they won't spit on my food next time. I don't tip my Fedex or UPS deliveryman, why should I tip for food delivery when I've already been charged extra for that exact service?
I will say that during my short stint as a delivery driver for a small non-chain pizza shop, I got a flat rate (less than the delivery charge, mind you) for each delivery I took.
Not sure if that happens in all cases, but I can see the case for charging a delivery fee. Baking it in to the cost of a pizza in general would unfairly charge people eating in or picking up. With delivery, you are paying for the pizza, and then an additional service.
I still think tips should be eliminated from the equation, though.
Tips have completely died over here due to online payment. You order, you pay, food gets delivered. There's no stage for tipping.
Back when you had to pay cash on delivery, tipping was pretty common (at least for me), but right now there's just no reasonable moment to tip anymore.
Of course its trivial to include delivery cost in the price. You know where it needs to go, so you can make a good estimate of the time it takes to deliver there, and include that in the price.
I went to make an order from a restaurant that was about a ten minute drive from my house. On a $45 cart, I was hit with:
~$8 "service fee"
$8 "delivery fee"
And a variable tip percentage that defaulted to ~$9
Add tax to the matter and this "$45" order quickly ballooned into almost $75.
I don't mind tipping -- I've come to accept that American society refuses to let that one go -- but at these rates I decided to just place the order myself on the phone with the place, drive over, pick it up, and tip the restaurant directly.
The tip isn’t the price of delivering the order though, you’re conflating the price and the tip into the same thing, which they’re not.
For the record, I’ve been a delivery driver before. Getting tipped at all was amazing, so I literally can not imagine pounding on the door, handing the person their pizza and telling them that they should tip more because I want more money.
I have Walmart+ which includes free delivery. In the app, there is an option to tip the delivery driver.
I initially would tip the driver in the app, but then I realized, that this is the exact service I am paying a subscription to Walmart for. It is Walmart's responsibility to use that subscription to pay their workers, not mine. So I stopped tipping.
And “free” delivery never is, at least in then US where tips are expected.
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