Comment on This grocery store charges a hefty handling fee and asks for a tip when using online ordering.

• someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  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 is employing 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.

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  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It is. Via 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.

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    • someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You are extremely turned around. 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.

      You are confusing direct payment and 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. Read that in context of the above two paragraphs.

      Tipping is an entirely different part of this.

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      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        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.

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