Shoppers Furious as Self-Checkout Machines Request Tip in California

This has caused a lot of confusion among shoppers, as they don’t understand why they should tip a machine for scanning their shopping. There is also confusion about who this money is going to.

Self-checkouts are believed to be making it easier for theft to occur in stores, especially with the rising cost of products giving people more reason to steal items. California hopes that this ban will stop this. 

Only those who have paid this amount can use the self-checkout. Anyone who hasn’t will have to use the cashier checkout lanes. 

Walmart is using Affirm for this service, which has been controversial for its shoppers. Reports suggest that the company doesn’t report to major credit bureaus, and some customers experience invisible debts in their credit histories.

Despite self-checkouts once being seen as the future of shopping, Walmart has decided that this is no longer the case for its stores. Stores in various states, including Missouri and Ohio, have recently removed their self-checkout machines, with stores in other states set to follow.

This is causing issues for shoppers, especially as not many cashier checkout lanes tend to be open at once, which causes long lines and delays, with customers desperate to pay for their shopping and head back home.

While some customers prefer using self-checkout machines as they tend to be quicker, stores are being forced to close due to the rise in thefts. To prevent this from happening even more, Safeway and other stores are removing their self-checkouts and adding other safety precautions.

This caused a lot of confusion for the customer as they weren’t aware of who they would actually be tipping. They even made the joke that they would actually just be tipping themselves.

Some of the jokes included tips for installing the machine, for the shopper doing a good job of scanning the shopping or for getting a bit of money back from the overall shop. 

The three other tip options were 15%, 18% and 20%, which would be added to the total cost of the items purchased.

Aside from being confused as to what these tips are for, some customers feel that they have to leave a tip, even if they don’t have the money to do so.

Customers in stadiums and at airport shops have been asked to tip when using the self-checkout, but spokespersons for these places have explained that any tips given here will be shared equally among employees.

So if this was the reason behind them, what is the point in asking for tips if the purpose of the machines were to reduce the need for labor and no one is actually serving the customer?

Even though this makes it sound like the tips will be going to staff, customers are still confused as to whether this will actually happen because they aren’t interacting with an actual person, just a machine.

A strong consensus is that tipping is being done across various sectors so employers don’t have to raise employee wages. However, these employers are saying the actual reason for tips is to offer thanks to employees.

This is because workers in these industries tend to be paid an hourly wage of $2.13, with employers having to prove that the worker can make up the amount missing from the state’s minimum wage by being paid in tips. 

In most other tipping cases, it is done because the server did a good job. With no one actually serving customers in this instance, customers are seeing no reason for tipping self-checkouts to exist. 

With customers now being asked to provide a 15-20% tip on top of this, some have said it is basically the same as paying an additional tax on top of the tax they have already paid.

While some customers have felt able to decline to tip where they have the option to, others have felt that tipping is the only option and that they feel bad if they don’t due to the tipping culture that has been around in the US for years.

1 in 5 US shoppers have said that when prompted on the self-checkout screen, they have left a tip. 54% have said they feel pressured to tip whenever the employee turns the iPad away.

This happened to someone at a sports game who went into a convenience store to buy two drinks, only to be faced with the tipping screen at the self-checkout. When they refused to tip, which was an option, the screen kept popping up, making the customer feel that tipping was a demand rather than a polite request.

This is why many people suggest that when tipping someone in a restaurant setting, for example, you give the person cash so you know it’s going directly to the person who served you. But tipping a machine, regardless of whether you pay with a card or cash, means you don’t know where the money is going, no matter what the company says.

However, many are having issues because this law doesn’t extend to machines, so no one can truly know where these tips are actually going.

As machines are now doing the work of human employees, customers believe this gives them even less reason to tip. If they were to tip anyone working in a store, they would rather tip the people on the cashier checkout lanes than tip a machine.