‘We wanted to … understand how Canadians as a whole were feeling about tipping culture,’ COO of Narrative Margaret Chapman told the National Post Thursday, about the research group’s survey
The majority of Canadians agree that the most appropriate places to tip are restaurants and salons, according to a survey released last month.
The debate of whether to tip or not, and how much, has become a heated topic in recent years, especially as technology becomes more integrated into the payment process. It’s almost impossible to avoid the dreaded “Would you like to add a tip?” question, which has left Canadians divided in some areas, and united in others.
“Over the summer, we were seeing an increasing amount of online commentary about the breadth of retailers asking for tips, including one of our team, who was asked to tip for an online clothing retailer,” Narrative COO Margaret Chapman told the National Post over email on Thursday.
We wanted to quantify the anecdotes we were seeing and understand how Canadians as a whole were feeling about tipping culture
Margaret Chapman
“We wanted to quantify the anecdotes we were seeing and understand how Canadians as a whole were feeling about tipping culture.”
It seems that for certain places, Canadians are on the same page, with 77 per cent of those surveyed in agreement about tipping at restaurants and 60 per cent at salons. Canadians also agreed on the least appropriate places to leave a tip.
They draw the line at retail stores, with 93 per cent saying they don’t agree with being asked for a tip while shopping.
Similarly, an overwhelming amount of Canadians — 81 per cent — said they shouldn’t be asked to tip when getting takeout from a restaurant. Roughly the same percentage said they shouldn’t be asked for a tip for grocery pickup or for eating at fast-food restaurants.
When it came to transportation, however, Canadians were split.
Almost half said it was appropriate for taxi drivers to ask for a tip, while the other half did not. For ride-sharing services like Lyft or Uber, nearly 40 per cent said they agreed that those drivers should ask for a tip, while the rest did not.
“Canadians are also more willing to tip a third-party food delivery service like UberEats (47 per cent) than a ride sharing app (39 per cent),” according to the survey.
Gender played a small role in how Canadians felt, highlighting one area where men and women were not in sync about tipping: the salon.
The majority of Canadian women — 67 per cent — felt that it was fine if they were asked for a tip, whereas less men were on board, at 53 per cent.
The type of business or service made a difference for Canadians when it came to how much they would tip. They would tip more for “good service at a sit-down independent restaurant versus a hair salon or barber,” per the survey.
Those who took the survey included how much they would tip, with only about a quarter of Canadians saying they were willing to tip 18 per cent at a restaurant. Even fewer Canadians — about one in five — would tip that much at a salon or barber.
Half of the Canadians said a 15 per cent tip was more common at a restaurant. They were more likely to tip less for staff working at a salon or barber, with 23 per cent of Canadians saying they would either tip five per cent, or not at all. That was compared to a restaurant, “where just 17 per cent would tip 5 per cent and just 6 per cent would not tip at all.”
“What was surprising was the disconnect between what many are prepared to offer for good service in a sit down restaurant — 15 per cent — and what in practice some businesses offer as suggested tip amounts — 18 per cent or more,” said Chapman.
“I think the results point to Canadian residents wanting transparency in what they are paying, and the ability to choose what they offer for good service.”
“We also saw the news about Quebec looking into changing how restaurants can ask for tips — on the pretax amount instead of the amount after tax — and thought it was a good time to ask about it,” she said.
There were 1,230 Canadians who responded to the survey between Aug. 9 and Aug. 10, 2024. The data was weighted based on the 2016 Census, by gender, age, and region to reflect actual population distribution, according to Narrative.
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