‘Who is it going to?’: Customer says he was asked to tip when shopping online
An online shopper went viral on TikTok after sharing that an unnamed company asked him for a tip at the end of his transaction.
Noah Miller (@whiteboyonthebeat) posted the video earlier this week. In it, he showed viewers a snapshot of the company’s checkout page from his computer.
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“Online shopping and this company asked for a tip??” he wrote via text overlay.
Though Miller blocked out the company’s name, viewers can clearly see a tip prompt—offering options of 5%, 10%, 15%, or a custom amount. Miller then looked quizzically at his camera, seemingly not knowing what to make of the request.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Miller via TikTok comment. As of Tuesday morning, his video had over 403,400 views. Indeed, viewers were equally incredulous by the company’s request.
“Who is it going to?” one user asked.
“THERES NO WAY,” another said.
“Me paying for shipping is their tip,” a third user said.
Others, meanwhile, told stories of other surprising places and retailers that have asked for tips.
“A grocery store asked me for [one]?” one person shared.
“I bought a shirt at a concert and they asked me for a tip,” another added.
Tipping prompts have proliferated greatly over the last few years due to a number of factors, including new point-of-sale technology, the rise of the so-called gig economy, and the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, as the comments on Miller’s video indicate, online retail seems like a strange place to feature tipping. While Miller hasn’t yet commented on which company he was purchasing items from, other retailers have gone public with their plans to prompt online shoppers to tip.
“Tipping offers a very real way for us to let our customers speak up and thank our warehouse team for processing their orders,” a spokesman for online baby formula retailer Organic Life Start told The Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal’s report, however, online shopping tips often go toward general operations—not necessarily to workers.
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