Tipping used to be an open-ended question. We decided the percentage and calculated the amount ourselves. Today, it has become a multipe-choice question. Pre-set options along with exact amounts are displayed on receipts or screens. This shift has changed how we feel about the act of tipping.
At Kabuto in Long Beach, the receipt offers three tipping options: 20%, 15%, or 10%, arranged from highest to lowest. It gave me a sense of flexibility, but the order and limited range pushed me toward choosing within a set range.
Lori’s Diner in San Francisco took a more assertive approach. The receipt included checkboxes for 18%, 20%, or 25%, and showed the final total for each selection. This removed the burden to calcuate, but made it harder to say no.
At Eel River Café at Garberville, the screen displayed four tipping buttons for 15%, 20%, 25%, and even 30%. Each amount was pre-calculated and shown clearly, creating a sense of obligation.
What once felt like a personal gesture of appreciation now feels more like a social obligation. As tip percentages rise and digital prompts become aggressive, the tipping experience shifts from a sincere expression of thanks to a manufactured sense of guilt.
The paper presents a model of the evolution of social norms. When a norm is costly to follow and people do not derive benefits from following it other than avoiding social disapproval, the norm erodes over time. Tip percentages, however, increased over the years, suggesting that people derive benefits from tipping including impressing others and improving their self-image as being generous and kind. The implications to the norm of not cooperating with new workers who accept lower wages are discussed; the model suggests that incumbent workers have reasons to follow this norm in addition to avoiding social disapproval.
I recently visited several In-N-Out burgers in Long Beach and San Carlos and found myself immersed in a nostalgic atmosphere. From the red and white decor to the lively staff, the ambiance felt like a step back in time.
One detail particularly stood out was that an employee stepped outside to greet drivers at the drive-through. This personal, nostalgic touch probably resonates with many customers.
Nostalgia can enhance consumer satisfaction, often outweighing price or product quality. In an era of fast-paced change, such genuine, authentic gestures can be more impactful than any menu update.
Most marketing and branding activities are essentially concerned with enchantment—the rendering of the ordinary into something special. To create enchantment, companies are increasingly marketing past-themed brands and products. Yet, there is little research about why and how such nostalgia marketing creates enchantment for consumers. Building on different modalities of nostalgia identified in sociological literature (reluctant nostalgia, progressive nostalgia, and playful nostalgia), we analyze the creation of enchantment through a longitudinal, qualitative, multi-method program of inquiry. We find three routes to enchantment grounded in different nostalgia modes: (1) re-instantiation (symbolic retrojection into a past), (2) re-enactment (reflexively informing the present with past-themed brands and practices), and (3) re-appropriation (ludic re-interpretation of the past). By unfolding the different ways in which marketers can press rewind to create enchantment, we discern important implications for theorizing and managing past-themed brands in terms of marketing strategy, targeting and positioning, brand experience design, and marketing communications.
When I recently visited a CVS store in Long Beach, I stood in front of an impressive display of postcards. There were options for every occasion—anniversaries, Halloween, and even postcards designed to send money via Venmo. After choosing a card, I instinctively searched for postal stamps. To my surprise, the store did not sell them. This simple task of sending a postcard turned into a complex process. I had to go to Ralphs store, buy a book of 20 forever stamps for $14.60, and inquire how many were required for international shipping. This endeavor took over two hours. Even finding a post box was a challenge.
This experience echoes findings from Hwang et al. (2022) on goal-based bundling, where understanding consumer goals helps companies like Samsung develop product bundles that address customer needs holistically. If CVS applied a similar approach and emphasized with their shoppers deeply, bundling postcards with stamps could enhance consumer experience. Since the goal of buying a postcard is inherently linked to mailing it, offering both products together would eliminate unnecessary friction, saving time and improving convenience.
Building on this idea, not only retailers like CVS but also postcard makers like Hallmark could improve the postcard experience by launching postcards with pre-attached postal stamps. This would make it easier for customers, especially those who want send mail simply. By making mailing as easy as buying, manufacturers would help meet customer needs directly. This approach could also attract more people to send postcards, creating a new market focused on convenience and simplicity.
Contemporary electronic manufacturers struggle with how to develop attractive bundles by combining their existing smart products. In the present work, we propose Goal Based Bundling (GBB) by drawing on the academic research of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018) and shed light on two previously ignored aspects of bundling strategy: service and glue product. We applied our GBB to a collaborative project with Samsung Electronics, whose goal was to develop new product bundles for kids by combining multiple smart home products. We constructed a framework of Samsung Electronics’ smart products and then visualized it on its sales website. A UI design conveying the value of smart products bundle was developed based on GBB structure. We discuss the process and the result of our project to provide insights into the product managers who combine existing smart products to develop a bundle.
