Walmart+ grocery delivery is supposed to offer customers a convenient and dependable way to receive groceries. But its current tipping system creates a fundamental problem: customers are encouraged to decide how much to tip before they have received any service at all.

A tip should reflect the quality of service provided. With Walmart delivery, however, customers are asked to choose a tip before they know whether their groceries will arrive on time, whether fragile items will be handled carefully, whether substitutions will be reasonable, or whether the shopper will select fresh, undamaged food.

Customers sometimes receive groceries that are close to expiration, dented cans, broken eggs, damaged packaging, poor produce, or other carelessly selected items. When the tip has already been offered in advance, the traditional relationship between quality of service and gratuity is turned upside down.

Walmart does technically allow customers to choose no upfront tip and add one after delivery. The problem is that orders without a pre-tip can be less attractive to shoppers and drivers, which can lead to delays in getting the order accepted. In my own experience, I have also had orders rejected when no tip was offered upfront. In practice, this can make customers feel pressured to offer money in advance simply to improve the chances that someone will take their order, even though they have not yet received any service.

That is not how tipping should work.

Walmart+ is already a paid membership service. Customers should be able to receive the delivery service they are paying for without effectively having to bid against one another for a driver through larger upfront tips.

The current system is also unfair to drivers. Walmart should structure delivery compensation so that accepting and completing an order is worthwhile on its own, rather than relying on customers to offer increasingly large tips before any service has taken place.

I am asking Walmart to end pre-tipping on grocery deliveries and instead:

• Allow customers to add a tip after their groceries have been delivered and inspected.
• Ensure that orders are not disadvantaged because a customer has not offered an upfront tip.
• Structure delivery compensation so that drivers are adequately paid without having to depend on pre-tips to make an order worth accepting.
• Preserve tipping as a genuine reward for good service.

Customers should absolutely be able to reward excellent shoppers and drivers. A shopper who selects fresh food, protects fragile groceries, communicates well, makes thoughtful substitutions, and delivers an order with care deserves to be recognized for that effort.

But customers should not have to decide what that service is worth before it has even happened.

For many disabled people, elderly people, people without reliable transportation, parents with young children, and others who face barriers to shopping in person, grocery delivery is not merely a convenience. It can be an essential service.

A system that pressures customers to offer money in advance in order to make their order more desirable creates an unnecessary barrier for the very people who may depend on delivery the most.

Please sign this petition asking Walmart to eliminate pre-tipping on grocery deliveries and return tipping to what it is supposed to be: a voluntary reward based on the service a customer actually receives.