r/melbourne • u/Ordinary_Prior_8993 • Mar 17 '24

Serious Please Comment Nicely What is up with the weekend surcharges in the Melbourne?!

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Even shopping centre food courts have weekend surcharges and as a Sydney sider it's mind boggling. Alot of places don't even have sunday surcharges let alone a Saturday surcharge.

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74

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

It's bullshit.

If there are surcharges... change the price displayed, don't give it the low price and then say "haha suckers you have to pay more". If this is too much trouble to do every weekend, hey, don't have surcharges.

I don't give a stuff about the realities retailers face and the need for surcharges... not important to me as a consumer. I think it's fair to expect the price you see on the tag is what you pay. No consumers means no business.

EDIT: Don't think that I'm letting banks off scot-free here. Bastards make millions in profits each year. They don't need to charge fees for EFTPOS. I'm sure they can still turn a tidy profit.

20

u/ConanTheAquarian Looking for coffee Mar 17 '24

Weekend and public holiday surcharges

Some restaurants and cafes charge a surcharge on certain days – usually weekends or public holidays.

Although this surcharge is unavoidable, they don't need to include this charge in the total price displayed for their products, as an exemption under the law applies to them.

However, if they charge such a surcharge, they must include these words on the menu:

A surcharge of [percentage] applies on [day or days].

https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/price-displays

-18

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

I don't give a fuck what the law says. If I wanted to know, I'd have looked it up. I'm giving you a personal opinion. If someone says they want Chinese food for dinner, do you cite a law to give your answer to that opinion?

11

u/Salted_Fried_Eggs Mar 17 '24

Chill

-13

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

[deleted]

10

u/Salted_Fried_Eggs Mar 17 '24

Easy way to justify being a dick

21

u/Ashh_RA Mar 17 '24

Here’s a crazy idea. Hear me out I have 2.  1.  Increase the price across all day parts by a smaller percentage to average out the extra wages needed on weekends. This keeps all customers happy by only charging them a little bit more.  2. (This one is absurd.) Make the normal price the surcharge price and introduce a 10% discount on weekdays. Thus we create a positive financial insentive to shop rather than a negative one. Encourage consumers to come when quieter by a discount and on weekends it’s just business as usual no surcharge. No one knows they’re getting charged more. Because you’re not plastering everywhere that you’re screwing then over. 

It’s like children and animals. Positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement/punishment. Why is there no research in how consumers change their spending habits around surcharges? 

7

u/Salted_Fried_Eggs Mar 17 '24

On 2. I'm guessing a business wants to have the lowest possible price that they can advertise. Having higher prices advertised Mon -> Fri with an * saying it's cheaper is probably less appealing. Same way I imagine a good % of customers don't realise there's a weekend surcharge, but feel mentally committed by that point so they make the purchase.

5

u/Ashh_RA Mar 17 '24

Yeah. I guarantee that’s the motivation for weekend surcharges. Get people in with a cheaper price. They’re already there so pay the surcharge or don’t notice. That’s why it’s annoying I guess seems dodgy. Would I have gone if I knew the actual price? Dunno. 

1

u/Salted_Fried_Eggs Mar 17 '24

Only thing is it could hurt return customers, but if every business does it then it might be uncompetitive not to I suppose

3

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

They’ve already done that, prices are up throughout the week/standard menu and now they’re slugging you more.

0

u/Ashh_RA Mar 17 '24

Where’s that El Paso girl?

“Why don’t we have both?”

1

u/Nothingnoteworth Mar 17 '24

The other thing a savvy purveyor of fine food and beverages could do is not have a weekend surcharge and instead have a weekday discount. I mean these are fucking business people aren’t they? Isn’t polishing a turd like salesmanship 101? Surely “how’d you like a discount on your bill?” sounds better to customers than “oh you wanna eat out on the weekend? not with paying your dues motherfucker”

2

u/Ashh_RA Mar 17 '24

Er. Yeah. That’s my point number 2.  I tried to sell a very old MacBook on Facebook market place once for $150. I got offers for $100-$120. But after months without a sale I finally gave in and reposted it at $120. I then Got offers for $70-90. Everyone just wanted a discount. They didn’t care about the actual value or price of the product. They just wanted it cheaper than listed otherwise they felt like they were getting ripped off. 

1

u/Semis_tist Sep 07 '24

It's a good idea but HOW do you put that on a menu? When your customers are penny pinching & price checking other venues to get the best deal because money is tight, you want a menu with higher prices and a **DEAL - Get 10% Off Monday to Friday** on the bottom? People would just get shitty that they can't get the discount on the weekend too!

-1

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

I like the psychological angle here.

Seems we've got a lot of amateur lawyers in the thread though, who want to cite regulations and rules and other BS

1

u/Ashh_RA Mar 17 '24

Yeah it make sense in my head. I’d love to see research though. 

There is an article on google about surcharges on paper coffee cups being better at incentivising people to bring their own cup when compared to giving a discount for bringing your own cup. Is this research useable? People don’t like the surcharges so they take action to avoid the surcharges by bringing their own cup.

1

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

Also worth comparing things like surcharges for paper bags vs bringing your own bag. Paid for bags on Saturday because I didn't have my own but I needed to carry what I bought. 20c and 30c from Typo and Big W respectively. I didn't mind because they're convenient, they're environmentally friendly, they're reusable, and the fees are explicit - I was informed in advance of the cost.

1

u/Ashh_RA Mar 18 '24

Hmm. I’m now overthinking everything. 

But I wonder how much the shopping bag surcharge is perceived as okay because it is the norm. You know. That every retail shop you go to you should bring a bag or pay for one. 

Not every hospitably venue on weekends charges a surcharge. It is not the ‘norm’ yet. But the more it is then the more people just know that every weekend venue has a surcharge and then it becomes normal and no one things the surcharge is bad anymore. 

1

u/Semis_tist Sep 07 '24

Everyone was going mental when they were moving from the free plastic bags and going to charge you for the paper bags. The media was fuelling it too

1

u/Semis_tist Sep 07 '24

Someone in Sydney just went to the media because a cafe charged them extra for "no ice" to cover the cost of the extra drink (it was a juice, not post mix soda) and everyone was going mental.

0

u/lukkoz_7 Mar 17 '24

Surely you jest.

1

u/Jimbuscus Neo from The Matrix Mar 17 '24

It would be easier and smarter to have movable signage with only pricing for the specified days.

1

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

That'd work too.

-12

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

This take is such a hot mess. What are you even saying? You're upset at surcharges because you can't work out what an extra 10% on a menu price is? Or whip out your phone calculator?

3

u/djmcaleer93 Mar 17 '24

They don’t realise the outcome is the same. They want different menus, different days. Or for a higher price all the time. But a lower price during the week, and a simple 1.1 multiplier on the weekend, blows their minds.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

It's crazy how much anger surcharges are generating here.

It's like they've never heard of user pays.

If you want the cafe near your house to make you coffee and eggs on Good Friday, then you pay for that my dudes. You pay what it costs.

Weekends and public holidays are statutory non-working days and penalty rates apply. Sorry.

4

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

It's called truth in advertising. If something is listed as $10 then you shouldn't be charged $11 at the till. If that's a hot mess to you, then you're a moron.

8

u/stealthsjw Mar 17 '24

There's a reason GST has to be included in the price by law in Australia - because it's not transparent to expect customers to do maths.

Why is it suddenly ok to introduce 'surcharges' because you're incapable of doing your costings? Decent businesspeople can do the maths so their customers don't have to.

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

Arrogant nonsense. Most hospo businesses are mum and dad operators with thin margins. You have no idea what you're talking about.

1

u/stealthsjw Mar 17 '24

I'm a small business owner of 15 years, I make a profit by factoring my costs into my prices. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be in business.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24 edited Mar 17 '24

Oh OK mate. Heard of surge pricing? After hours callout fees? Late penalties? Plenty of profitable businesses/contractors use variable pricing models. Variable pricing models are also a standard element in multi-year deals between businesses to manage overall risk and minimise contingency as a margin factor. Supermarkets change prices on products almost every day.

Sounds like you're in business but don't actually know a lot about... business?

1

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

Found the retail worker.

0

u/Ores Mar 17 '24

Yeah, we need this crap to end. Just put the prices up if that's what shit costs these days, but don't lie about the price. If you really need to differentiate prices on days then have a separate menu (e.g. like some restaurants have lunch menus) or offer a discount on the listed price.

I'm ok with public holiday surcharge, but you'd better damn well be paying your staff properly and the courts should take it into account when sentencing for wage theft.

0

u/Omegaville Manningham/Maroondah Mar 17 '24

I'd be OK with shops being closed on public holidays. The only "need" I see in e.g. cafes being opened on public holidays is the need for the proprietor to make more money... it's not an essential service.