This is an interesting question. We suspect that the vast majority of couriers who deliver parcels do not receive a tip from the person that he or she is delivering a parcel to. In fact, the inter-reaction between courier and customer either at the front door of the customer’s home or business premises is likely to be brief lasting only a few seconds. Furthermore, there may be no face to face contact between both parties with the courier not finding anybody at home and leaving the parcel by the wheelie bin around the side of the house.

However, there may be certain instances when a delivery driver is tipped for delivering the likes of a larger item such as a piece of furniture and goes to the trouble of taking the item inside the customer’s home at the customer’s request and places the item say in the lounge. There will no doubt be some customers who are more than happy to tip the delivery driver for doing this.

We suspect that it tends to be fast food delivery drivers who tend to be tipped on more occasions than other types of delivery drivers especially if the customer is paying in cash. Typically, if someone has ordered a couple of pizzas and fries and a larger bottle of coke costing say £28.00 he or she may be given £30.00 and told to keep the change. That is not far out of line with the percentage some people tip the waiting staff when dining out at a restaurant or pub.

Yes – of course it would be lovely if courier drivers were tipped as a general rule but this is not the case. There will always be some people who, as a matter of course, always tip but there will be others who never provide a tip. There will then be those who only tip when they feel that the person they are tipping has provided an outstanding level of service and gone beyond what was expected of them.