Do You Tip Crate and Barrel, Jordan’s, and City Furniture Delivery?

With a market valued at over $75 billion in the US in 2022, that’s a hell of a lot of furniture being delivered every day.

If you’ve ordered furniture from one of the above stores and are awaiting delivery, you might wonder whether you need to tip the delivery driver.

Whether you tip Crate and Barrel, Jordan’s, and City Furniture delivery will come down to a number of factors such as:

• Common customs
• Driver salaries
• Cost of delivery
• The quality of the service

We’ve analyzed all of these factors to bring you a comprehensive comparison of these stores and to bring you up to speed as to whether you should be tipping and why.

Keep reading to find out…

Do You Tip Crate and Barrel, Jordon’s, and City Delivery? The Short Answer

It is customary to tip a furniture delivery driver due to the bulk and weight of the goods. We normally advise tipping around $5 – $20 depending on the size of the item and where it’s being carried to.

Crate and Barrel vs Jordon’s vs City Furniture Drivers’ Salaries Comparison

If you’re thinking about whether to tip one of these furniture retailers, you’ll probably want to know how fair they are when it comes to remunerating their drivers.

Most people are conscious that in certain professions, it’s important to tip because workers within that kind of business need extra money to supplement their measly wages.

This is what we found out when we looked at whether to tip pizza delivery, buffet workers, and hairdressers.

But let’s take a look at delivery drivers.

Starting with Crate and Barrel, according to Indeed’s data, their delivery drivers earn $52,000 per year.

Jordon’s delivery drivers earn a bit less than this at $40,000 per year according to Careerbliss.

Whereas City Furniture drivers are bringing in around $3,564 per month or $42,768 per year.

These salaries are fairly typical for delivery drivers of this nature as we found when we looked at whether to tip Nebraska Furniture Mart and Costco Furniture Delivery.

Given the average US salary is around $51,000 according to PolicyAdvice, drivers at Crate and Barrel are exceeding this, with Jordon’s and City’s drivers lagging a little behind.

On the basis of salaries alone, it seems Crate and Barrel drivers certainly don’t need tips to subsidize their income, whereas with Jordon’s and City drivers you could argue that tipping them is a bit easier to justify.

However, in the case of any of these companies, it’s hard to say that their drivers are living on the breadline.

They’re all remunerated fairly well in the grand scheme of things when you compare their salaries to the US average.

How Much is Delivery at Jordon’s, Crate and Barrel, and City?

The cost of delivery is another factor most people will want to consider before tipping.

If you’re paying a $200 delivery fee, you may feel a bit hard done by if you need to add a tip on top of that.

Let’s take a look at what these companies charge.

For Jordon’s, according to their website, expect to pay a delivery charge of 6.5% against the retail price of the goods for white-glove where your furniture is delivered, assembled, and the packaging is taken away.

This is reduced to 3% of the retail cost of the goods for “contactless deliver” where the item is delivered to your house and unassembled and left at a location of your choosing.

Crate and Barrel charges are as follows:

As most items of furniture will cost $220+ from Crate and Barrel, for delivery you’re going to be paying 10% of the retail cost for standard 3-5 day delivery. Ouch!

Unfortunately, prices don’t get much cheaper for City with the maximum delivery charge coming out at a whopping $500 with an average of around $99 – $139.99.

There’s no doubt about it, delivery charges for these companies are expensive, especially for City and Crate and Barrel, and well above places like Costco which provide free delivery, and Pottery Barn where delivery is a lot cheaper unless your goods exceed $300 in price.

How Much to Tip a Jordon’s, Crate and Barrel, and City Delivery Driver?

There are generally two ways people tip in the US.

Either by applying a percentage of about 10-20% to the cost of the goods/service or by tipping a fixed amount.

In this situation, we’d argue that tipping a fixed amount is probably more suitable as delivery is already expensive to begin with, and tipping a fixed amount is just a whole lot easier.

In this situation, we think a tip of $5 – $20 is ample.

These drivers already earn a fairly good salary and the delivery charges and cost of the furniture itself is hardly the cheapest on the market.

We’d aim for the lower end of that amount for smaller items and towards the top end for larger and more cumbersome ones that require lifting and carrying to a remote location of your property.

When You Should and Shouldn’t Tip

As above, we normally recommend tipping for heavy furniture delivery.

But there will be certain situations where you might want to increase that tip, tip when you wouldn’t normally or completely withhold a tip.

We’d suggest tipping more if:

• The delivery is made in bad weather like snow or ice
• The driver goes beyond what’s asked. For example, if he lugs a heavier bed up your stairs
• If the driver assembles the furniture to a good standard
• If it’s around Christmas

Don’t tip if:

• Your delivery is late
• Your delivery is made to the wrong address
• If the item is damaged or incomplete
• If the driver is rude or unprofessional

Final Thoughts

It’s very common to tip delivery drivers delivering bulky items.

It’s hard manual work and we think it’s in good conscience to tip a worker who’s putting the well-being of their spine at stake for your sake.

Drivers from these companies earn fairly well and delivery isn’t cheap by any stretch, so there’s no need to break the bank when it comes to tipping the workers.

$5 – 20 is fine and will likely be well received.

Perhaps be a little more generous around the holidays or if the driver has really gone beyond the call of duty for you.