So is it customary to tip the person doing the bagging?
When I was in South Africa, this wasn’t very common. I suppose you could tip them but there isn’t a very big tipping culture there.
Or maybe a designated bagger will do it faster, resulting in less wait times?
Personally, I’ve never thought that having a designated bagger was that much faster (by themselves). Sometimes you’d see someone helping the bagger, this would be faster.
But how does this person provide any value though?
It’s not necessarily about the value they provide. Since unemployment is so high, if you can create extra jobs, the business will do it. When I left, unemployment in my province was at 50%.
It’s the same for self checkout. You could easily do it yourself but you’d lose out on potential jobs (bagger and cashier). This article is really good at showing why these systems are the way they are.