Current Events > My Mom and I did Doordash for a month. Here's what I learned.

(+) Yeah! (+)

She did Doordash, and I helped her here and there. I wasn't there for every run, but I helped her make a few deliveries and rode with her occasionally. For the most part, her and I had a negative experience. It's not quite as easy or rewarding as we thought.

• Most of the time you're sitting there doing nothing because orders are not coming in.
• A lot of the orders that do come in are less than $5, which are not worth doing.
• Adding to my last point, because of how boring it can be waiting for an order, sometimes we would do the $4 anyway, which was never worth the gas money or time.
• Because of the downtime, it's really hard to make very much money off it. We really struggled to hit $100 on some days.
• The Doordash app was very bad with directions. It was constantly having her go in circles, and she sometimes would be misinformed on what town she was headed in. She would be stuck delivering 20 miles away when she didn't want that. This could be user error though.
• It was unclear whether we should care about our acceptance rating or not. Either we didn't care and wait for the $20 orders to come in, or DO care about the acceptance rate and get TONS of $3.00 orders and not make much money anyway.
• The platform requires a LOT of memorization. You need to know which towns and streets are active, which Taco Bell locations are fast or slow, what time of day is good to make deliveries on, and so on.

Those are just a few points. Anything you would add? Agree or disagree with any of my points?

like the total order is under $5? or your cut is under $5? cause delivery fee itself will put most orders over $5.

it seems like a job you should build your schedule around. like work the lunch and dinner rush hours each day. especially on weekends. definitely location is a big part of it.

the GPS on it does seem like it sucks. i know i've had a few people have to call me cause the GPS was off. definitely seems like you should just use your phones GPS instead of the apps but not sure if you're required to keep the app running the whole time or if you can switch to different screens.

definitely seems like more of a job for some extra money and not to be your main job. like if it's a stay at home parent and they do the lunch rush while kids are in school. then go pick up the kids and go home till the other parent gets home and then go back out for the dinner rush. do that like 5 hours a day and maybe it's worth the gas and wear and tear on the car but would need something fuel efficient either way.

Are you in a busy area like NYC or LA?

*pojr*

welcome to the "gig economy" lol. i've never done it but what you say seems to be what the general concensus is on that app. it's literally worse than minimum wage (in my country), and by a country mile at that. Friend of mine was laid off and did it on his bike downtown toronto and was making 60-80 bucks for 6 hours of work (minimum would have been $90+, but his normal job woulda paid him 180+ for 6hrs). Oh, and at the end of it he has to bike home.

Most people expect $2-5 tip is enough for their single meal/fast food/coffee delivery because percentage wise, it is a lot compare to their mea. Time wise for dasher, even if the place were within literally down the street or same building, still take over 15-20mins for orders like that and with $2 base pay, barely fed minimum wage and definitely under most state's min wage.

Tried it and dropped it within a 2 week, didn't even put my own bank info for withdraw and they mailed me a check at the end of the year for cash out. DD probably works better in a city when everything is tightly packed and customers would actually COME DOWN to get their stuff. Going up and down apartment would burn another 10 mins and even more just for parkings.

Oh, forgot promo/guarantee bonus during weekend/rush hour where DD/UE would pump their $2 base to X when you to do Y orders, those are the only time you will meet $10-15/hr. But aldi/lidl/walmart here are hiring for $16+ already.

Doordash pay has gotten worse and worse as time has gone on. Ive only ever done it as a part time thing on the side just to waste time and get some extra cash, but these days Im lucky to see a handful of orders more than $5, as you said.

Its only worthwhile to me to dual app it with Iber Eats, and even then UE is also pretty terrible in my area these days.

I cant imagine having to rely on these apps for a full time income. I think youd have to hustle and work many, many hours, and live in a high volume area (major city).

Trevorkkho posted...

Most people expect $2-5 tip is enough for their single meal/fast food/coffee delivery because percentage wise, it is a lot compare to their mea. Time wise for dasher, even if the place were within literally down the street or same building, still take over 15-20mins for orders like that and with $2 base pay, barely fed minimum wage and definitely under most state's min wage.

Tried it and dropped it within a 2 week, didn't even put my own bank info for withdraw and they mailed me a check at the end of the year for cash out. DD probably works better in a city when everything is tightly packed and customers would actually COME DOWN to get their stuff. Going up and down apartment would burn another 10 mins and even more just for parkings.

Oh, forgot promo/guarantee bonus during weekend/rush hour where DD/UE would pump their $2 base to X when you to do Y orders, those are the only time you will meet $10-15/hr. But aldi/lidl/walmart here are hiring for $16+ already.

ya it really is just a no win solution. The price for customers is already as high as it can really go while still getting orders and no ones really making money here except the restaurants themselves, so no real good solution to the problem.

mariolover2 posted...

I hope you dont drive stick. Your knee will get fucked up.

What?

CE_gonna_CE posted...

Doordash pay has gotten worse and worse as time has gone on. Ive only ever done it as a part time thing on the side just to waste time and get some extra cash, but these days Im lucky to see a handful of orders more than $5, as you said.

Its only worthwhile to me to dual app it with Iber Eats, and even then UE is also pretty terrible in my area these days.

I cant imagine having to rely on these apps for a full time income. I think youd have to hustle and work many, many hours, and live in a high volume area (major city).

I worked Doordash in San Francisco and even here its hard to make money doing Doordash. Any order without a tip isnt worth doing and people are tipping worse and worse.

Zeeak4444 posted...

ya it really is just a no win solution. The price for customers is already as high as it can really go while still getting orders and no ones really making money here except the restaurants themselves, so no real good solution to the problem.

That's the ultimate rub with food delivery services. They don't make anyone money. It doubles the customer's cost, it increases the restaurant's cost and the driver barely makes money on it. And trying to tweak any of those things just breaks it's already delicate balance even more.

From the customer end of things, when I've used Doordash I've had meals double or more in price with delivery fee+service fee+tip. Also with most places, on top of fees and tip, they artificially inflate the price of what you're buying compared to restaurant price. I'm not going to order a $25-30 meal through them because then I'm looking at the price of a brand new video game because I didn't want to go get my food.

The result is like you found. Ordering a cheap-ish $10 meal and having it go to $20 doesn't sting nearly as much, so a lot of times that's what I'd go for. And that's less than $5 tip.

The amount of them that just sit in our Walmart parking lot waiting for calls is high. Hours just sitting there.

Ive been an Uber driver for 8 1/2 years. I have the option to be able to accept UberEats deliveries, but I never will. Its next to impossible to make money doing it.

RISEofCHRISTIAN posted...

Are you in a busy area like NYC or LA?

*pojr*

no we did this in the Syracuse NY area, which is a medium-sized city.

mariolover2 posted...

Also, make sure you never hand the wrong order to someone. It is a pain to retrieve.

we haven't encountered that issue yet thankfully. her and i have been careful.

Trevorkkho posted...

Most people expect $2-5 tip is enough for their single meal/fast food/coffee delivery because percentage wise, it is a lot compare to their mea. Time wise for dasher, even if the place were within literally down the street or same building, still take over 15-20mins for orders like that and with $2 base pay, barely fed minimum wage and definitely under most state's min wage.

Tried it and dropped it within a 2 week, didn't even put my own bank info for withdraw and they mailed me a check at the end of the year for cash out. DD probably works better in a city when everything is tightly packed and customers would actually COME DOWN to get their stuff. Going up and down apartment would burn another 10 mins and even more just for parkings.

Oh, forgot promo/guarantee bonus during weekend/rush hour where DD/UE would pump their $2 base to X when you to do Y orders, those are the only time you will meet $10-15/hr. But aldi/lidl/walmart here are hiring for $16+ already.

i think i heard somewhere that some customer believe doordash employees get paid hourly, which is why they don't tip well or tip at all.

Compsognathus posted...

That's the ultimate rub with food delivery services. They don't make anyone money. It doubles the customer's cost, it increases the restaurant's cost and the driver barely makes money on it. And trying to tweak any of those things just breaks it's already delicate balance even more.

seems like the only people really seeing the money is doordash corporate.

pojr posted...

seems like the only people really seeing the money is doordash corporate.

Nope. Doordash has never made a profit.

Basically nobody makes money in this system. Like it just doesn't work.