I did Uber eats pre pandemic to supplement income and it was fine for the most part. I bought a food insulator from Sam's that way the hot food stayed how and the cold food stayed cold. This also keeps your car from smelling like what ever food your carrying. People seemed to tip more when they saw that you went out of your way to protect their food. Food delivery is very time intensive if you deliver in a spread out area like Katy or Sugarland. On of the reasons I stoped doing Uber Eats to make extra money was because I started to teach online courses part time. This helped me make more money with less time spent. Which is key for something that you only want to do part time.
It would be tough to impossible to stick with 2 mile maxes. It's rare to get those in H-Town. But $100 to $200 a month is easy. That was basically a normal 3 day weekend about 4 to 6 hours an evening for me. I was getting around $17.50 to $20 an hour with most of that time chilling waiting for good orders. There is a learning curve. All of my negative reviews were in the beginning. I mixed up orders and would forget to double check drinks. Then, I got the hang of it and got organized and planned. That hot bag is important, but I had multiple sized coolers, too, for the smaller orders or the drinks. I ended up not picking up any multiple orders unless it was going to the same place. I didn't pick up an order while already on an order unless it payed better than the order I was already on. I basically delivered the food as if I was delivering it to myself. That delivery guy fantasy is a real thing. I saw things, but declined. Safety... I was careful when selecting orders later into the night, my wife had my location, and I had a weapon in the car just in case, but never had to use it. Good luck and be safe. Oh, and I stuck with Uber Eats. No other apps. I talked to some drivers that were on multiple apps, but they were truly grinding.
I had some extra time on my hands when my daughter was born so I did a few delivery gigs. Here is my wisdom. 1) Dining delivery is generally dogshit. Doordash is the best of a bad bunch, but it's still awful and should generally be avoided. The only reasons you should do dining delivery are if you are between Uber/Lyft gigs and perhaps are fishing for a gig to take you out to a POI (point of interest, e.g. Airport, downtown, or your own home), or if you live in a downtown area and can bike to destinations (generally faster throughput and less money out of pocket). 2) Transporting people is the most profitable, but it depends on you hitting places where demand is high and supply is low. That means late nights, weekends, big events, bad weather, etc. Not ideal. Can be fun, though. 3) If you can't transport people (for example, I couldn't most of the time because my car was riddled with kid crap), item delivery (Walmart Spark, Amazon Flex, Veho, Roadie, etc) can be a worthwhile alternative. You will have to fight to both get into the program and other drivers to get the best gigs though, and there is a learning curve to each program that you have to master to truly maximize your return. The sweet spot I found was with Roadie doing Rx deliveries from CVS. Those were the plentiful and underserved, and the fulfillers (pharm workers) and recipients were WAY nicer and easier to work with than dining delivery. You'd even score the occasional crazy profitable delivery on either a large item from a big box store (home depot usually), a bespoke item (custom cakes was common), or an urgent letter etc. The system relies heavily on reputation of the driver so you actually get rewarded for being on time and providing good service, unlike DD/UE where they just rely on steady churn and burn. 4) Do not do Instacart under any circumstances. Biggest pain in the ass and least profitable by FAR.
UE's gamification crap is the worst. Their payouts are so low I have no idea how they stay in business. Their whole model is built on tricking you into thinking that if you just get your acceptance score high enough eventually they will send you well paying gigs. Never happens.
I didn’t think you knew what you were delivering and where until after you accepted. I was in Vegas and door dashed. The driver had no clue where my hotel was on the strip. After going round and round, the driver admitted not being from Vegas and would not have accepted my delivery if she knew she had to drive on the strip. I told her I would cancel my order and get a refund. She said that’s not possible. I laughed and hung up on the b****. I had my full refund within minutes after chatting with customer service.
Reading this . . . I am again amazed at how the UBER /GIG economy DESTROYED the profitability of food delivery for the Drivers I legit know I made more delivering for Pizza Hut than I could with UberEats etc . . .and that was the 90s . . . and that is not even adjusted for inflation 20 hours a week = easily 100$ in Tips + what was it 5$ per hour so 100$ + 1.25 a delivery so maybe 3 deliveries an hour (60 deliveries) 75$ 275$ a week on 20 hours My friend who does it . . .was pulling some LONG hours to get to that 50$ a night (then again . . .i will admit .. they might just SUCK at it ) Rocket River
IMO Amazon and Chewy have the best customer service. Door Dash is second tier. They never give you your money back - it’s always credit which is fine. I hate how they prorate. Missing tomato? $2.
All you are generally told is the payout and the miles. If you are clever you can usually deduce what it is, especially if it's during off-hours.
Good stuff, thanks! Kingwood is kind of unique in that there is one intersection a mile from my house that has 20 different restaurants. I plan on just chilling in the HEB parking lot waiting for good orders there and only delivering to houses in my neighborhood. Probably only 1) during my lunch time while I'm working from home and 2) during my kids music lessons which are 2 hours long twice a week. Beats just watching YouTube in my car, right? No late nights or shady apartment complexes. $200 a month would be perfect and would really help with my wife's chronic Amazon addiction for which there is no known cure..... I thought about that but I'd much rather drive around bags of food than people. That way I can just put my headphones on and listen to my podcasts while I work. Actually, the reason I chose DD is so I don't have to interact with people at all. Seems like most places have a shelf where they leave take out orders and you can just show up and grab your order and go. And most people who DD just want you to leave it at their door and not even knock.
My youngest son did it during college and it provided him some nice pocket change. The ability to pick and choose when and where he delivered allowed nice flexibility. If I recall, he was paid almost immediately through the app. Not to mention the occasional free meal.
You will quickly realize a few things. 1) The lack of facetime with the customer means a lack of tips. The only tips I EVER got were from people whom I interacted with directly, and even those tips were extremely rare and often small. There is also 'tipbaiting', wherein users will make a big tip/bid on their order so it gets picked up quick, but then renege on it the moment you deliver it because they can. 2) You do have to deal with people. Mostly the people making and handing you the food. They hate your guts and do not care about your time or money. You will often be forced to wait agonizingly long times for pick ups at popular places or during rush times. The "to go" shelf doesn't exist anymore. That was a covid era creation that has since stopped. 3) The pay is disgustingly low per hour. Even without gas and upkeep you will be making less than minimum wage most times. 4) You can have in earbuds while you drive people around and no one will care. This is why I went with Roadie and Rx delivery. The pharmacy was often much more quick and pleasant to deal with. The best part? If the customer isn't home when you go to deliver, you have to take the Rx back to the pharmacy and you get paid twice. Even better, the people who order pharmacy deliverables often live in SFHs (no apartments thank god) and are often older and so tipping is common practice for their generation. Extra tip: Roadie has a contract with Nothing Bundt Cakes and so all their deliveries are done that way. I delivered a LOT of cakes over the holidays/new years, and it was awesome because it was often to offices, corporates, and really snazzy residences. I got lots of free cake and really good tips.
This is my Uber Eats driver every time. It's all I see when they are walking back to their car. I'm a generous tipper.
The reason nobody tips on these apps are two fold. 1) They call the bid for service done during the ordering process a 'tip', this makes customers think they shouldn't or don't have to actually tip afterwards for great service. 2) The food prices are outrageously overinflated. Honestly, if you're gonna tip, just put it all up front in the bid. If the driver sucks you can claw it back later. Otherwise just give them cash on receipt.
I didn't even know you could tip on the back end. (there's a joke there somewhere) I usually tip generously on the front end just because I appreciate people who hustle and aren't afraid to work. If they screw up, I just give them a bad rating but that's REALLY rare.
