“Think outside the box”
Hi! I’ve been delivering food and groceries for Postmates and Door Dash for almost a year. At first, the learning curve was tough. Like: How do I make sense of the mapping and pay software? Does my performance rating really affect my employment status? Is there any data as to which area in my city has the most traction and demand for drivers? Why am I really not getting orders for 30 minutes at peak rush time? How can I tell if the customer is including the tip before I accept the order? Does scheduling your shifts ahead of time really help? What are the best times to deliver food? Why do I not receive many orders when I sit parked in a hot-spot? Well, your’e in luck! I’m going to answer all those questions and give you some tricks and tips of the trade to maximize your profit and minimize the stress.
- How do I make sense of the mapping and pay software? The real answer is you have to be smarter than the AI. The pay software was updated in October to reflect a more accurate depiction of itemized pay and mileage compensation. Here is the trick. Door Dash wants to maximize its profit; therefore, the AI works to limit each dasher’s total profit margin by making each dasher have equal to similar pay during shifts. I can’t tell you how many times I go to a restaurant to pick up an order just to find 2-3 other Door Dash orders sitting at the take out counter. In fact, I will see other dashers there too as we give the sarcastic nod! This is because Door Dash can pay another dasher less $ to drive a longer distance instead of paying you to pick up multiple orders. They also know that those dashers can probably deliver the food quicker than you because you have multiple orders. Also, I’ve noticed I will be sitting in the parking lot of PF-Changs and watch a door dasher pull up and pick up an order! Really! Yes, really! That happens almost every other day. Why, might you say? Because Door Dash has hired too many drivers in that area and they want to balance the pay equally to all drivers (plus, they will push out the order to that driver instead of you if it is more cost effective) . Here is the bottom line: don’t trust the system. I will elaborate how to beat the system in my tips & tricks section at the end of this article.
- Does my performance rating really affect my employment status? NO, not anymore! As of September, Door Dash’s executive leadership saw a 65% loss in drivers due to low performance ratings. Why…because we aren’t suckers! Any dasher who accepts a $3 order to drive 10 miles is losing $. Or, any intelligent dasher who accepts an order isn’t going to place the order himself just to wait 15 minutes. Money is time and time is money! As a result, Door Dash saw tons of declined orders and low acceptance rate. So, to increase performance and retain employers leadership decided to exclude the performance rating as a part of the keeping your employment as a driver. Result: Door Dash has seen a 250% profit increase and 150% employment increase/retainment.
- Is there any data as to which area in my city has the most traction and a demand for drivers? There are two ways to check on this: First, drive the area during peak shifts a few times. Collect your data and compare. Second, drive to the HQ Door Dash office of employment (where you were hired) and ask them how many drivers they have hired for your city. If you are really nice they can even share with you some the analytical data that shows which areas have too many drivers!
- Why am I really not getting orders for 30 minutes at peak rush time? Door Dash will tell you its because there are to many dashers in your area. This is partly true. The other part of the story they neglect to tell you is that the app software, especially with IOS devices, will time out after 10 minutes of not receiving an order. Solution: just sign out and back in and it will refresh. Force closing WON’T refresh the driving matrix. This is just one of several weird glitches within the software application.
- How can I tell if the customer is including the tip BEFORE I accept the order? RULE of THUMB – if your’e getting paid less than $1 per mile driven than you are getting tipped $0 – less than $1. I’ve tested this theory several times. I drove 5 orders that paid less than $1 an hour. After you complete the order you can see the summary. It will state how much the customer tipped. Each time they tipped $0 or less than a $1.
- Does scheduling your shifts ahead of time really help? ABSOLUTELY! Shifts open up at 5:00pm Eastern time daily. At that time, the first thing I do is schedule my shift(s) for next available day. This not only insures that I will make $ but it also prevents me from driving to an area, sitting, and waiting maybe an hour or so looking at my phone until the area becomes busy. Even then, I may only be able to dash for an hour or so. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to schedule your shifts ahead of time. Also, if you weren’t able to schedule a shift then check back in on that particular day about 1 hour to 30 minutes before the shift starts. I find that the app will open shifts up to drivers then when it notices there aren’t enough drivers for that time frame.
- What are the best times to deliver food? I’ve driven over 10 cities and collected data from just about every hour between 8:00am -12 midnight. Here are the best times to drive and the most per hour: 11:30 am-1:30pm / 5:00-8:00pm on weekdays and 5:30-9:30 on weekends / College-towns 9:00pm-1:00am can make you mad $ / Sunday AM hours and 2:00-4:00pm is good.
- Why do I not receive orders much when I sit parked in a hot-spot? I finally got a straight answer from Door Dash on this one! Believe it or not you can sit in a hot spot area and there be no other drivers in that area and still not receive orders. WHY? Because there is a glitch in the software where it won’t be able to locate drivers unless they are moving. Although this seems inconsistent at times my data does support this theory. I refuse to waste gas and keep driving around, so, I will refresh the app by signing in and out along with driving my car a few blocks. This has helped a lot.
NOTE-Honestly, Door Dash will even tell you they don’t understand all the quirks about their software matrix. But, leadership has been great this year about taking the drivers feedback and implementing proactive strategies for improvement.
TIPS and TRICKS
- Always schedule your shifts ahead of time, and, check in an 30 minutes to an hour before a particular shift and you will usually see it pop up as available.
- NEVER I repeat NEVER accept an order that pays you less than $1 an hour. You can actually lose money and time this way. Just wait an extra 5-10 minutes and you will receive an order that pays more.
- Avoid restaurants where you have to order then wait for the food to be cooked. Make a list of those places and NEVER go back. You could’ve made 2 deliveries for 2-3 times the profit while you were waiting.
- Work for multiple food-delivery companies such as UBER EATS, POSTMATES or GRUB HUB. I increased my hourly pay from $14 per hour to $25 per hour driving for multiple companies simultaneously.
- Don’t be afraid to cancel an order! When arriving to the restaurant ask how long it will take for the food to be cooked. IE., I avoid Chic-fil-a during peak times because it will take them 10-15 minutes to cook the food.
- Loop areas. Keep track of which restaurants do best during certain times and loop those areas. I will drive a 5 mile loop circle of three hot spots with those hot restaurants during an entire shift.
- Only drive on the main highway-arteries. The mapping software usually won’t assign you an order if you aren’t on their suggested route of convenience.
Hopefully this article has been helpful. I will be making a short video that highlights this article in a more condensed way. I will save my best advice for last:
“You are an independent contractor…that means you make the rules