Two Hats One Car

Hello Hivers I have a recent change in my work life that I will share with you today.So I'm talking about my side hussle job, delivery driving. I do this with a delivery APP. So let's get to what is new.

I decided to register for another delivery APP. So I'm driving for DoorDash and now Uber Eats. On Saturday I began the process to register for an Uber Eats account. I had to accept a contract, give some my personal information (full name, DOB, & social security number) take some pictures (driver's license, insurance card, and a selfie of me) and provide year, make, model and color of my car. This information was used to do a back ground check on me. Sunday morning all my information was processed and I did give it a go.

Why did I decide to give this a try? Well DoorDash has made some recent changes that aren't all that favorable to us drivers. I won't go into all of them but will mention two of them. First change they made is not showing us the customer name until we accept the order. This doesn't always have significance but sometimes we remember who treats us good or not and that can be a determining factor to accept the order.

The second change was on multiple delivery orders showing as one order. Before this change we would see the projected amount for each delivery. The new change does not so your left with not knowing who tips you what.
I really don't like this new feature. Receiving tips is appreciated and sometimes we go the extra mile to provide better service. Now you can see the orders values after you are done driving for the day. That's too late in my opinion.

Why I think they did this? They want us drivers to accept more deliveries. I get that they want to serve all there customers but at what cost to the drivers. Another thing I have noticed is they mix generous customers with the penny pitchers (Stiffs 🤮). So I think it is a way for the company to provide service to all their tipping and non tipping customers. After all the company makes the same delivery charges on either.

We need to call customer service when APP or other issues happen. Every time I have mentioned it being slow or there being a lack lucrative orders, they give the same line every time, "Your chances of earning more are increased if you accept every order." I've been doing this for 3 years and I know better.

Now you have some ideas why I decided to add another delivery APP to my arsenal. I'm sure everyone has heard the saying, "The grass isn't always greener on the other side." Well in this case it could be if I dropped the one and went with the other. DoorDash has the majority of the market share in the food delivery sector. So I'm just trying to incorporate Uber Eats as a supplement or a back up when I can't drive for Door Dash.

There's things I like and don't like about Uber Eats. There APP I like little better than DoorDash. I like how pickup and delivery are a swipe instead of a click on the buttons. On my DoorDash APP sometimes a single click turns into a double click which can mean doing things that can't be reversed. Also the navigation map comes up automatically with Uber.Another thing I like is you can drive at any time as I haven't seen anything about meeting any thresholds to have this opportunity. DoorDash requires a certain customer rating of 4.7 out 5, 70% acceptance rating, 90% on time rating and 95% completion rate. I usually fall short on the acceptance rate.So I have to schedule myself for shifts with DoorDash.

Probably the best perk in my opinion on Uber is there, "Uber Eats Pro" which is driver incentive program. You get points towards reward tiers delivering goods. There are four tiers green, gold, platinum and diamond. Some I don't qualify for, don't have the availability here, or aren't really benefits to me because I have better benefits already. Regardless of all of that it would be all be good things for a young person just starting to work. I look forward to getting a little cash back at the pump. They give a little more than what DoorDash offers.

Some dislikes I have involve their pay system. With DoorDash whatever the offer amount is your guaranteed that amount. Uber is different in this regard. The amount is considered a expected amount. This means you have to wait up to a hour sometimes a bit longer after delivery to see what you get. During this time a few things can happen. One is the customer can adjust their tip or take away or add to it. Another is the company can adjust the amount of the basic fair based on your travel distance and other factors.That in itself is a little disheartening but I haven't received lower amounts yet.

So there are cons and pros to both delivery APPS. I'm on day 4 of using both and I'm learning along the way. It's tough doing deliveries from two different platforms at the same time and I will only do it if they are going in the same directions. Before I leave let me give you my experiences the past few days.

Let's try this out!! Sunday morning I worked about 3 hours. Basically this was a trial day and let me tell you the earnings reflected that. A majority of this was learning how to use the APP. I spent a good 30 minutes in total on the phone on 3 seperate occasions with Uber customer service. They helped some but weren't able to explain to me how to pick up orders on the pick up screen. Lucky for me I ran into a fellow Uber driver who walked me through some of the basic features on the APP. I didn't realize you have to swipe buttons instead of clicking them.

The stats for the day were as follows: $43.70 in total earnings, DoorDash total of $25.45, Uber total of $18.25, and total miles driven was 47 miles. I made approximately $14.56 an hour, which is not that good. I was offered 4 Uber orders and took 3. For Door dash I was offered 10 orders taking 4. I had orders from both in my car at the same time twice. One worked out well while the other took some time.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty similar days. I'm just doing 3 hours for all these days, it's a good sample size I did talk to customer service on two occasions each day. I was much better using the Uber APP. I did run two orders for both at the same time. This can be little stressful as you don't know what you may run into. Factors to consider our wait times at the merchants, traffic, and the distance between the pick up/delivery points.

Monday stats were as follows: Total earning were $60.65, Uber total was $28.63, DoorDash was 32.02 and total miles driven were 74. Hourly average was $20.21.I received 3 Uber offers and accepted all 3. For DoorDash I received 7 offers and accepted 4 of the them

Tuesday stats were as follows: Total earning were $60.76, Uber total was $20.08, DoorDash was 40.68 and total miles driven were 48. Hourly average was $20.25. I received 5 Uber offers and accepted 3 of them. For DoorDash I received 11 offers and accepted 6 of them.

So Wednesday I'm happy to share with you because it was close to being a perfect delivery day. I decided to change my tactics up a bit. I started with both running and accepted the first lucrative offer. Once I did this I paused the other APP so I wouldn't get more orders. I would unpause it once I was about 2 minutes from delivering the order to the customer. This worked out really good because most of the time I would get another pick up to do before I made the delivery. Once delivered I paused the other APP. There was one time I forgot to do that but I made some good money being forgetful.

So I had a Uber Order that paid out $17.42 and while I was getting ready to deliver it I got a catering order for DoorDash that ended up paying $34.12. I couldn't pass on the catering order. Also it was only like 3 miles added to my trip to get to the other delivery. A few bad things happened though. I had to wait 10 minutes at the merchant for them to finish the order, it took twenty minutes to get to the delivery point because of traffic. The delivery was also in hotel and was on the 11th floor. To make matters worse you need a room key to operate the elevator so I had to wait for someone going up and down. I felt like a hitch hiker, haha. Both people thought that was funny and wondered why the customer didn't just meet me in lobby.

I ended up delivering the Uber order about 25 minutes late but it didn't seem to bother the customer because I got a bigger tip than the expected rate. It was in a warm bag the whole time though. It took just over an hour to do these two orders. If things went smoothly with this I could have done both in 30 minutes. Not complaining too much that was $50 plus for just over a hours work.

Wednesday stats were as follows: Total earning were $133.43, Uber total was $65.64, DoorDash was 67.79 and total miles driven were 69. Hourly wage average was $44.47. I received 6 Uber offers and accepted 4 of them. For DoorDash I received 7 offers and accepted 3 of them. Also no calls were made to Uber customer service :)

My take aways is that it's not always best to leave both up and running the whole time. I think the formula of pausing and unpausing is the best method I have found so far. Another thing I found about Uber is it's not all that busy near the city I live in (Council Bluffs, IA) but if I cross the river 5 miles away (Omaha, NE) it is busier. I know population size has a lot to play with that. I can't wait until this weekend maybe I can break my dailey total personal best.

I hope this reaches other delivery drivers out there and it adds some value for them. Not relying on just a single source for delivery will probably give me appreciation and job satisfaction for both. I'll say it's weird working for two competitors at the same time but than again I'm a contractor not an employee.

Thanks for reading this far, I really appreciate it. Hope you all finish your week strong and have a great weekend. Take care, be safe and wishing everyone the very best :)