RIDEGURU
Am I supposed to be tipping the food delivery drivers and bicylists? (UberEats, DoorDash, GrubHub, Postmates, etc.)
Posted 4 years, 12 months ago
Posted In
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Do you have questions for your Uber anad Lyft drivers? What about tips and suggestions? Whether you are a driver or a rider, share your comments here and get responses from real rideshare drivers.
Posted By
JBachman
56
Ride Apprentice
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Comments
This is a great question, and I have no idea still. I mean, young people are using it to get a $7 subway delivered to them these days. Do they tip $5 for a $7 sandwich? I doubt it.
I saw TV commercials where TacoBell and GrubHub partnered. People are getting TacoBell delivered? This means the industry is catering to people ordering $7 worth of food, right? How does the economics make sense?
You're right, the economics don't make sense at all. I delivered UberEats for nearly a year. Most of the time, if you factor in my expenses and time, I made less than minimum wage. The only time I did better was when people tipped. Which was less than half the time.
One time I accepted a request that turned out to be nearly a half hour away (mostly freeway). When I arrived, it was a McDonalds, and a man who lived a mile away had ordered a Big Mac, fries and a soda. And of course, no tip. I think I made $3.50 on the delivery. And then I had to drive back. An hour of my time, probably $8 in gas, and $3.50 was what I had to show for it. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
And I won't even mention the dozens of times I had to wait 15 or 20 minutes at a restaurant while they were preparing an order. And of course I wasn't paid for that time.
No longer. If you're thinking about driving Uber Eats, think again.
Why are they being so reckless with the rollout? Why support McDonalds and TacoBell? I feel like that’s not the clientele they would want in this infancy stage of the new business model. Why not stick with larger restaurants with larger unit costs? Applebee’s, Chilli’s, popular restaurants, etc WHY FAST FOOD?
Is the allure of having the service available for anyone that important? This like a race to the bottom.
Actually, most restaurant chains already have delivery contracts with these companies. Applebees, for example, can be ordered for deliver through DoorDash, GrubHub, Caviar and Amazon.
My guess is that UberEats is catering to the fast food crowd to grab marketshare and to get people to use their app on a regular basis. Like rideshare, they don't care about profitability, they just want to control the majority of that market. If they can pull that off, then they'll try to use that influence to force out the other companies and take over the "higher end" restaurants.
Convenience has a price. It's not free. If you're "too broke" to tip your driver, then you should get up off your butt and drive to the restaurant and pickup your food yourself.
Too inconvenient? Don't want to deal with the traffic? Don't want to go out in the rain/snow? Don't want to climb several flight of stairs? Don't want to fight for a parking space? That driver does all of the above so you don't have to. Do you not think they deserve to be compensated for their time and efforts?
Delivery drivers do all of those things so that you don't have to. Why wouldn't you tip them? (Or do you think that they want to spend their evenings delivering your food for free instead of spending it with their families?)
Have you ever ordered a pizza? If you did, did you tip your driver for delivering it? (95% of people do)
If you went to Olive Garden and ordered the soup and salad, do you tip the waitress for taking the order and carrying to your table? (95% of people do)
If you go to a bar and order a drink, do you tip your bartender for fixing it? (most people do)
That delivery GrubHub/DoorDash/Postmates/UberEats driver doesn't earn an hourly wage like the others. THAT DRIVER PAYS for the vehicle to deliver your food to save you from having to go out. THAT DRIVER PAYS $4 /gal gas to drive to the restaurant during rush hour. THAT DRIVER PAYS higher insurance rates. That driver almost always has to wait several minutes at the restaurant. UNPAID, while the restaurant prepares your meal. THAT DRIVER PAYS to drive from the restaurant to your home/office so that you can relax and/or keep working to make money.
That driver RECEIVES ZERO HO…
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Have you ever ordered a pizza? If you did, did you tip your driver for delivering it? (95% of people do)
If you went to Olive Garden and ordered the soup and salad, do you tip the waitress for taking the order and carrying to your table? (95% of people do)
If you go to a bar and order a drink, do you tip your bartender for fixing it? (most people do)
That delivery GrubHub/DoorDash/Postmates/UberEats driver doesn't earn an hourly wage like the others. THAT DRIVER PAYS for the vehicle to deliver your food to save you from having to go out. THAT DRIVER PAYS $4 /gal gas to drive to the restaurant during rush hour. THAT DRIVER PAYS higher insurance rates. That driver almost always has to wait several minutes at the restaurant. UNPAID, while the restaurant prepares your meal. THAT DRIVER PAYS to drive from the restaurant to your home/office so that you can relax and/or keep working to make money.
That driver RECEIVES ZERO HOURLY SALARY (unlike the pizza delivery guy or the waitress or the bartender who receive a minimum hourly salary), but his/her expenses are much higher. How can one honestly wonder if tipping that delivery person is appropriate? (Or do you think they're doing it all for free?)
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I wasn’t trying to get out of paying the poor driver. For one, there is a delivery fee and up-charge for ordering through these services. I as a customer have no idea how much of that they are being paid. For two, I have no idea how much they’re being compensated by the companies.
Not to mention I have no idea how much to even tip.
I feel this is a valid question and something consumers would like to know when we are discussing a business that is new and people aren’t familiar with. Hey, at least I ask because I care. (Better then those who don’t.)
So how much do you tip?
Your mistake was not putting, “If yes, how much should I tip?” at the end of your question.
Or phrase it differently. It currently sounds like you aren’t tipping at all. Rephrase to:
“Should I tip...?”
“How much should I tip the driver if any?”
My understanding is that if you order delivery through a company like UberEats, your delivery fee and approx 30% of the order price is taken by Uber as their "cut" for brokering the delivery service. They don't actually perform the service, they just act as the middleman to coordinate the delivery through their "independent contractor" delivery drivers. Some of the fees may trickle down to the drivers in the form of incentives, but the lions share still goes to the companies.
As a general rule, I tip 25-50% of the order total, with a minimum tip of $5. (FWIW, $5 tips were standard when I delivered pizzas to work my way through college in the 70's and 80's)
And on top of it all, you have a person who doesn't have the willingness to cook and wants someone to cook it for them, and doesn't have the willingness to get it themselves. And they are willing to pay for all of those luxuries, but want to short change the person who has the most dangerous job getting your food.
I make the tip proportional to the distance driven, the difficulty of the drive, the difficulty of carrying the order to my door, the dollar amount of the order, and the number of people ordering. If it's a $20 order that was walked over one block and handed to me in a compact little box, then $2. If it was a $20 order that was driven 6 miles (12 miles round trip), to a difficult to find driveway, and 5 of us are paying for it, then $8. Dollar amount of the order doesn't change the difficulty of the trip nor the amount of gas used.
Also, I DON'T USE UBEREATS or any of those other services. I order directly from the restaurant. Why should an intermediary service get a cut when they don't do anything? It just diminishes pay for the restaurant and their workers, and makes it more likely that the restaurant will go out of business (which a lot of them are doing).
You don't have to, but I will personally swipe your delivery away for some other sucker to take it and wait for someone who does tip to pop up.
Ya, I will always tip for deliveries but maybe lower than I should? $5 is really the max I tip and $3 is the lowest, just sort of depends on the total.
I did just tip a home depot guy $20 the other day for moving my new bath surrounds into my garage for me but that seemed like a special case.
I tip like $5 for a regular order of $40 or so. For anything less, like a $20 breakfast bagel, I just round up to the next 5. (so like $3?)
I don't do it by percentage. Just a few bucks for the delivery fee. Sort of what people do (I think) for pizza and chinese delivery guys.