As a delivery driver for Uber Eats and Postmates, what success comes down to are these two things: money and convenience. Simple as that. There are other delivery services out there (GrubHub, DoorDash, Bite Squad, etc), but so far I’ve only worked with Postmates and Uber Eats, so that’s what I’ll cover in this post.
Back to the two most important things… money and convenience. In late 2019 Uber Eats made a fundamental change that changed everything. Before this redesign of the app service, Uber Eats was lacking the same benefits Postmates was providing for drivers. Basically, Uber Eats sucked and here’s why… (remember this is all as a driver, I’m not sure how the app looked on the customer side)…
Uber Eats – 2019 and earlier
When a delivery popped up in the app, I could see where I’m picking up from but NOT where I’m delivering to. Many times I’d pick up from a restaurant within a mile or two (good), but then the delivery would be miles and miles away (bad), taking me out of the area I wanted to work in.
Postmates – 2019 and earlier
Postmates was good about showing the pick-up location and drop-off location before I’d have to accept or decline the delivery. The downside was they didn’t pay much per delivery.
Uber Eats – late 2019 to now
Uber Eats is glowing in its ease of use now! Sometime in late 2019, they made changes to include seeing both pick-up and drop-off locations as well as how much each delivery will pay. Another nice convenience is that the orders have already been placed so all I do when I get to the pick-up is literally just pick up the order. One potential drawback is they’re now offering a service where I (the delivery driver) have to make the order and pay for it (using an Uber Eats credit card, of course). I don’t see this as a good thing for me as a driver. It slows me down. Other pros: communication with the customer is easy and smooth through the app, tips go into my account within an hour, boost hours. Cons: while I’m on a delivery, I’ll get offers but can’t see where the drop-off location is.
Postmates – now
One of my least favorite things about Postmates, well, I have two least favorite things. The pay sucks. I might spend 30 minutes on a delivery from beginning to end and make $3. In what world is that acceptable? But what annoys me the most happened again just yesterday. Here’s the quick story. Let’s say I was downtown, I’ll call that area 1. I received an offer for a pick-up in area 2, then delivering back to area 1. Fine, I’ll do that. As I was on my way to area 2 for the pick-up, Postmates automatically added an order onto the one I accepted. I checked the app to see what was going on and the new order they assigned to me was the same pick-up location (good) but the delivery is in area 9, about 8 miles away (very bad)! No, thank you. On top of that, they don’t let me drop the new order. I must either do both, or cancel both. That’s a huge no-no, in my world. The icing on the cake is that even if I did both, I would’ve spent an hour and made $3 per delivery. That’s $6. Again, no thank you. Pros: seeing both pick-up and drop-off locations. Cons: everything else.
I’m this close to dropping the Postmates app altogether because now they are sorely outmatched by Uber Eats.
What are your experiences with these apps, either as a driver or customer? How about any of the other delivery apps out there? Chime in below, I’m curious!
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 