By some weird coincidence, I was asked for advice on Uber Eats/DoorDash bicycle delivery yesterday. This was like 30 minutes after I finished writing the blog I wrote on beginner tips for Uber Eats on a bike. While I feel this was a good start, I did not cover everything a new person needs to know.
In a perfect world you are going to have both DoorDash and UberEats open and running at once. You are going to discover really quickly, there is a lot of waiting for your next order. It could be 2 minutes, it could be 20. A lot of the app delivery experience is gambling. Some days you are going to come home feeling flush, and some days you will literally make less than minimum wage.
If you can bring a little bike pouch with a book or something, your day will be a lot better. That being said, let's get into more beginner tips for UberEats/DoorDash delivery on a bicycle.
Use two apps but don’t mess with double apping
What a lot of people may do, is run orders on both apps at once, accepting orders on each. I accidentally did this once and it was so stressful. It was also fruitful, as you are getting more productive time but it’s risky. I had to go the wrong direction for 8 minutes on one app, to achieve my other delivery. If the person who is waiting for food is watching me do this, they can tell I don’t have another order on the same app. If they decide you are wasting their time they may complain and you can get banned.
What I would do is keep both apps on and when I accepted an order on one app, I would close the other app. DoorDash lets you pause your run for 35 minutes, since as we discussed yesterday you can only dash when it’s busy. Don’t end your run with DoorDash, you may find out that it’s no longer busy, always pause it.
Here and there you may accept one order, then a better order comes in on the other app. Cancel the worse order. As long as you keep your cancellation rate under 5% on Uber (DoorDash will tell you in the stats it’s threshold) then you can scott-free cancel orders. Don’t be afraid to be selfish, this is your money, get it.
I did not find the experience profitable when I relied on UberEats alone. Once you have both apps, it gets more constant and it’s easier to hit a revenue number that makes you feel like your time was well used. It’s still random, some nights it was all Uber. Some night DoorDash was king.
Uber Shop & Pay can take a lot of time
Leave the Shop & Pay orders for the car people. You don’t need that smoke. Almost every time I accepted one, it had me cycling 15+ minutes to the store. Then it would take forever to find the items. Uber doesn’t do a great job of guiding you around. Also, nearly every time, there’d be an item or two missing. I’d have to ask the clerks for help, and they rarely helped.
Then you have to deliver the items to the person. The delivery range they give you on a cycle is way farther than they do with a restaurant. So it can be a hefty trek. Now if it’s a really close Shop & Pay with a few items, in a store you know, and the tip is fat, take it. But it’s still not going to be stress free, I promise.
The DoorDash version of Shop & Pay is actually good. It tells you what aisle everything is in. Uber just tells you the section. DoorDash tries to give you the items in the order you will shop for them. A lot of the time with DoorDash you will get a “high paying +” order. This means the faster you can deliver it, the more pay you get. I had one trip to Metro on Notre Dame downtown. In something like 35 minutes all in I made 21$ off a DoorDash shopping trip.
I’ve also had inventory issues and you need the client to work with you to make it go fast. The trick to shopping trips is to text the client a lot. Show you are on it and keep them in the loop.
One time I messed up and didn’t deliver a mayonnaise. Uber was cool about it and let me keep it with no penalty.
Don’t wait more than 10 minutes at a restaurant
Nobody tells you this ahead of time. Whenever a restaurant makes you wait more than 10 minutes, you can call UberEats support and get them to cancel the order. You must go through the support team otherwise it will affect your rate. What also happens is they give you 3-4$ as a compensation for the restaurant wasting your time.
It is never as much as what you would have got for completing the trip, but it’s better than nothing.You can use the chat support. Calling won’t actually get you anything. Also, don’t beg for more money than what they offer often. Uber tracks how many times you ask for more. If you go too many times they say no every time, no matter what. Save those escalations for really bad moments.
When you get to a restaurant, ask them how long it will be. Make sure to ask if it will be longer than 10 minutes. If the restaurant says yes, contact support right away and make sure to say the restaurant already told you it will be more than 10 minutes. Support will then call the restaurant to confirm and boom, you are free to take the next order with 3$.
Also restaurants will lie to your face. If they say 5 minutes, it’s usually a lie. If they say 2-4 minutes, expect it to be like 8 minutes. It’s super rare that they tell you the truth.
DoorDash is not like this. There is no compensation. Also don’t bother calling support, they will not help you. Sometimes, after 10 minutes a thing will pop up saying you can cancel without penalty. It’s on you at that point to make a judgement call. Get nothing for the time, or wait longer and be paid crappily for your time. Sometimes that doesn’t pop up and you just get to wait or cancel with a penalty to your rate. If that gets too low you get worse orders.
DoorDash does pay nicer a lot of the time. Their support is pretty damned awful to deal with. I never won any battle with them, even when I was right and I could prove it. All they ever said was it was the algorithm, there was nothing they could do. UberEats lets you at least argue for more money here and there.
Don’t bother with the late shift
This last part applies to Montreal. Somewhere around 10 PM, most of the restaurants close in our city. If you don’t believe me check on Google Maps. Filter to Restaurants and go open now. Then change the time to later on and watch how little is open at 10:30 PM.
This matters a lot on a bicycle. In a car you may get an order 5-6 KM away. On a bicycle, most of the time you need to be within a 1-2 KM of a resto to get the order. The stuff that remains open late is spaced out. All the dense areas of restaurants like on St. Denis near Ontario close. What’s left is fast food and pizza.
You aren’t getting good pizza orders on a bicycle. You are getting the rinky dink ones that fit in your bag. I also found the tips to be super trash. You see crazy good tips on stuff like Indian food that already costs a lot. People using Uber Eats specials at 1:30 AM to get McDonalds aren’t going to tip as well.
To the reader, I don’t care if you particularly tip. I got stats being the delivery guy. I found that past 10:00 PM, most orders I’d receive were 5$ or less. They’d be longer distances and they’d be the restaurants that make you wait a long time. When you set up your Uber Eats cycle life, aim to start around 4:30 PM and end around 10 PM. You will get the most bang for your buck. Weekend days are also nice sometimes. It’s so hit or miss.
The early shift is supposed to be really nice but I’m not one to cycle people’s food at 5:00 AM. I did find the 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM shift to be good too. Maybe if you live in the Plateau your version of this game will be different. It’s worth noting I would start my journey not far from Loyola Campus in NDG.
I hope this was helpful.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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