GigCartel

For gig workers, by gig workers.

Should you accept every offer from Grubhub, DoorDash, or UberEats, or Cherry Pick?

A hotly debated topic in the gig work and gig economy community, which may not be a one size fits all answer.

Contributed by DaisukeDoki

Original Publication Date September 3, 2022

Food delivery can be a great option in the gig economy, provided you're in a market where it's an option.

I started out with Uber and Lyft, but pretty much after the night some drunk young couple decided to have sex in my car during a 13-mile Lyft down the freeway from downtown in the city where I worked at the time to the guy's apartment in the suburbs, I more or less got away from passengers pretty much after that night, and now I exclusively do food and package delivery on Grubhub, Doordash, and Amazon Flex. I don't even know if my Uber account is still active, but I don't really do Uber Eats because there are too many variables at this time, at least for me.

There seems to be this huge debate among gig food delivery drivers, though, regarding whether you should just accept every offer sent to you (especially among Grubhub and Doordash drivers) or cherry pick for the best ones.
See, in food delivery apps, with the exception of Postmates before it became part of Uber Eats (and now exists in name only at this point as your Postmates driver is now using the Uber Eats app to deliver "Postmates orders"), drivers get to see how much the offer pays before accepting or declining it. In the case of Grubhub or Doordash, we also get a better picture of where it's going, so we can see whether it's a safe area to make deliveries, and even more importantly, if we'll be able to get a run back to where we're currently running, and/or be able to get runs there. This information can be imperative to know if you are trying to make profit.
And no, it's not about profiling. At least not to me, anyway. I won't say that there aren't people who do cherry pick for offensive reasons, but I'm all about one color - green. I go where I can make the most money, and I don't care what complexion my customer is. Also, that urban legend about people of certain complexions being less likely to tip than say, someone who looks more like me, is total, utter bullshit. A black person isn't any less likely to tip than a white person, and my highest cash tip was from a black man. My highest tip ever ($75) was from a mixed lesbian couple...and I'm a male. So take your racism and misogyny and shove it.

Is Cherry Picking Right For You, or Should You Take Everything?

There is no one correct answer. I've been doing food delivery for four years now, and I personally choose to cherry pick Grubhub and Doordash, with a strategy of accepting one, then only accepting something else if it's going the same direction, until the first one is delivered (unless the second one delivers sooner and I can still make the other on time - with DoorDash always being more important to deliver on time). I know - sounds like a dilly...but it works in my primary city of nearly 1 million, in a metro area of 2 million.
If you're somewhere more remote, rural, or really far from a major U.S. or Canadian city, you may be better off to take everything you can get - assuming the run pays for the cost of the fuel or charge for your vehicle. If I was running an all-electric vehicle somewhere I had 24/7 access to free charging stations, in a town with 13,000 people that is 10 minutes from my house, I'd probably run very differently from how I run in major metropolitan areas, because I have another app that pays me literally just for driving, so if I could move the car for free, I could literally just run that app between offers.

Do What Works For You, Regardless What Anyone Else Tells You

There's this guy in my market who literally gets triggered into a rant when he sees someone else decline a Grubhub or Doordash offer, who feels compelled to lecture them about how they should "always accept everything no matter what." I had words with him a couple times. A friend of mine who works one of the three markets I work has encountered him too. Personally, though I'm a cherry picker, I don't stress out over what people do. I don't have their bills and they don't have mine. Yeah, I think being choosy works better, and there is a lot of evidence to prove that it's the best route for gig workers who work college towns and urban and suburban areas, like myself. If I ever make good on my threat to get on a bus to New York and attempt GrubDashery on foot, with zero overhead (assuming I can find a cheap place to camp about 80 miles away that is close enough to the train to walk, because holy shit hotels in New York are expensive, they'd probably frown on me sleeping in a storage unit, and I wouldn't ask any of my friends to put me up even if they probably would.), I might experiment the other way, but for now, cherry picking is best for me. It may not be for you.

If you Multi-App, Cherry Picking Is Your Best Bet, Though

Okay, so it's possible to be a Top Dasher and a Premier Grubhub driver at the same time, but it's totally impossible to be both while running both apps at the same time...unless you've got a spare '81 Delorean with some special modifications from one Dr. Emmett L. Brown...and he won't sell me his train to do Grubhub or Doordash, nor will he let me see the blueprints.
If you really want to be both a TopDasher and a Premier driver, you're going to have to run one app at a time. You really can't be both and a multi-apper.

September 2, 2022 - How to ACTUALLY stay safe around dogs when delivering for Amazon Flex, from a Fantastic rated Amazon Flex driver. - it's not what you think or what Amazon tries to tell you (because they care more about the package getting delivered and not getting sued than your safety...)