July 13, 2021 | Posted in: Publishing

Published for a friend. I bare no liability for this clown’s opinion on driving door dash.

Should I drive door dash?

I don’t know should you? Why are you looking to drive door dash? Extra money? By no means should Door Dash be considered a replacement for a $15 per hour job with benefits. Why? Because, in the end, Door Dash is an $8 an hour job with nutty taxes because, as a door dash driver, you’re an independent contractor running your own business. You owe 15.3% of your company’s profit delivering door dash to Social Security and Medicare. Then pay federal, state, and local tax.

Do I have to be Top Dasher?

Yes, you have to be Top Dasher, especially if you drive door dash in a smaller community, say 75,000 potential door dash customers. When you first start door dashing, the algorithm will make you feel like you’re making $20 to $25 an hour. However, there will be orders you turn down because asking someone to drive 14 miles for $3 is ridiculous. Keep your acceptance rate above 70% because you cannot become a Top Dasher again, after you start, unless you have 200 deliveries. And when you reach that threshold of 200 lifetime deliveries, acceptance rate of 70%, completion rate (delivering the food and completing the task in the app) of 95%, customer rating of at least 4.7, and 100 deliveries for the month. This means you can drop five orders a week and there will be various reasons you drop orders beyond your control.

Pro Tip. Plan to start on the first day of the month. They give you Top Dasher status so the algorithm can favor you as a new driver. Corporate wants you to “think” it’s a $20 to $25 per hour job. However, at the end of the month at 1159pm local time, as a new driver, you’re going to lose Top Dasher status unless you did 200 deliveries for the month. And, if you worked 11pm-2pm, and 430pm to 730pm, you could maybe make 200 deliveries in 30 days if you worked everyday. Four orders an hour is banging in my experience and I live in a small market where traffic problems aren’t huge issues.

Why become a Dasher?

Well, l have a comfortable monthly income and free medical benefits for life from military service. But, some extra money sounded nice. I don’t want to be hassled by a boss or told what time to come to work and told what time I’m allowed to leave like I’m five years old and in kindergarten. I signed up and was “Dashing” within two days because I’m an upstanding American citizen. The job was literally $25 an hour, I made what I wanted each week, and was content. However, I lost Top Dasher status because it took me two months to reach 200 deliveries and another month to get my acceptance rate above 70% because I spent those two months making my company delivering food as profitable as possible. Yes, you have to be Top Dasher.

Pro Tips for New Dashers

First, ditch the lame red bag with a D on it and get two black bags from Amazon.com. Eventually there will be a link showing the bags I purchased, a set of two. They’re sleek. I’m not saying be a total loser and take the bag in the restaurant but, when you get the food to you car, put them in the bags and secure them on the floor boards between the front seat and the rear seats. The bags make ALL the difference for the quality of the delivery. Not the door dash bag though that one SUCKS. The ones I bought from Amazon. Plus, there’s times you’re going to be tasked with two orders. One bag. Top Dasher requires a customer rating of 4.7 and I can let you know, in your first 200 deliveries, 30 customers will actually take the time to give you a rating. Customers are finicky. I can say the customer Should see you bring the food to their door in a food delivery bag. In those 30 customer ratings you, in 200 deliveries, if you’re fortunate, if one customer rated you a “1”, and the other 29 gave you a “5”, your rating is 4.86.

Second, time is your friend, not your enemy. The longer the merchant takes, the better. Stand quietly in the back of the restaurant. The merchant knows you’re there. Should it get past 10 minutes of the pick up time, call customer support and let them know what’s going on and text your customer. It can get stressful when you’re tasked with a second order and the first order is running ten minutes late because the drive-thru line is long. If you’re losing your cool and getting irritated, which is impossible when the merchant is ten minutes late ….

Let’s write about the Merchant

They are making absolute BANK on door dash orders. It’s created a third drive thru. Walk in, the drive thru created in the 1960s, and the new digital drive thru door dash and others created. When the 1960s drive thru is busy, the merchant prioritizes their 1960s metrics over door dash orders. This is especially frustrating when the merchant is servicing three lines through the 1960s drive thru because their lobby is closed because “they can’t get any workers” because of “all the government benefits”. The lobby is closed because the restaurant saves a lot of money in cleaning time and supplies etc. Don’t get frustrated and don’t lose your cool because yeah, door dash is a job.

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