$388 in Sushi. Just a $20 Tip: The Brutal Math of UberEats and DoorDash

When customers place an order through DoorDash or Uber Eats, they pay through the app and decide in advance of the delivery how much to tip. Drivers often cannot see the full tip until after they have dropped off the food, so they must cross their fingers and hope for at least a 10 percent tip. (Uber and DoorDash themselves pay drivers only a few dollars per trip, so most workers’ income comes from tips.)

Mr. Bush, 56, is among the veteran food delivery drivers who employ a particular strategy: Go big, or don’t bother at all.

Their premise is simple. The profit margin on run-of-the mill delivery orders, like a pizza or a burrito, is quite low, especially factoring in gas prices. So these drivers focus on affluent areas, like Beverly Hills and the Pacific Palisades, rejecting scores of low-value orders while waiting for hours for a big get from a high-end restaurant.

The best orders come from prime establishments frequented by celebrities. One or two big ones can turn a fruitless evening into one with $100 to $200 in earnings — a lucrative shift by gig-work standards.

Even for savvy drivers, trying to earn a living is often demoralizing and unpredictable, though the companies they work for are growing. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Uber said its delivery business generated $14.3 billion in sales, a 6 percent increase from the same period a year ago. DoorDash reported $14.4 billion in sales, up 29 percent from a year prior. Neither company is profitable, but the growth signals that food delivery remains popular even as more customers have returned to in-person dining.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/uber-eats-door-dash-delivery-tips.html