DoorDash now warns you that your food might get cold if you don’t tip

I used to work in that crummy space on the HQ side of things.

That’s a little part of it, but there are bigger reasons. Orders with low driver payouts are less likely to get claimed by the contractors in the market. They will sit around longer waiting to get picked up.

Moreover, in order to move a low paying order, DoorDash’s algorithm will be more likely to bundle the order with one or two other orders. That will boost the payout or the claimed job, but it will also make your food wait on a counter an in a car.

Yea so I’m a driver and the characterization that it’s drivers retaliating against customers is… wrong. When we skip an order it’s because it will literally cost us money to deliver, and it’s DoorDash that we’re saying no to.

The problem isn’t the drivers, it’s DoorDash and their unwillingness to pay us appropriately. They’ve recently reduced the base payout to $2, and there’s no delivery where $2 is enough to cover costs of delivery, let alone make the extra few bucks that we’re doing this shitty job for.

DoorDash is actively disincentivizing drivers from taking orders that customers don’t tip on. Please don’t blame drivers for DoorDash’s shitty business practices.

Delivery drivers are independent contractors and DoorDash facilitates the meeting of drivers and customers. The fees go towards DoorDash and the driver, and the customer can add an additional payment to the driver to make their order more enticing to accept. There's no "refusing to pay wages" in this situation. If you want to go with the ultra low cost option, it will not be attractive to drivers so you may wait longer.

It almost doubled the cost of my order last time, all the fees and tip bullshit

I've never used any of those services. If the restaurant doesn't deliver, I pick up my order. I also try to go to the restaurant's website and use whatever ordering system they have there, under the assumption (perhaps mistaken) that the restaurant chose that ordering system because it was the best deal for them.

The whole reason I order online is to avoid using the phone. I usually find their website and see if they have their own online ordering. Smaller places often have online ordering provided by an unknown company that charges normal prices instead of having to mark it up to cover DoorDash fees.

Fuck all these greedy apps nickle and diming everything.

Isn't it what's called shareconomy?'

Isn't it super fancy?

:-)

What's crazy is that there's really no reason why it should be the way that it is, where every chain restaurant has a different individualized app, every mid level business has a website, and every mom and pop restaurant you just have to call on the phone, and every business has their own delivery drivers with all these other apps picking up the slack in between. Doordash takes off so much from the top of the order to make it look more appealing, as a service charge, the restaurants just increase prices, the drivers get paid a pittance, probably so does the support staff if I had to guess, and all of their programmers, who are the only party left that the money would go to, the programmers can't make an app that works for the customers or the drivers. It's like a lose-lose-lose scenario for anyone that's not a soulless finance bro.

It's crazy, if restaurants are at a point where it's cheaper for them to just have an actual, well paid delivery driver, and just use their own old school apps, websites, and phone lines, rather than paying their fees to a business that could just handle the whole thing for them all in bulk, seeing as the needs from restaurant to restaurant is generally pretty similar. The latter should be the more cost-effective solution, here, it's fucking nuts.

Lots of places do this now, unfortunately.

Literally fucking every place now and I hate it. Ordering take out food that I am picking up myself? It's "swipe your card here and it's going to ask you a question". Literally everywhere. Even places designed to be walk-up and get your food and leave, like a local smoothie place or something.

All the ones that are ordered online?

35%? That shit doubles for me. Fuck DoorDash.

Don't make me use my phone as a phone damn it!

Stop spending an extra 35% to have somebody working three jobs get it for you.

I don't how the three jobs factors into this. Surely they actually need those three jobs, they probably aren't working them for fun. So not like me not ordering helps them in any way.

Only 35%? You must be on the introductory deal.

Hey, why do you hate trickle down economics so much!

/s

If I could do that I wouldn't use GrubHub in the first place.

Try not to be so judgemental.

How about ditching tips altogether and just paying the drivers a decent, livable wage?

As someone that worked in the space, and was forced to AB test this, it’s because pre-tipping increases tip rates and increases the likelihood that an order will be claimed promptly.

That said, if I could wave a magic want and get my way, I’d say that these people need to be employees, and true delivery costs need to not be hidden in fees and tips.

It IS expensive to deliver stuff, and we need to be upfront with that.

It would be much worse for the drivers in that case because they would have to gamble on whether an order would be good to take or not. We've already seen something similar on Uber Eats where they allowed people to fully change tips retroactively, so people would get their orders accepted quicker with a large tip and then just remove it once they got their food.

Even when I do tip, and tip well, they now add so many other stops in between my food and my house that it still arrives cold anyway. I've largely stopped using them now too. They were convenient during peak pandemic and our newborn phase at home, but running out to grab take out really isn't the end of the world again now.

I'm a school bus driver and we get tips (at Christmastime and the end of the school year) for no fucking reason that I can figure out. This is bad enough as it is, but last Christmas one of my co-workers actually handed out fucking tip envelopes (like what the garbage collectors give out) to the kids on his buses. I was at least pleasantly surprised that he got in trouble for this.

That's just all of late stage capitalism. Most industries are shrinking bc most people can't afford to spend on much beyond the basic necessities of rent and food anymore.

I'm in the hotel industry and occupancy rates are declining, people just aren't going out on vacation like they used to.

Inevitably any service tipped or not will be wealthies-only.

I hate to break it to you but it's always worked like that. I drove pizzas for a long time pre-apps and drivers have always prioritized deliveries based on expected tip. We even had a no-go list by the phone of people who stiffed drivers. If anything it's way easier to get away with not tipping now.

This is barely related to tipping culture, this is a service bid. They just refuse to call it that.

This is not even tipping anymore. This is paying to get normal service, not better service.

This.

I've basically started a Shit List of local restaurants that I simply won't order from because they do shit like this.

Not just delivery either. If they want to gouge customers like that I'm not getting take out or dining in either.

Same. I've almost completely stopped using these delivery services because of the extreme costs and middling performance.

When people constantly complain about how underpaid they are doing this job, I realized that I don't want to pay what people actually want to get paid for this service, so I'll just stop. Like paying 15 fees and tip is already too much for only 1-2 peoples worth of food. I'd consider it less painful for 6 people's dinner.

It’s fucking ridiculous…they all are. Uber, Grubhub, I mean if some of that went to the drivers then fine, we could talk. But we all know they don’t.

proceeds to bring a whole freaking cow to your door

15-20 USD for delivery service is really expensive man.

I just wish the fees weren't based on a percentage of the total bill, on top of the fact they blatantly jack the menu prices up. A few of us would like to use DD and similar for work lunch, sometimes. The charges for $60-80 of food is ridiculous, when it should be a flat rate for the service. You'd think they would want to incentivize these larger orders. Assuming the food is ready when the driver arrives, there should be no difference for the driver, who would generally get tipped on top.

Exactly. It's crazy how quickly this type of services get the "can't live without it" status. One day people are cooking their own food, calling taxis and walking around and next they will starve to death if someone can't bring them their BigMac and can't get anywhere without Uber or electric scooter.

You'd be amazed with the number of millennials who need someone to get food for them. One of my friends from high school is a neckbeard who doesn't work and his parents literally bring all his food into his apartment and he's rude about it because they interrupt him playing video games.

The problem, and the reason we've stopped using Doordash completely, is that your big tip means your order will get stacked with the low/no tippers to incentive the driver to pick them all up. And your food will sit there getting cold while the driver waits to pick up the others.

This has become universally true over the last year or two in Chicago at least. We are good tippers and every single time we'd see our food get picked up then watch the driver wait to pick up some other order -- sometime waiting 30 minutes or more with our food in their car less than a block from our home.

If they see the tip before taking the job I could see that making sense.

I used door dash maybe 5 times ever, tipped 20% and still got cold AND wrong food everytime.

I honestly don't get the hate. People obviously want to order restaurant food to have at home. Maybe they're watching a series, studying, have kids, are introverts... like who even cares the reason. And they're willing to pay more. Why not try to accommodate that?

To me it sounds like the issue is UX related (contacting customers) and store related (expediting orders in the best sequence). Neither of those seem like the solution is wishing people wouldn't use the service.

I sit there at work sometimes, and people are ordering food from takeaways ten minutes walk up the road, paying easily three times what you'd pay to go and get it yourself.

It just doesn't seem to occur to them that they can go and fetch it.

The only real reason I can see people using apps like these regularly is if they're disabled or otherwise unable to drive and can't easily go out to get it themselves.

Underrated comment

You're ignoring the main problem and point of the post here, but you're also ignoring some people's needs and how "just go get it" is often not an option. This isn't a useful comment and it also doesn't make any discussion.

*in US

THIS IS IT. All other comments in this thread that don't say this are focusing on the wrong problem or are flat out wrong.

Not really. Money for everything at a business comes from customers. If anything you are subsidizing customers who don’t tip.

Here here

Most of Europe got it right

While it's called a TIP, it's not. Nor is it a bribe imo. It's "door dash is too lazy to pay their driver's a fair rate, so here is where you come in..." The higher the amount you put in there, the more likely your order will be received And delivered in a timely manner.

If door dash just paid their people properly, this issue wouldn't exist but they feel the need to maximize their profits instead of doing what's right for both their employee and customers.

Tipping is weird to me. Since every other business doesn't have tips because they already price their services or products correctly to account for their employees salary, since it is 100% their responsibility as the employer.

This shifting of responsibility and blame to the client by underpaying staff and pushing a system of begging and guilty tripping is incredibly weird.

This all signifies a pricing problem. Well I guess not one for the employers who are cheapskates raking in profits in a system where they shift attention of blame away from themselves.

Gonna be real boss, as a driver for DD, delivery drivers don't care what you ordered. They care about mileage, pickup & drop off times, and stairs. A $5 tip will cover most sane orders. $10 will usually cover insane orders / stairs.

If you're concerned about timing, tip $5 and then text them when they are assigned the order and let them know it is time sensitive and that you'll add cash tip on arrival for prompt delivery.

Signing bonus

Cutting edge

Thanks for confirming something I thought true. I've always been a generous tipper not because I like tipping culture, but because in the absence of an alternative it seems awful to punish the people working hard to scrape together a living by catering to my laziness.

However, I've noticed that I almost always get food that's ordered through these services very quickly – although my small sample size is anecdotal at best. But like you, I don't order through the apps if I can help it.

I often opt to starve/eat random stuff in the house than order. Now if I actually want to order, I have no idea how to order

Both are better options

No, you tip for adequate service in America. You’d tip a lot for exceptional service. You’d only not tip if the service worker completely blew it. The only time I’ve not tipped was when a waiter bombarded me with a political candidate’s campaign spiel right before bringing me the check. Practically held me hostage. That fucking guy didn’t get a cent.

Like if the food was supposed to be deliver in 20 minutes, but the delivery driver got it to you in 15?

The delivery driver has 0 control over this.

20->15 is not exceptional. 20->2-3 minutes is.

Usually yes, but then again, when you're getting paid $7.50/hr, it's essentially supplemental income.

I mean in fairness before these services most restaurants did not have delivery options at all, so I don’t think this is that surprising? It was not long ago that your delivery options in many places were just pizza or Chinese.