As above, there seem to be some common misconceptions about Uber Eats, so I’m happy to answer (almost) anything you like!
[AMA] I Deliver for Uber Eats, Ask Me Anything!
Flying Ace on 21/07/2018 - 08:05
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Tempted yes, never have though.
Do you think Uber eats will ever expand and go into the taxi industry?
I don't think it will work really. The taxis have got the industry sewn up.
Can you bring me some pancakes for breakfast?
I’m still in bed.
I left a crappy full-time retail job for a part-time 3 day a week graphic design job, and also run a video production company with a family member. I supplement my income from those two jobs with Uber Eats. I now no longer have to deal with retail customers, don’t have to work weekends, don’t have to work until 9pm or start at 7am. I am earning more money, have way more free time, and am infinitely happier.
Edit: when I say “work” I mean retail work - I enjoy Uber Eats so I don’t classify it as work per sé.
I'm glad to hear this for you, and think it's a really useful answer for others to read and maybe find 'inspiration' or 'hope' from; awareness that options like this exist.
Maybe you can add this to the original post if this particular comment chain gets hidden (not sure if/how that happens in forum posts).
Thanks! Uber gets lots of crap from people because the impression is they're taking advantage of you. That may be the case for some people who make it a full time job. I understand the limitations of the Uber system and use it to my advantage. It's given me the opportunity to leave a crappy job and use it to supplement my income. I love driving so it's perfect for me.
I'm only up-voting you because I don't know why.
I appreciate it
Can you take two lots of orders in the one go?
Yes, but only from the one restaurant.
The two orders are generally delivered to same area, or one is delivered on the way to the other. We don’t have any say on the order in which the deliveries are made, but I haven’t had any double orders where the route doesn’t make sense.
Do you get paid per delivery, or is it a percentage of the total sale?
We get paid a pickup fee, and a dropoff fee, as well as a per-KM charge. Unlike Uber passenger drivers, we don’t get a time fee.
Order value has nothing to do with our fee, it’s the same if you’re delivering full meals or a single ice cream.
So if you are picking up two orders from the same restaurant and the drop offs are on the same route, do you get 2 pickup and 2 drop off fees, plus one set of distance km charge?
One pickup fee, two drop off fees. And the distance is the distance we actually drive.
is there a limit on how far (between restaurant and house) uber eats will deliver too? I.e., is there a max distance from restaurant to house, if so, how far is it?
I’m not sure that distance plays a part, however we never deliver more than 15 minutes away. There seem to be set areas that you can order from according to the address you put in.
In the Uber Eats app if you change your location it changes what restaurants you can order from.
I have had one order that took 45 minutes to be delivered! Food showed as ready to collect the the guy was delivering 3km to me on a bloody bike…. if he had ridden straight to me that would have been ok but instead in watched the Uber eats location app and he was delivering all around the place on his way. Food was warm, complained to Uber eats and got my money back so a win win (except that warm fish and chips is not a great experience).
I am part of a Facebook group for Uber Eats drivers in my area, and we have noticed many customers saying the same thing. It seems some may not be as honest as others and try to game the system by taking a long route.
I always deliver the food as fast as I can because I don’t want their food to be horrible and cold! All those years in a customer service job I guess.
how did you see the location of the driver before your delivery? Any time I've been given the notification that 'your driver is dropping off another order before yours', i can't see their location until they are on their way to me after doing the others.
Walk me through the whole process for a couple of orders or a days work. Do you just deliver mainly for one shop or can pick and choose whatever shop or delivery any where any time?
I will generally go online around 5pm and drive to the closest area there are restaurants - 2-3 minutes. I'll park up and wait there for around 10 minutes, and if I don't get any orders, will head elsewhere. It really pics up between 6 and 8, and depending on the night I can go from one order to another without any break in between (get another order as soon as I've delivered the previous one). Sometimes you will get an order before you've finished dropping off the last one.
Depending on the night, Uber offers incentives - for example every Friday night and Saturday night between 6 and 8 you earn 30% more for each delivery. That's when the good money is.
You can't pick and choose who you pick up from. Uber sends you the order and you go and collect it. Sometime you can get lucky and the order will be for a restaurant nearby and you don't have far to drive, other times you can drive more than 10 minutes to a restaurant to collect the order. You don't know where the delivery is going to until after you've collected it, so you could drive 10 minutes to pick it up, and deliver it 300m away.
You can choose when to go online - but the busiest times are in the evenings.
So can you start anytime and end anytime or do you have to give them notice or is it in like hour slots or is it like airtasker where you pick and choose.
How does the actual job work like for example I think taxi drivers can choose their hours anytime of the week and day and do as little or as much as they want or need.
You go online anytime you like. Uber limit you to 12 or 14 hours each day, but there is no other limit.
How much do you make per hour once you take out petrol and car maintenance?
It depends on the night. In my local area the restaurants are all fairly close by and the delivery radius isn't huge. I have a very efficient car, and it was bought brand new, so maintenance is low (just yearly service).
On a good night (Friday and Saturday nights for example, and public holidays) I can easily make over $100 for 2/half - 3 hours online, and total KM's driven by the end of the night would be around 80-90. My best night has been $160 for 3 hours, that was on Labour Day holiday.
So would you say easily over $25/hr so far every time or close to $20/hr certainty?
Nothing is certain. Some nights I have been online for 2 hours and only taken $30.
What car is it?
I have a Ford Fiesta S Ecoboost
- What's your worst customer experience?
- What's your best customer experience?
- Do you get tips and if so what's the largest amount you've gotten? Is this influenced by the suburb you've served?
- Have you ever stacked it and then had to pick up all the food off the ground only to pretend nothing happened?
- There have been no really bad experiences - I have been yelled at once on the phone because the woman put down the wrong address and was giving me attitude for being at the address she put in the app. I think she was house sitting and wasn't sure herself of the street name. I found her eventually.
- Again, no exceptional ones. People are just generally grateful for getting their food delivered!
- Tips are rare, I did get $6 the other night. Restaurants do sometimes give you free food if they've made too much of something, or offer you a drink if you're waiting too long. The Uber Eats area here is pretty small, so you get to know all the staff at the restaurants.
- I did manage to stack it leaving a place in the rain on slippery tiles outside their restaurant. Burger and chips went everywhere and I hurt my knee and hip because of the way I fell. The restaurant made a new order, so the customer didn't know.
- Did you have to pay the new order for stacking it?
No, I think it would be a pretty mean-spirited restaurant to make me pay for that.
Did Uber Eats cover the medical compensation?
I doubt it
Do some restaurants have their own Uber eats drivers? I ordered Thai on Uber eats for lunch and it arrived super quick, delivery guy was Thai so was thinking he might have been the restaurants driver?
No, you can’t deliver only for one place. There’s a chance he works there and keeps his app online for their orders, but then he’d also get orders from other places and you can’t just keep declining them or you get kicked off.
Are you expected to deliver to the customers door?
What if it’s a CBD area and there’s no parkingI don’t have experience delivering in a city - my area is regional with no city per sé.
It comes up on the app what the customer wants us to do. Most of the time we deliver to door, sometimes we have to leave it at the front door, sometimes we wait outside and the customer comes outside.
I know Uber has specific vehicle age limits for passenger service. Can we assume those rules don't apply to Uber Eats?
He reply to you mate!
From https://www.uber.com/en-AU/drive/sydney/vehicle-requirements…
Uber Eats
Bike requirements
You’re at least 18 years old
You can ride a bike around Sydney
You can pass a background check
Scooter/motorcycle requirementsYou’re at least 18 years old
You hold an Australian motorcycle licence (provisional or full)
Your scooter or motorcycle is a 1990 model or newer
Your scooter or motorcycle is registered and CTP-insured in NSW
You have vehicle insurance (third-party property or comprehensive)
You can pass a background check
Car requirementsYou’re at least 18 years old
You hold a full Australian licence
Your car is a 1990 model or newer
Your car is registered and CTP-insured in NSW
You have vehicle insurance (third-party property or comprehensive)
You can pass a background check
You'll also need to confirm that you have the right to work in Australia and that you have access to Medicare or relevant health insurance.have you been tempted to try competitor (Menulog, EatNow, Foodora, and Deliveroo) ?
No, I like the flexibility of Uber Eats, not to mention in my region it’s by far the biggest player in the market.
How come when i check the uber eats page for my area at say 7pm, there's 35 restaurants - great!
Then i get the munchies about 10pm, check again, and there's only 4 available, and they are all kebab shops.
Yet McDonalds, which is built next to one of the kebab shops, and is open 24/7, becomes unavailable sometime between 7 and 10….. but it's 24x7 :o
Sometimes you just want 20 nuggets and 3 triple cheeseburgers, not a messy kebab, ya know?
This is really up to each restaurant. It may be that their workflow includes an extra person to triage delivery orders and they don't want to pay for the extra staff during quiet hours.
To be honest none of the drivers in my area know what this is about either - in the Uber Eats app for our region there are dozens of restaurants on there that always say "currently unavailable", and none of us have ever picked up from them.
what advise you give for someone wants to work Part time as a Uber Eats delivery driver?
Don't go into it expecting it to be a main source of income. It's great as a supplement but you can never rely on it as a guaranteed source of money.
Why does Uber Eats take orders for places that aren’t even open, then not tell you for 2 hours? Or, why do they take your order and then cancel it 2 hours later?
They call up the restaurant to place your order.
I didn't even know this was possible!
Do uber eats drivers see if we are a 'new customer' or if we have made many orders ? ie. Do you get any info on our order history, or if you have delivered to this customer before ?
All we see is your first name and first initial of your last name, and address.
Thanks . Thats good to know. I may have used the 'new user' promo more than 1 time .
I'm sure the drivers and restaurants would not really care if poor people get free food from the Uber company.
You guys get paid just the same even if users use discount codes don't you ?Yep, always the same :-)
Once, my food was meant to be delivered by Uber bike but saw him rock up in a car. Does he get paid more for pretending to ride?
I wouldn't have thought so, if anything I would presume you would get paid more for being a car delivery driver.
Does UberEats pay better than UberX?
Why did you choose Eats over UberX
Uber Eats pays slightly less than X.
I chose eats because I have a fairly small car. I also love the hours I deliver for Eats - I am home by 9 at the latest each night, but it usually dies down soon after 8. With X for the best money you really have to be out until the early hours when people are coming home on the weekends.
Also here in QLD it's quite expensive to get started with X, and you have to be licensed through the government to be able to carry passengers.
Also food doesn't want you to make small talk.
In terms of car requirement UberX would be stricter
I know that with uberX, you need to have
-car must be nine years or less
-4 doors,
-mustn’t have damage or missing pieces of the body and has seat belts for the driver and at least four passengers
-Comprehensive or Third Party PropertySo with UberEats the car requirement is less strict?
When you say pays slightly less than X
how much is that roughly?How many hours do you work and what time you start and stop?
Do you need to live near popular restaurants to make it worthwhile?
What is the average distance you normally need to travel to collect the food and deliver it?
-distance to restaurant
-distance to customerI have put the requirements for Uber Eats further up.
I don’t drive for Uber X so I can’t make a comparison.
In a week I will usually do 15-20 hours. I start between 5.30 and 6pm and end between 8 or 9pm depending on how busy it is.
You don’t need to live near them, but it helps with reducing travel time.
Distance to restaurant can be up to 5km, and delivery distance around the same. However my Uber Eats area isn’t huge, so it may be different for other areas.
Do you need an ABN to become an Uber eats driver? Can you claim vehicles expenses when you do your tax return?
Do you have insulated bags or boxes for the food and if so, who supplies them?
Do you ever get tempted to take just one chip?