Uber Eats independent contractors are allowed to decide whether to accept or decline any delivery offers. In fact, Uber Eats can not legally make you accept any deliveries. They also can't require you to accept a given percentage or acceptance rate.
But the question is, how does accepting or rejecting orders on uber Eats work? When does it make sense to say yes or no to delivery? Can you get in trouble for rejecting too many deliveries?
We'll take a look at all that. We'll explore:
- How the delivery offer process works with Uber Eats
- Accepting deliveries on Uber Eats
- Declining Uber Eats delivery orders
- Ways to determine whether or not to accept an offer
- Accepting and rejecting offers when offers were different on Uber Eats
How the delivery offer process works with Uber Eats
Once you have logged in and hit the Go button on the Uber driver app, Uber Eats will send offers to your phone. That offer will give you details about the delivery, with options to accept or decline.
Perhaps the most important thing you should know as an Uber Eats delivery driver is that you are not an Uber employee. You agreed that you are doing this as an independent contractor.
What does this have to do with accepting or rejecting offers?
It's important because being an Uber Eats independent contractor means you have agreed that you are providing services as a business, not as an employee of some Uber Eats job.
And where this ties in to the whole order acceptance thing is, those offers from UberEats are a bid for your services.
It's no different than telling a painter “I'll offer you $500 to paint my house.”
The fact that you offered it doesn't mean the painter has to accept it. In the same way, the fact that Uber Eats offered a delivery to you does not mean you have to take that.
When you think of Uber Eats as a customer instead of as an employer, it completely changes how you look at delivering for them.
Uber Eats is saying “we have this delivery available. We'll offer you this much money. Will you accept it?”
Whether to accept or reject that bid is completely a business decision you have to make.
What information does Uber Eats give you about a delivery?
When Uber Eats identifies a delivery that's a good fit for where you are, they'll push the offer to your driver app. Your phone chimes, and you will see a screen pop up with details about your delivery.
The offer screen on Uber Eats is actually quite useful when it comes to making a decision. On the screen you can see:
- A map showing your location, the pickup location, and the customer location
- A visual timer bar that lets you know how long you have to decide
- The amount that the delivery is expected to pay
- The estimated time to complete a delivery
- The estimated miles that you will have to travel
- The name and location of the merchant or local restaurant you will pick up from
- The nearest cross streets for the customer location
Sometimes there will be additional information on the offer, such as letting you know if it's a shop and deliver offer, or if there are multiple stops. The screenshot below shows the (2) next to Delivery, indicating that there are two orders on this offer.
Does all of the information always show up on an Uber Eats offer screen?
No. The most common issue is if an order comes in while you don't have the Uber driver app open on an Android phone. Only the order detail box will pop up and the map will not display.
The reason it's an issue is the “always on top” setting that Uber requires you to allow in permissions. What that means is that you've given the Uber Eats app permission to pop up information over anything else on your phone when there's an order.
However, for some reason, Uber doesn't include the map in whatever pops up. You can't switch to any other app by normal means when that happens, making it hard to pull up the map. However, by swiping down on notifications, you can tap on the Uber notification that you're online, and that will usually take you to the Uber driver app, showing all the information.
If Uber Eats sends you an offer while you're still active on a delivery, you'll only receive the half screen order details without the map. There's no way I'm aware of that you can pull up the map in that instance (the tips in the video above only work when you're not on another delivery).
There may be times if there's a glitch with the app that some of the other information may not show up. The good news is that there's still usually good enough information that you can often still make good decisions.
Does Uber Eats show the miles?
Uber Eats does show the estimated miles that the entire delivery will involve. That estimate includes the drive to the restaurant, and then to complete the delivery. The mileage is based on their estimate for the best route for completing the delivery.
Does Uber Eats give you the delivery address?
Uber Eats does not provide the delivery address on the offer. In fact, drivers have no way of knowing the specific address until after they have indicated in the app that they have picked up the order.
Does the Uber Eats delivery offer include the tip?
The offer amount does include the expected tip. The offer is based on whatever base pay and extra promotions Uber Eats offers, and the amount that the customer tipped through the app or Uber Eats website when placing the order.
If the customer did not add a tip when placing the order, the offer amount only includes the portion that Uber is paying the driver.
Can Uber Eats drivers see the tip?
No. Uber Eats does not display the tip separately. If the customer added a tip when placing the order, the tip amount is included in the offer but the offer is not broken down.
Drivers can often estimate if there was a tip and how much the tip was based on the total dollar amount. For instance, the $4.50 delivery offer in the screenshot above likely had a tip of around $2 to $2.50.
Drivers do not know the actual amount they received as a tip until an hour after the delivery is completed. That is because customers have an hour to add or change the tip.
Does Uber Eats hide the tip like Doordash?
Uber Eats does hide any part of the tip that is over $8.00. For instance, if the delivery fee is $3.00 and the tip is $12.00, Uber Eats will only include $8 of the tip in the offer amount (in this example the offer would be $11 instead of the total $15.00 that the driver actually receives).
Doordash is probably better known for hiding tips. However, they do it a bit differently in that it's not always predictable when they do so. The dollar amount can vary and sometimes they don't hide it at all on larger tips. Uber Eats on the other hand is much more consistent on exactly when they cap part of the tip in the delivery offer.
Is there a way to know if there's a hidden tip on Uber Eats?
There is no way to know for sure if the tip is hidden or what the additional amount will be.
The way UberEats hides tips on offers, you know the tip portion of a single delivery offer will never be more than eight dollars. You also know that if the tip is less than eight dollars, there won't be a hidden tip.
Those two facts help you determine if there MIGHT be an additional tip amount.
For instance, a $7.50 delivery won't have a hidden tip. It's impossible for there to be an eight dollar tip on that offer. That tells you there is no hidden tip.
However, if you have a $12.00 offer, subtracting $8.00 leaves a $4.00 delivery fee. In most cases, there's a high probability that the four dollars is the actual delivery fee, and that the tip is indeed $8.00. In that instance, there's a chance the tip could be higher than that.
Is the pay listed on an Uber Eats offer always accurate?
No. The final pay amount will be different either if part of the tip was hidden or if the customer added, deleted or changed the tip after the delivery is done.
When a customer adds a tip when placing the order and then deletes it afterwards, that's known among drivers as tip baiting. Unfortunately it's hard to know if the customer did it intentionally or if they changed the tip due to being unhappy with their delivery.
Are the cross streets displayed by Uber Eats accurate?
While cross street information is helpful if you know your market, sometimes the information isn't as good as it could be. I've had several times where the cross streets listed were in paralell to each other. Since those streets never cross, that's not very helpful in identifying the precise area for the customer.
However, usually the combination of the map icons, the mileage amount and the cross street information will give you a pretty good idea of where the customer is.
How reliable are the mileage estimates from Uber Eats?
In my experience the estimates are pretty accurate. Uber calculates what they think the best route is to complete the delivery. You are free to choose whatever route makes sense, so if you take a different route, you may find actual miles are shorter or longer.
How accurate are the estimated minutes for a delivery?
In general, the estimate isn't far off, though in my experience the actual time to complete is often a few minutes longer than the estimate. Obviously they won't always know if a restaurant will take longer than expected and they can't always know how much time it takes to get through an apartment complex. However, in most cases it seems like Uber is within five minutes of being accurate.
Does Uber Eats tell you when a delivery is due?
No. A due time is never displayed for drivers. The expected minutes on the offer screen can give you an idea of the expectation but it's never totally accurate.
Does Uber Eats tell you whether or not a stacked order is from multiple locations?
It's not always easy to tell if all orders come from the same restaurant or not. The map does display icons for both the pickup and drop off location, however those icons are not always very clear. The restaurant detail only displays one restaurant even when there are two or more.
Accepting deliveries on Uber Eats
You'll never make any money on Uber Eats if you don't accept any offers at all. That's the whole point of being a driver in the first place, isn't it? At some point you have to say yes to something.
Okay, you don't HAVE to. There was a long time I didn't take any offers on Uber Eats, but that was a time when they didn't give you any of the information they now give you. At the end of this article you can read more about what that was like.
But the thing about being an independent contractor is that the moment you accept an offer on Uber Eats, everything changes about your relationship with Uber.
Understand that your contract with Uber Eats is on a delivery by delivery basis. You have no obligations to do anything at all at any period that you're not actively on a delivery.
The contract only goes into effect the moment you accept an offer. Now you've agreed to an offer, and that's a binding agreement. You have agreed to accept their offer and to complete the delivery.
How do I accept an Uber Eats offer?
Accepting an offer is pretty easy. While there's not an actual “accept” button, all you have to do is tap on the order details (which take up about half of your phone screen) to accept the delivery.
This screenshot above shows the area that you can tap on to accept an offer.
What happens when I accept a delivery on Uber Eats?
Once you've accepted an offer, you've made a contractual agreement that you're going to deliver that offer. You agree that you will complete that delivery in a timely manner and in a way that best takes care of the food or merchandise you are delivering.
Can you accidentally accept an Uber Eats delivery?
Yes. In fact it's very easy to do so. Rather than having a smaller more defined accept button like other apps, nearly half of your screen is filled with the acceptance area. It makes it very easy to accidentally tap the button.
Android users are also more prone to accidental acceptances. That's due to the always on top feature. If you are not in the Uber app when an order comes in, the acceptance screen pops up over whatever else is on your phone. For instance, if you're typing out a text message when an order pops up, you think you're hitting the next letter but you've just accepted a delivery.
Can I cancel or change my mind on a delivery once I've accepted?
It is possible to cancel an offer or change your mind. As I've mentioned, I've had several times where I unintentionally accepted an offer, either by bumping the screen, or by the screen popping up when I'm in another app.
To cancel a delivery, you can slide up from the bottom of the delivery screen. You'll see a triangle at the bottom left that you can tap on to report an issue. You select your issue and the app will ask if you want to cancel.
Does acceptance rate matter on Uber Eats?
Acceptance rate doesn't really matter with Uber Eats in most cases. It's not really tied to most of their incentive programs (Drivers who also do rideshare may be an exception). There was a time when Uber was doing a trial where they'd not display as much information if you had a lower acceptance rate, but to the best of my knowledge that has ended.
Can I be deactivated by Uber Eats for cancelling too many deliveries?
Uber Eats claims that accepting offers is a binding agreement. They will deactivate driver accounts if accepted orders are cancelled too often. Unfortunately they don't define what “too often” means nor do they let you know if you are crossing that line.
They obviously have some leeway. I've cancelled many deliveries when I accidentally accepted them and nothing has happened. However, I have no idea if I ever came close to being deactivated for it.
The best practice is, once you've accepted a delivery, it's best to see it through if it is at all reasonable to do so.
Declining Uber Eats delivery orders
If you owned a restaurant, and a customer came in and offered you five bucks for a thirty dollar steak dinner, is it okay to refuse that offer?
Of course it is.
It's really not any different with Uber Eats delivery orders. Actually, I probably shouldn't call it a delivery order, as it's not an order until you accept it.
I'll repeat what I said earlier: Offers from Uber Eats are simply a bid for your services.
As an independent business owner who is providing delivery services AS A BUSINESS, you have the right to set your price by accepting or declining delivery offers.
Let's dive a bit more into what all is involved with rejecting offers from Uber Eats
Can I decline delivery offers from Uber Eats?
Absolutely. As an independent contractor you are free to decide whether or not a delivery offer meets your price. That is only a bid for your services, not a delivery order or assignment.
How do I reject a delivery offer from Uber Eats?
There are two ways to reject. One is to tap the little round X button that's usually to the top and right of the offer details area. The other is to let the offer time out, which is typically about 30 seconds.
Can Uber Eats penalize me for rejecting offers?
No. Gig economy companies are not allowed to control the work of independent contractors. The IRS says that things like dictating the work a contractor does or even an evaluation system that evaluates anything other than completed work is a sign of an employee relationship. Penalizing drivers for not accepting offers could have expensive consequences for Uber.
Does Uber Eats punish drivers for declining too many offers?
There are situations where drivers suspect that Uber is secretly punishing drivers for rejecting offers. Many drivers report being logged out of the app after rejecting a number of offers. Others suspect that order frequency slows way down once someone's rejected orders. It's really hard to prove whether this is happening or not.
In some markets, Uber had tested a feature where some of the up front delivery information would be hidden unless drivers accepted a certain number out of their last ten offers. That trial seems to have ended.
Is rejecting a delivery offer a contract violation?
No. Uber Eats drivers are contractually allowed to reject any or all delivery offers. The Uber Eats driver agreement is a delivery by delivery agreement, meaning that a driver is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything until the moment an offer is accepted. That means that the driver can not be required to accept any particular offer or any percentage or quantity of offers.
What happens when I reject a delivery from Uber Eats
Once you reject a delivery, the Uber Eats driver app returns to the ready screen. The delivery that you were offered will then be offered to another driver. Beyond that, nothing else really happens.
What happens if an offer times out before I can accept?
The same thing if you actively decline an offer. The delivery will then be offered to another driver and your driver app will return to the searching for offers screen.
Will Uber Eats offer me a delivery again that I've declined already?
Uber Eats will continue to offer a delivery to drivers in the area until someone accepts the offer. That may mean that you can receive the same offer more than one time. Sometimes the pay offer may be slightly higher than the previous time you received the offer.
Do I need to provide a reason for rejecting an Uber Eats offer?
No. Uber Eats simply lets you reject the delivery offer without selecting a reason.
Is it better to decline an offer or to let it time out?
If you want to receive other offers quickly, it's far better to reject the offer than to let it time out. The thirty seconds or so that you wait for it to time out is thirty seconds that you can't be receiving the next offer.
Ways to determine whether or not to accept an offer
There are a number of ways that drivers will evaluate delivery offers.
Some will only take offers that pay a certain amount of money or more.
Others will decide based on how much an offer pays per mile.
Personally, I find that both of these methods can result in accepting deliveries that don't pay well for the time and expense involved. They can also lead to missing some good deliveries.
A lot of factors go into how much you can make. Part of the strategy is picking the best times and places to deliver for Uber Eats. A bigger part is choosing the right offers.
The best way that I've found is to set a price. Determine a minimum hourly rate, break that down into a per minute rate, and the decide if an offer meets your minimum.
How to use the 50 cent rule.
The fifty cent rule goes as follows: A delivery must pay fifty cents a minute. If I don't think I can make close to 50 cents per minute, I'll reject it. If I do, I'll accept it.
Fifty cents a minute comes out to thirty dollars per hour.
Part of why I choose that method is that it's very easy to implement.
Double the offer amount. Then ask yourself if you think you can complete the delivery in that number of minutes.
In the screenshot above, Uber Eats is offering $10.50 for what they estimate to be a 17 minute delivery. Using the 50 cent rule, doubling the pay comes out to 21. Then I ask if I think I can complete the delivery in 21 minutes or less. In this case, I believe I can (and for what it's worth, the actual time to complete was 16 minutes).
This screenshot is for a bit more than the previous one, $11.42. Using the 50 cent rule I would need to believe I could finish it in 23 minutes or less. Notice that the mileage was higher, and this is an order in the central part of Denver (meaning slower traffic). It's also for two deliveries, and Uber Eats anticipates it will take 44 minutes.
The dollar amount is right for many who use a minimum dollar amount, and it's nearly two dollars per mile. However, if the 44 minute estimate is accurate, this order would only pay at a $15.57 per hour rate before expenses. In my experience, Uber Eats rarely overestimates the delivery time. I turned this down.
Is fifty cents a minute setting the bar too high?
That depends on how often a delivery offer might meet that pay. If you have to sit there rejecting offers for a half hour before getting one that pays well, that tells you that you've set your price too high.
The thing to evaluate is first, how frequently is Uber Eats sending offers to you? The second question is, how many of those offers pay enough to meet your price. Thinking through those two things will help you determine where you should set your price.
If I'm waiting more than five or ten minutes between good offers, that's usually a sign that my price is too high for the conditions at that moment.
If you're in an area where Uber Eats is very busy and there are a lot of good delivery offers, you have more room to be picky. However, if things are slower or you're in a really small market, you may not be able to expect a fifty cent a minute rate.
What if there aren't enough good paying deliveries on Uber Eats?
Your choices are to either lower your price or to open things up to other food delivery services.
I do not believe in just quitting Uber Eats and moving to another platform. That's something that comes from an employee mindset.
Keep in mind the thing I've said a number of times: delivery offers are a bid for services. The independent contractor relationship means that Uber Eats is your customer, and not your employer.
When you think of it that way, Doordash, Grubhub and other delivery services are also your customers.
Before lowering my price, I'm logging into other delivery apps first. If Uber Eats doesn't meet my price, I believe someone else will. Then once one comes through with a good delivery, I turn the others off and complete that delivery.
If no one is meeting my price, then I've set my price too high. At that point I have a decision: lower my price or shut it down until another time when I can get my price.
Accepting and rejecting offers when offers were different on Uber Eats
In late 2019 and early 2020, Uber Eats made some very positive changes to how they offered deliveries.
Before those changes, Uber didn't let you know much about the delivery. All they really told you was how far away the restaurant was. There was no pay information, and no indication of how far the delivery would go.
They finally started to change things up. The first improvement was they started providing a map of where the delivery was going. They provided an estimate of distance and time. And they told drivers how much the Uber Eats pay would be.
At that time, the tip was not included in the offer amount. So you were still operating a little in the dark.
However, it was a lot easier. The following includes my responses to those changes and ideas how to evaluate offers based on that. Because things have changed, the information probably isn't very helpful today, but it may be an interesting read if you're interested in how things used to be.
One of the things I find interesting when looking at what I wrote a couple of years ago is how I've simplified my decision making process. At the time I was working more off of a 40 cent rule (I've raised my price since then).
Accepting and Rejecting Offers on Uber Eats Just Got a Lot Easier.
If you haven't delivered for Uber Eats lately, you may not recognize their offer screen.
I all but stopped delivering for them for awhile because I didn't know what I was getting into on any delivery. I didn't know the restaurant, the distance to the customer or how much I was going to get.
Uber Eats rolled out a new pay model late in 2019. With that pay model they started to introduce some changes. They did slash the delivery fees and took away the transparency in how they calculated fees. However, they added more information.
They started out with adding the customer location on the map. They started displaying the restaurant name and a guaranteed dollar amount. This was a huge improvement.
It was still far from perfect. In a lot of situations the map didn't show up, so you still didn't know much more than you did before. Even still, now you had some ideas of what you were getting into. Uber Eats all of a sudden was in play for me as a delivery option again.
And then they added in some more information. Now you know the total miles you can expect to drive, an estimate of total minutes, and cross streets near the customer.
Now, even if you don't have access to the map, you know all the other things. All of a sudden you have as much information from Uber Eats to help with accepting or rejecting as you do with any of the others.
Except the total amount.
Cherry Picking Methods with Grubhub and Doordash won't work with Uber Eats.
I had someone comment they would never take that $3.91 offer on the above screenshot.
If that were an offer on Doordash or Grubhub, I wouldn't either. You can almost guarantee that $3.91 is all you would get. However, the $3.91 on this offer doesn't include the customer tip. You don't know what the tip will be. You don't know if you will get a tip.
I use a 40 cent rule on Grubhub and Doordash. The idea is to take your pay for the delivery and divide by the estimated number of minutes. If it's more than 40 cents a minute, it's worth taking.
How do you do that when you don't know what you will get?
The big difference with Uber Eats when accepting and rejecting offers is you have to play the averages.
The bottom line with Uber Eats is, you don't know what you will get for a tip.
If you know your averages, you have an idea what to expect. You still don't know, and sometimes you will get less than what you expect.
Sometimes you won't get a tip.
But when you know your averages you know that the times you get more than you expect will offset.
So you shoot for an average that is acceptable.
You can try to estimate a tip amount.
Sometimes you can look at the restaurant you will pick up from, and get an idea that the value of an order will be higher or lower. Or you can just figure out your total average tip and add that to the offer value, and use that to decide if an offer is worth it or not.
Again, when you KNOW your averages, the times where you underestimate will be offset by the times that you get more than you thought.
My experience with Uber Eats when accepting and rejecting offers: The Dollar Value is Irrelevant.
I know a lot of Grubhub and Doordash cherry pickers who would think that's idiotic. That's okay. I'd rather they go after the high dollar orders because, for the most part, doing so will leave the better offers for me.
I'll let you in on a secret. With Grubhub and Doordash, a higher dollar offer reflects how much the customer tips. It could be a short delivery or it could be long distance. In most situations, a high dollar offer on Uber Eats means one thing: It's going to be a long drive.
In fact, reverse cherry picking on Uber Eats probably works better.
During the period before they added the second wave of new information, if I was already in progress on a delivery the only information I got was the dollar amount, restaurant, and distance to the restaurant. The map was not available so I didn't know how far I was going.
That's when I developed the reverse cherry pick idea. I would take the lowest offers and reject the highest. Why? A low offer meant a shorter drive. A $3 offer was far more likely to take 15 minutes or less. A $5 offer was far more likely to take well north of a half hour.
Once you add tips to that $3 offer, the profit per hour is considerably higher. Even if someone didn't tip at all, it doesn't hurt as much because your hourly rate is still reasonable and it's easier to overcome with the next delivery.
This is when you go back to playing the averages. A long distance delivery that doesn't get a tip is more disastrous, because you've lost 30-45 minutes, maybe more, and it's harder to make up.
What is the most important factor in accepting or rejecting offers on Uber Eats?
Here's what I've learned:
Ignore the price.
It just seems counter intuitive, doesn't it? But when you don't have the total price the partial price that we do get just isn't enough.
The most important factor is how quickly you can get the delivery done.
I took my last 100 Uber Eats deliveries and sorted them every way I could think of. There was one factor that showed a very clear difference in profit per hour: Time.
Here's how much I made, in profit per hour (pay minus my mileage cost) based on how long the delivery took
- 15 minutes or less: $34.12 per hour
- 15-20 minutes: $30.84 per hour
- 20-25 minutes: $25.38 per hour
- 26-30 minutes: $19.98 per hour
- 30 minutes or more: $13.79 per hour.
There's an interesting pattern here. If I get the time, I want to do this on a lot more deliveries to see if it continues.
Do you see the nearly $5 per hour difference for each 5 minute increment? It's really breaking down to an average of a $1 per hour difference for every minute that a delivery takes, no matter the offer value or anything else.
What I am finding with Uber Eats is the most important factor in whether to accept a delivery is, how quickly can I get it done?
What's the best way to estimate how quick a delivery can be done?
Uber Eats does provide a minute estimate in the offer now. No one else does that. I don't know how accurate it is, I haven't tracked that so far.
If it's fairly accurate, that is in my mind THE best way to evaluate whether accepting or rejecting an Uber Eats offer makes sense. The few times that I paid attention, it seemed I was able to get done a little quicker than the estimate. Guess what I'll be tracking in the future?
One thing I'm not sure the estimate of minutes takes into account: Wait time at restaurants. Some restaurants are notoriously slow. These days, with long waits at drive throughs when the lobbies are closed during the quarantine you can get hung up a long time.
The better you can familiarize yourself with restaurants and the wait time, the better it will help you estimate total delivery time. No information on an offer screen is going to take that into account.
Ultimately, you have to look at the estimated minutes with a wary eye. If you are finding it to be an accurate number, it may be the best single factor in making a decision.
Accepting or rejecting Uber Eats offers based on total miles
One short cut to making a decision could be your total miles, now that Uber Eats includes that in the offer screen. I sorted those 100 deliveries differently, this time on total miles. Here's how it broke down:
- 1 mile deliveries: $28.60 profit per hour
- 2 mile deliveries: $30.28 profit per hour
- 3 mile deliveries: $27.75 profit per hour
- 4 mile deliveries: $17.05 profit per hour
- 5 mile deliveries: $19.78 profit per hour
- 6-7 mile deliveries: $22.81 profit per hour
- 8 Miles plus: $16.05 profit per hour.
Notice the dramatic drop between the 3 and 4 mile deliveries. The 1, 2 and 3 mile deliveries were paying around $28-$29 per hour. Then it drops off.
If you want to decide based on one factor only, miles may be the best factor.
My decision process on Uber Eats and whether I'm accepting or rejecting offers
I'm not a fan of oversimplifying things. Drivers that stick to $1 per mile on Doordash often get hung up on very slow nonprofitable deliveries. Drivers that stick to a dollar amount pass up on highly profitable quick deliveries.
Here's the process I go through in evaluating a delivery offer.
The bottom line is, I'm trying to get an estimate of the time a delivery will take. That's my primary consideration.
- How far am I going? How long is it going to take to get there? Distance may be THE most important indicator of how long something will take, especially out of the information on the offer screen.
- Is the restaurant fast or slow? I try to get an estimate of how long I can expect to be at the restaurant, based on previous experience, and whether the restaurant slows down a lot in busy periods, things like that.
- Is the area I'm delivering to likely to slow me down? Is it downtown where I have to deal with parking and often getting to a suite or apartment? Or is it a residential area mostly of single family units that are often quicker?
Here's something I'm thinking of: Start making my own estimate based on these three things. Then I'll write that down along with Uber Eats' estimate. Which one is more accurate? Okay, I'm kinda psyched about that idea, to be honest.
Once I've estimated time, here's my thought process:
- If I think it's 20 minutes or less, I'm probably taking the delivery.
- If I think it's 30 minutes or more, I'm likely rejecting.
- For those between 20 and 30 minutes, I'll weigh other factors. This is the borderline range. Here's where I'm thinking about things like if the tip potential is higher. I find that for Sushi, Steakhouse and Thai restaurants, tips tend to be higher. I'm more likely to reject that mid range McDonalds order where the tip will likely be lower.
- Are there other factors? If Uber Eats is offering a quest (a bonus for completing so many orders) and I'm close to completing it, I might relax my standards a little. If the delivery is taking me towards a place I want to work, I might take something that otherwise I'd reject. This is a lot like the loss leader concept that stores use.
Notice what's not in the thought process? The guaranteed offer amount. The only time that I'm letting that influence me is that reverse cherry picking idea – if it's a $3 offer I might just jump on it right away.
I don't worry about the tip other than in that borderline range. If there's no tip on a short quick order, it doesn't hurt me as much. The flip side is that the tip has to be so much higher to make the longer (30 minute plus) deliveries worth while, so not getting a tip on those is more damaging. Of the ten orders that took more than $30, only one had more than a $20 profit per hour (and total pay on that one was $16.55).
Play the averages and focus on profit per hour.
The most important measurement when it comes to evaluating if a delivery was a good one or not is profit per hour.
Remember that it costs you money to use your car, and it's more than just gas. The wear an tear make your car a credit card on wheels where you're piling up future expenses. That's why the profit part is so important, that it comes down to what's left after the delivery.
Dollar amount by itself is meaningless. A $40 delivery is awesome. But if you sat out there for 6 hours and only did one $40 delivery, that's not so great. A $3 delivery sounds horrible, but if you can do six of those in an hour, those same 6 hours paid you $98.
Which one is better?
With Uber Eats, if you get side tracked by the dollar amount, you can get sucked into longer and slower deliveries. It will cost you more and leave you with less. Play the averages and go for the quickest, shortest deliveries you can find, and I think you'll find that you can do quite well.
