Today we are going to talk about a few more things I picked up along the way after a few more Dashes. I will lift open the curtains some and let you see a little of what the Drivers see when Door Dashing.

For example when you open the app and are able to start Dashing (if it is busy enough) you will see Hotspots. You will need to start driving towards one of these hotspots in order to get more orders. Sure there may be a order or two not in the hotspot but you will get back to back to back orders within hotspots.

You see that acceptance rate at the top of the screenshot? That is important because it enables us drivers to gain access to higher paying Dashes.

Here is what an offer looks like when it is a Higher Paying Dash. It will tell you that it is one and give you the total that you will earn on this Dash. No Dash will tell you how much is base pay versus Tip amount. But having an overall amount lets you decide if you want to take on this order or not. You get about 30 seconds to decide.

What is interesting is that just last night there was an offer I got to deliver from a fried chicken place to my local downtown area (it was about a 8 mile trip from the restaurant to the drop off location). The amount I would have earned was $4. I declined it because it wasn't worth the time to me for this one and it was taking me further outside the hotspot area that I wanted to go. Then within 60 seconds I got the exact same Dash reappear but it was a higher paying one and it was $8 for the trip.

I found it very interesting and the only thing that I could come up with is 1 of 2 things happened. The person ordering the food within that 60 second time frame got impatient and put more into the tip in hopes of having a dasher pick up the order because in theory just because you place a DoorDash order doesn't mean someone will accept it.

Or option 2, DoorDash saw that a few people rejected taking on the order so they ponied up an extra $4 to whomever took it.

I think Option 2 is more likely because DoorDash is a business and they want to keep their customers happy just as much as they want to keep their drivers happy because it only works if there are both of them.

So you complete the order right and drop off the food to the person and all that is all good. Then and ONLY then do you get to see the breakdown of what you earned. Here is an example of a recent Dash I completed.

You can see on this order it was a $2 Base pay and a $10 tip. This is not normal and was definitely a good trip. Every driver wants these Dashes because well you earn more right. But if you decline too many dashes then you get kicked out of the Higher Paying orders and have to basically accept everything until you get back up to the threshold to earn them again. 

So it's definitely a balancing act of which ones to accept and which ones to decline to earn the most. I like to think of it as a game personally. Makes the few hours I dash more fun.

I was in a restaurant the other day waiting for an order and I overhead a staff member talking to the hostess to tell them to set DoorDash to super busy because they were getting behind on orders. It interesting because I didn't realize that the restaurants and DoorDash both could set the business levels. Don't get me wrong this is a good thing but just something I found interesting. So if you are ordering at any given restaurant the times may vary greatly.

I have been to a few establishments as well that try to not give you the order/bag until you click on "confirm" that you got the items. It's super awkward but, again my theory only, I suspect it because as a driver you get estimated times to pickup by and delivery by and if pickup is taking longer because the restaurant is slow it doesn't effect you. So you could in theory pick up the order drive halfway to the drop-off and then mark it as confirmed you will always deliver the food 'early'. It's sneaky and not worth it for me but I can see why people do it. 

I also am willingly to wager that restaurants have a system within DoorDash to see which ones are usually slow and fast and mom and pop shops making the drivers Confirm it when they get it helps them not look bad to the DoorDash algorithm. Again... just my theory here.

Conspiracy Theory time folks

I heard a while back that some restaurants use dummy names as a secondary restaurant so that when people are searching for food to eat they will see this place that seems like it's a local joint and they will help small business if they order there but in fact is just a national chain using a secondary dummy name. 

I didn't pay to much attention to it UNTIL I had an order like this. To protect the guilty lets say this national chain is called "Italian Sit-down Restaurant" (and no it's not Olive Garden). I got an order for food from a restaurant we are going to call "Local Fresh Pasta Place". I accepted the Dash and click on the navigation button and went to the location. 

This place is located kind of off the main road but its where there is a huge parking lot and about 4 sit down restaurants around that parking lot right. So the Directions took me to "Italian Sit-down Restaurant" and I was confused because it wasn't "Local Fresh Pasta Place". I double and triple checked the address and it was the right address. I checked the order in DoorDash and they said in the notes "Local Fresh Pasta Place" is located within "Italian Sit-down Restaurant" in the rear. So I walked into the place and asked the hostess and asked her if this was 'Local Fresh Pasta Place'. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Just for giggles I asked her if they had a DoorDash order for "Karen F.". And sure enough they did.

The items in the bag where exactly what I was supposed to pick up. I checked the receipt on the bag and it definitely said "Local Fresh Pasta Place". I was shocked and kind of pissed off if I am being honest. These mega chains are taking over business from small businesses and its slimy. If someone wanted Pasta from your restaurant than they would have ordered from your restaurant. I also was super curious if they marked up the prices for a mom and pop shop name instead of their national chain prices but I never went back to check it out. 

And that sums up Episode 2. Come back for more :)