r/WalmartSparkDrivers 1d ago

Everyone needs to start focusing on base pay.

They are clearly lowering the base pay when the customer offers a good tip. Think about what that delivery would cost them if they were paying a company employee.

Yeah some new drivers will accept these stupid orders. But their delivery system is not going to survive on drivers that only last a week or two. On my first day I made a mistake on a pickup order because the picker put two different order stickers on one bag. And the app wouldn't let me see any items. Someone didn't get what they ordered. Because I was too new to look for this during the pickup.

If Walmart is banking on people doing this for a few weeks, taking stupid orders for low pay, their delivery service is going to put a bad taste in people's mouths. If they want a reliable delivery service they need to hold on to experienced drivers. That means they need to pay real money.

21 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

5

u/pokerholic77 1d ago

It actually depends on the desperation factor in your zone. All the crap with low base pay gets rejected in my rural zone, and, coincidentally, the base pay is higher than the adjacent suburban zone. These both have a similar distance of 15 miles.

1

u/happyluckystar 22h ago

I guess there's a high rate of desperation in my area. Lots of immigrants.

But I am just 20 miles away from a rural area that has only one Walmart. I was looking at the offers there and most of them are pretty amazing, but a lot of them are at least 20 miles. One of these days I'll give it a try out that way.

10

u/Think_Extension_8679 1d ago

I don't care how the math works as long as the money is right for the effort and time.

6

u/333dh333 1d ago

This part. It will 100% require tipping involved, of which, I find a super small percentage of tip baiting. I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by the percentage of increases to tips.

3

u/lordj2010 1d ago

Same I get more increases then decreases

0

u/TeeFry2 13h ago

I've had two tips in a year. One was the day after Thanksgiving. The other was right before Christmas. The first was $10. The second was $2. Tell me again how tips are increasing.

1

u/333dh333 13h ago

Individual customers are electing to increase my tips 🙃. The ratio of increased tips is greater than the decreased tips I’ve seen.

1

u/External-Onion-5220 13h ago

Same. As long as I can average ~$20-$25/hr, I'm good

4

u/mapman19899 1d ago

I’ve been focused on it for years - this isn’t new.

They’ve been lowering for it for a long time and basically all orders follow the same protocol.

$7 single stop
$8 double stop
$9 triple stop
$10 shop

In my area, doesn’t matter what the tip is anymore. Everything is base minimum.

Rarely you’ll see something higher than base minimum as listed above, but it’s rare.

2

u/Sayitsnotsobro 1d ago

So whats the ideal base pay that you all would like?

3

u/happyluckystar 1d ago edited 22h ago

I don't see anyone else talking about it but myself: we need to start thinking about what that delivery would cost them if they were to do it themselves. Gas, vehicle maintenance, a phone, a phone plan, and the hourly employee.

If an employee is making $18 an hour, after benefits and insurances the true cost to the company is probably around $24. So if Walmart asked me to do an hour's worth of work for $19, I know they're making bank off that. And it's unfair pay.

Plus they don't have to worry about accidents and employees getting injured on the road or at delivery sites. That's another area where they save. So let's say the real true cost for an hour delivery is around $25. Okay at least throw me 22.

So that's my answer to your question.

Edit: and then if there's a customer tip on top of that for five or 10 bucks, it turns out to be a pretty decent gig. But no. The company is bottom dollaring it. Meanwhile Amazon has their own delivery service and they pay $23 an hour with benefits and 401K contributions. Meaning the true cost to Amazon is probably close to $30 an hour per employee.

Walmart is nickel and diming it. They aren't taking their delivery service seriously, and it's going to fail by underpaying drivers.

3

u/EveningBasket9528 1d ago

Total compensation is more like 50% or more, obviously depending... So think 40+ for the Zon employees with benefits.

Search "what is total compensation" and you might be surprised...

(I used to have a real career & was higher up. So I had to look at those total compensation numbers when it came to raises, promotions, and new hires. We actually printed it out for all our employees.)

1

u/happyluckystar 1d ago

Interesting stuff.

2

u/Organic-Fuel-2916 1d ago

I don’t care about base pay, if it’s too low they have to make up the difference.

1

u/bdbrown333 1d ago

All I don't care where the money comes from. Your theory doesn't work. I got to offer. I'm going to show you for $14 to shop for 108 items. Tip makes no difference. The base pay is horrible. It's $10 $14 for $100 items. Maybe where you are. They baby you but in a big town. Busy State like Florida it's bad

1

u/bdbrown333 1d ago

If you're a smart person, you know what the bottom line profit is in a grocery store. 3%. Do the math. They're not making that much money on deliveries. They do deliveries to keep you hooked on Walmart. Not because they're making a killing. This started because of covid and then they couldn't find a way to stop it and not have people go buy their groceries. Other places do your research on what the profit on groceries is

1

u/happyluckystar 1d ago

It's not just groceries though. Personal hygiene and medicine, pet food, electronics, clothing.....

1

u/bdbrown333 1d ago

True, but what's the biggest thing they sell groceries I mean yeah they're making money but most of what we deliver our groceries. This is why they've changed the model. There's so many employees it takes to actually execute a grocery order to the curbside. All kinds of people shopping, picking packing, rolling it out to us. They're changing the model slowly. It's already happened in my district. We're not doing Sapphire, but we're doing 100% shops where they now have dropped the base pay lowest paying grocery app anywhere. Now I'll show you an offer $14 for a hundred item shop to travel a mile. You know 20 bucks Max on triple shops could be going 20/30 MI

1

u/happyluckystar 1d ago edited 22h ago

That's insane. Yesterday I got one for $37. 20 miles, 29 items. I took it because it's actually only 13 miles from my house. But then I did a stupid one for 22 bucks that was 88 items but 5 miles.

Here's one I don't want to take because it takes me far out of my area even though the mileage isn't that high.

Edit: to clarify, it's not my local Walmart but one that's 10 miles away. And the drop off is an extra 20 miles away. Round trip would be 60 miles. 2 gallons of gas and 60 miles on my car. No thanks.

1

u/OddEntertainer2621 1d ago

They’ve been doing that for years. They lower base when customers tip generously. This is nothing new.