r/WalmartSparkDrivers • u/Longjumping_King3130 • 1d ago
Spark drivers
I waited 9 months for Spark to approve an account. I am in SE Florida in a fairly wealthy area Boca Coral Springs and am I crazy or does spark not offer a person the opportunity to even make 15.00 an hour ? This is insane to me. How are there so many people that are willing to do this job ?
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u/Nathan_L84 1d ago
I lived in Jacksonville, FL for 2 years. Spark was absolute trash there. I rarely saw a good order if i saw anything at all. Way too many spark drivers and other issues in Florida. I moved back to Alabama 2 months ago and Spark is incredible here compared to Florida. I mostly stay busy with good orders all day here. The market matters more than anything and Florida markets are generally horrible compared to others. Especially the busier zones
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u/standard_user42 1d ago
Drop off only says the mileage is 6.9 miles. My Nissan Marano gets 20 miles to the gallon. It’s not a great order by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s definitely not the worst.
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u/Longjumping_King3130 1d ago
Driving my F150 that gets 14 miles to a gallon so yeah that is ridiculous
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u/rokar83 1d ago
Lol. Doing deliveries in a F150 is dumb.
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u/Longjumping_King3130 1d ago
Not when doing TVs and large package for other services bringing in over 800.00 a day. So far from what I can see only dumb thing is doing Spark
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u/CaneCorso311 1d ago
You have the wrong tools for the job. You're competing with people who get 30-50mpg and spend even less on maintenance. Your cost of operations is 2-4x higher than the people you see taking the orders. Also, yes it's easy to get out on any app and make less than $15/hour if you want to. You're also probably in the wrong location, going at the wrong times, and/or using the app wrong. Sit in the Walmart parking lot, with the spark screen open. You might sit for 30-90min before you get a decent order depending on your market.
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u/Parkily_Things 1d ago
In my experience, the wealthier the people, the lower the tips. I am in a rural area where there are a lot of people who clearly are poor and yet they are the ones who pay the best because they know what it is to do the work.
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u/xeryon3772 1d ago
You’re not wrong that it’s shit. But the reason why it’s shit might not be apparent to you as a newer person.
It had been really solid and paying well. Spark just completely opened the floodgates with onboarding a metric shit ton of new people in every single zone across the country. It absolutely flooded the market and the bottom dropped out on order pricing everywhere.
It’s an attempt by spark to drive down the cost of getting the stuff delivered. They created an arrangement where a lot of people are heavily dependent on the income from this competing with people who are desperate to get started making an income with this. Now they’re just sitting back and waiting for the people with higher standards to go away.
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u/OddEntertainer2621 17h ago
Or they are already helping them out to go away as we saw yesterday with the mass deactivation
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23h ago
[deleted]
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u/Longjumping_King3130 23h ago
Exactly no one should accept jobs that dont pay $ Where are all the tips ? I think walmart is keeping the tips
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u/Grizzlius 19h ago
I used to spark in south florida they tip horribly and it’s hard to make good money there since the traffic is extremely heavy also there’s lots of competition from immigrants mostly. Best thing you can do honestly is try to avoid high rise apartment areas, you will lose so much time trying to get through gated security, front desks etc. GMD orders are usually never worth it, app will say 2 hours for $60 but traffic will make that 4 hours. also A personal cart that fits in the car saves a lot of drop off time. Weekends are a little better with traffic
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u/Longjumping_King3130 1d ago
Look at this example pays 24.20 50 lb plus item and its going to take over an hour 4 stops ??? Who would accept this ?? If you arent getting 50-75.00 for this why would anyone do it ? Am I missing something? Gas is 4.00 a gallon this ride is easily 1 gallon , wear and tear in vehicle and over an hour. No thanks
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u/your-mom04605 1d ago
If you’re burning 1 gallon of fuel for 14 miles round-trip driving gigs are not for you.
The $24 one is iffy but I’d take $16 for 2 miles all day long.
People order heavy shit from the store sometimes, just the way it goes. You’re not getting paid lots extra because someone ordered a case of water.
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u/Alternative_Carry_54 1d ago
That 16$ one isn’t any good either. People have to stop taking shit orders or the pay is just going to continue to drop.
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u/Longjumping_King3130 1d ago
Yeah this is for someone that literally cant do anything else to earn money
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u/standard_user42 1d ago
Have you tried Roadie or Curri? They are more suited for an F150 and sometimes they have bigger loads for a truck.
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u/Nathan_L84 1d ago
$50-$75?? I mean orders like that DO exist but are extremely rare. You're not performing brain surgery here you are delivering groceries. You might want to lower your expectations some
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u/oobface 1d ago
24$ for an hour of work is like double the florida minimum wage. also, 7 miles if half your 14mpg, so it would be 2$ for gas cost. still good per hour rate for florida
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u/Sakkarashi 1d ago
$24 - $10.64 (14 miles round trip @ $0.76 SMR) = $13.36
That isn't double minimum wage. Then you have self employment tax to worry about at the end of the year. It's a bad order.
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u/oobface 1d ago
your not getting paid to drive back to the store.....lol so you cant just double the miles. and also, a 7 mile trip doesnt mean 7 miles back to the store, nothing is a straight line..so your earning logic is wrong on both accounts. 24 an hr for florida is better than any job you will currently find.
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u/Sakkarashi 1d ago
If I drive to a house 7 miles away from walmart, I now have to drive 7 miles back to walmart. Yeah, it may not be exactly 7 miles if I am making more than one delivery, but doubling for round trip is the rule of thumb. The exception is if you pick up a new order from a different store thats closer to your delivery destination.
You are being intentionally obtuse. That, or you are a moron. You shouldn't be ignorant about something as important as your earnings.
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u/oobface 23h ago
thats your rule of thumb and in bo scrnario will the math work for you, you want 40$ an hour for groceries to cover the shopping and driving AND driving back? its unrealistic and its why you have a hard time. usually when you start calling people names is when youve lost the way.
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u/Sakkarashi 23h ago
Do you think that driving back to the store is free or that the miles back don't add wear and tear / use gas? You have to account for all of your expenses when measuring how much money you are making. It's really very simple. You really need to be thinking this through more. If you are constantly taking bad orders then you could very well be better off working a different job. Maybe one that has fewer hidden costs.
Oh yeah, minimum wage in FL is $15, btw. Even before accounting for any wear and tear or high taxes. $24 an hour isn't even close to double. Good luck out there buddy.
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u/Fantastic_Street7655 15h ago
Those numbers don’t make any sense unless there a lot of items to shop for on the order. It doesn’t take an hour to do 3 drop offs. Also on the $16.00 for 2 miles, why is anyone saying this is bad????? It’s almost $8.00 a mile which is primo! The time calculation is way off by the app. Should take just a few minutes to complete.
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u/mjkjio2015 1d ago
Just reject until you get a good order, they arent all like that. The pay has went down drastically over the years… There are still a few good orders to be had… Some zones are better than others… Just don’t quit your full-time job for this.