- Delivery apps like Instacart and Walmart Spark often 'batch' orders together.
- But gig workers say it cuts into their income since they get paid less for each order delivered.
Last summer, some gig workers who delivered grocery orders for Walmart noticed a change: Instead of just delivering one order, they had to deliver two or three at once.
"Three grocery orders can also be delivered during each trip by using your front seat, back seat, and trunk space to keep these orders separate," Walmart told workers for its Spark service at the time in an email. The advice is now on the company's website for Spark drivers.
The practice of bundling orders isn't new. Other apps, including Instacart and DoorDash, have been doing it for years.
But four independent contractors who make the deliveries told Business Insider the practice usually leaves them doing more work for less money, further eroding their earning potential on gig-work apps. The workers declined to have their names used, but BI verified their identities.
Many gig workers say that their earnings have fallen over the past year because of lower pay and greater competition among drivers for orders.
Drivers have a choice, companies say
Batches have been part of Instacart's strategy for "several years," a company spokesperson told BI.
"Batches that include orders from multiple stores make up a very low percentage of batches on our platform," an Instacart spokesperson said. "As with any batch, shoppers are never required to select multi-order or multi-store batches."
Batches with multiple orders are "compensated accordingly and reflect the effort it will take to fulfill those batches," the spokesperson added.
"Batching is a win for drivers and our customers," a Walmart spokesperson said. "Drivers often prefer offers for batched deliveries and receive higher average earnings per trip while spending less time per delivery. Batching is also a way to serve more customers more efficiently and accurately."
"We're proud to offer multiple types of deliveries, and drivers can choose which offers to accept based on their preferences," the spokesperson said.
A DoorDash spokesperson did not provide comment for this article.
Drivers find angry customers, lower ratings, lost tips
The experience can be frustrating for customers. Customers can track where their driver is using the Walmart app, but they have no clue when their driver has more than one order to deliver, one Spark driver in Alabama told BI.
"Some customers get angry wondering why it's taking so long," the Alabama driver said. "On their end, they just see a vehicle driving all over the city with their groceries in it." In reality, the driver is following a route created by Walmart to deliver the orders, and someone's order has to be delivered last.
Customers give drivers low ratings and pull away tips as a result, the driver told Insider.
Walmart also batches together orders of non-perishable goods, such as shampoo and electronics, often combining a dozen or more orders together for one driver to deliver. "They're trying to be like FedEx and UPS, but they'll put 10 orders in one whole trip, and you might get $24 to $30 for that," one Spark driver in North Carolina told BI.
The pay can be reasonable if the delivery addresses are close together, the driver said. But if they're more spread out, the deliveries take more time, making it less profitable, he added.
On Instacart, shoppers used to shop and deliver one order at a time. But over the last few years, Instacart has bundled two or three deliveries together. The bundling, known as a "batch" in Instacart lingo, is one of the ways it improved its profitability ahead of its IPO last September, it said in filings with the SEC.
One Instacart shopper in New York City said that they make less per order when they deliver a batch of two or three at once instead of a single delivery.
More complicated – and generally less profitable – are batches that involve shopping multiple orders at different stores, then delivering them to different addresses, the shopper said.
"Two-store orders are even worse because it's like one store in Queens, the other in Brooklyn," the shopper told Business Insider. "They really don't understand the distance."
Orders also get bundled together on restaurant delivery apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. Earnings aside, those batches often present another challenge for gig workers: Getting food to customers before it gets cold — or hot.
One DoorDash customer expressed frustration that they were the third stop for the Dasher delivering their order in a Reddit post last year.
"He picked my food up from the restaurant that is 7 minutes away, but he has two other stops in the opposite directions before he gets to me," the poster wrote of the delivery worker. "And I ordered ice cream too."
"If your food is unacceptable when you receive it, (especially the ice cream), you should complain to DoorDash that your food is ruined because your Dasher was on a triple stacked order," one commenter wrote.
Do you work for Instacart, Spark, or another delivery service and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@insider.com