In the past couple of years, I have tried several different types of side hustles. I have had a fair amount of success with some, while others have not gone nearly as well. Falling squarely into the latter category, sad to say, is Postmates. My recent experience with them has pretty much cemented my opinion of it.
What Is Postmates?
It occurs to me that there might be people who don’t know what Postmates is. Well, if I had to guess, I would say that, out of the food delivery apps, Postmates is probably the least well known. Not sure why – it just seems to appear that way.
I decided to try Postmates out earlier this year when other ventures were drying up a little bit.* It took a few days to get up and running with this program, because I had to wait to receive my prepaid credit card (which I’ll discuss in a moment) and get it activated. (I was also waiting for them to send me their zippered bag, ostensibly so that I could keep the food I would be delivering nice and warm.)
This was where I discovered the difference between Postmates and, for example, Uber Eats. While Uber Eats is set up so that the client takes care of payment for the food, Postmates occasionally asks the delivery partner/driver/(whatever you want to call yourself) to go into the restaurant, order the food, and use the prepaid card to pay for it yourself.
All this food needs is a black zippered bag. Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.
Why Postmates Isn’t Great – My Lousy Day
My experience this past weekend serves as a great illustration as to why the Postmates model is not great for drivers. It started when I received a call to pick up a pastry and a coffee at, well, one of the roughly 1000 locations of a really, really well known coffee chain here in town. (Sadly, it was not one located anywhere close to my house.)
I arrived at the coffee shop (requiring about two minutes to find a parking spot and two more to walk from said parking space back to the store) and saw that the app wanted me to order the items myself and pay for them with the prepaid card. And because this is a really, really well known chain, there were several orders in front of me, so I got to wait a while. My wait got extended when someone behind the counter (inadvertently, I hope) dumped the drink I had ordered.
So far, so bad.
It Got Worse
Delivering the food with Postmates is pretty much the same as with other similar apps. During delivery, drivers occasionally get further delivery requests. That’s not different from other apps, but what is, is that, without fail, the requests are cancelled very soon thereafter. (I can only assume that the app found someone else who was able to handle the request more quickly.) This happened while I was making the first delivery, and, as will be seen later, I wish I had been able to take that delivery instead of what I got stuck with.
On delivering the order (finally) to the 9th floor of whatever apartment building it was, I tried to mark the delivery as complete on the app. Unfortunately, apparently that building and my phone provider don’t get along, so I couldn’t do that. I walked outside the building and tried to complete the delivery, and then the app decided to be really stupid. The app refused to complete it, telling me I had to go to the dropoff location before it would credit me. (That would be the location where I didn’t have a signal.) Thankfully – maybe because of the client – it eventually decided I had completed the delivery after all. After a couple of minutes of frustration, that is.
My New Least Favorite Restaurant
The next delivery request from Postmates was almost immediate. Unfortunately, it was about 15-20 minutes further in the wrong direction from my house. But that was okay with me; I was tracking mileage, as I always do.
I arrived at this hip, trendy local breakfast place** and was told to go to the bar to place my to-go order. (Yes, I was going to have to wait for another order.) Three people told me, in the course of five minutes, that they would be “right with me”.
After #3, I got a little impatient, at which point the second person got back with me. When I said I had a to-go order, she asked if it was for Postmates. (The bag reading “Postmates” must not have made much of an impression.) I said yes, and she proceeded to tell me that this restaurant didn’t do Postmates orders on weekends. (Then, pray tell, why did the app let this order be placed in the first place? That’s either on Postmates or this stupid restaurant.)
I left the restaurant, having wasted 20-30 minutes on a delivery that was never going to happen. (A delivery request, mind you, that should never have been allowed.) After that debacle, I was done. I switched off the app and went home.
Summing Up That Day’s Postmates Experience
So how much money did I make delivering for Postmates in 90 minutes of work?
$5.89.
Five. Eighty. Nine. Not even six freaking dollars.
And about 40% of that was because the one customer to whom I completed a delivery tipped me.
It didn’t take me long to determine that Postmates is not a good use of my time.
A Better Alternative to Postmates
I’m going to continue on with my side hustles, to be sure. But when I’m delivering food, I’m going to stick with Uber Eats, at least for now.
Yes, I did place a referral link to Uber a few paragraphs above, but my link doesn’t appear to offer an incentive. Swagbucks, I know, currently offers a $75 incentive for signing up to drive. If you’re looking to deliver, that’s as good a place as any to start.
But skip Postmates.
* Foolishly, I rushed into it without using a deal from one of the many sites that gives incentives for such things. Swagbucks, for example, offers over $22 at present for signing up with Postmates.
** I’m really fighting the temptation to name and shame the restaurant that pulled this stunt on me.
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