- Drivers for Walmart’s Spark delivery service wait in parking lots for more than an hour for orders.
- The same goes for Walmart pickup and drop-off customers, who use the same system when parking at the store.
- This is the latest problem for Walmart’s delivery business, which is also working to combat fraudulent drivers.
Every time a driver for Alabama-based Walmart’s Spark delivery service picks up an order, the Spark app displays a deadline to report it to the local Walmart. It usually takes him about 10 minutes to receive it.
However, drivers told Insider that when they arrived in the past, they had to wait in the parking lot for the better part of an hour for a clerk to bring their order to their car.
“They call you there, and you sit there, sit there, and sit there,” the driver told Insider. “The longest wait ever was an hour and 15 minutes for him, just because he had a good tip, but it got really bad.”
According to conversations with four Spark drivers, as the service grows, wait times have become an issue for drivers. This is the latest challenge to retailers’ delivery services.
Earlier this year, Walmart began allowing some Spark gig workers to pick and deliver orders at its stores, according to drivers Insider spoke with.
The issue is also impacting customers, which could result in deliveries being delayed behind schedule. Shoppers who order groceries and other items to pick up at Walmart will also have to wait in the parking lot, Spark drivers and social media commenters said. The same Walmart employees who take Spark orders also deliver the items to customers waiting in the parking lot.
“Orders are typically served within 10 minutes,” a Walmart spokesperson told Insider when asked about the long wait times experienced by drivers. “We are focused on providing our drivers with an efficient transportation experience and maximizing revenue opportunities, so we take into account the time it takes to process an order when determining the revenue for each trip. Masu.”
Walmart’s number of Sparkdrivers tripled from mid-2022 to mid-2023, the company announced in June. Walmart says its network can currently reach about 84% of U.S. households. Last year, Walmart’s e-commerce sales increased 12%. This includes orders delivered to customers’ homes, as well as deliveries made by Spark drivers as well as third-party services and full-time Walmart employees.
But growth came at a cost. Employees and drivers allege that in addition to order delays, Walmart has not adequately policed serious problems on the platform with drivers using multiple accounts under different names. Insider previously reported. And Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said: he wants more clerks, not a gig worker, deliver.
Walmart Spark drivers say wait times make it difficult to maximize profits
For gig workers who make deliveries, waiting for orders is a big part of their job. Instacart shoppers often wait in their cars outside stores to pick up their orders. The practice has become so common that Costco has asked Instacart shoppers to stay out of its parking lot unless their order is filled.
Some DoorDash employees ask for additional tips if they have to wait longer than expected to pick up their meal.
Spark drivers told Insider that wait times at Walmart make it difficult to determine which orders are worth taking. The drivers did not want their names used in this article for fear of retaliation from Walmart and Spark. Their identities are known to insiders.
Drivers say orders that come with a high base pay or big tips are less profitable if the waiter takes longer than expected to deliver the order. Like many other gig workers, Spark drivers are paid per order delivered, rather than hourly.
Long wait times could also conflict with Walmart’s schedule for distributing orders to Spark drivers. The delivery order is delivered to the driver once every hour, the driver picks it up and it arrives at the store within about 10 minutes.
One Spark driver in Nevada said if store employees take too long, there’s a risk that drivers won’t be available to deliver orders during the next hourly cut.
“I’ve been there,” he told Insider. “I received the order at 10:35. I parked at 10:36 and left at 11:10. Then, when the temperature drops again, I’ll be out delivering.”
Some Walmart customers who stop by stores for curbside pickup also appear to be experiencing long wait times and are voicing their frustrations on social media. One user’s girlfriend, gabrielew13, recalled waiting “almost an hour” in the parking lot for her order.
Walmart is grouping orders into batches, creating a new layer of complexity for employees and Spark drivers.
One possible reason for the wait times is that Walmart employees and delivery contractors have adapted to delivering multiple orders at once.
In August, Walmart began requiring Spark drivers to deliver up to three orders at once.
Grouping orders is common with other delivery services such as Instacart. Nevertheless, it has complicated the job for clerks and contractors alike, drivers told Insider.
A Spark driver in Indiana recently spoke to Insider from his car while waiting to pick up a package containing two orders. He said he waited 40 minutes for his order.
As he explained the long wait to Insider, a Walmart employee appeared next to his car and confirmed that the batch was supposed to contain two orders.
But the colleague had bad news. “We only have one of them,” he said. “I can’t find the second one.”
“It’s not unusual,” the driver told Insider.
Do you work at Walmart or Spark and have a story idea you’d like to share? Contact this reporter at abitter@insider.com.
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