My First Delivery With DoorDash

Today I have got a video about my first delivery with the delivery app Doordash. In my last video on Doordash, I covered my first impressions, a quick recap of orientation, and a couple of ways that Doordash is different from some of the other on-demand services.

Today I want to make a short video. I am trying to make my videos a little bit shorter since some of you guys have complained about that. So hopefully you can make it through this one. Basically as soon as I was done with orientation, it was kind of cool because I was actually activated to become a dasher and I could start working right then and there.

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I tried a DoorDash delivery right after I finished orientation

There weren’t shifts available at that time but the guy who was there setting things up opened one up for me. I logged on and it was right at lunch time, too, around 11:45, which was peak lunch hours. The other thing to keep in mind with Doordash, people may want to eat at 12 o’clock, or they may want to eat at 12:30, so they generally place the orders a little earlier, around half an hour.

If you are looking for that lunch time rush, you want to log on a little bit before lunch. As soon as I logged on, I’d say within two minutes I actually had my first request. So I accepted the request and it was at a place I’ve never heard of. It was over in Costa Mesa in Orange County called Raising Cane’s Chicken.

I got the request and  I saw the pickup spot in the app. I used the map function, went to it. It was about eight minutes away from where I was near John Wayne Airport. I got there with no problem, but as I was pulling up I see this huge line of cars coming out, spilling out into the street.

A delivery at a brand-new, busy restaurant. How long will it take?

They were all waiting in line to go to this place Raising Cane’s. For me, it was kind of weird because first, I had never even heard of this place. Eventually I decided not to go drive through. I went and parked and I talked to the security guard quickly on my way in and the place had just opened two weeks ago. It is basically fast food, but a little more upscale, like a fast casual, almost like a Chipotle as opposed in McDonald’s.

It’s a chain that started back in the east coast or mid-west, New Orleans, probably Louisiana, something like that. Since this was my first delivery, it was a little confusing on the app. I wasn’t sure if I needed to place the order or they had placed the order.

Figuring out if DoorDash places the order or if I do

The app kind of made it seem like they had already placed the order because all it said was that I had to pick it up, but obviously I saw it quickly that it was a fast food joint and you would have to go up to the counter and order. So I’ve assumed that there was no way to call in. I did double check though when I got to the front. I said, “Hey, is there a way to call in orders,” and he said, “Only if you order for six boxes or more.”

And obviously my order was only for two boxes, so I knew that I have to place the order myself. Now, if it’s a partner restaurant, then in that case you don’t even have to worry about paying. So I assume in that case, you wouldn’t have to order and you could just go up and get the food. But in this case, it was kind of a non-partner restaurant, so I had to go in, I placed the order. I waited about 10 minutes.

This was probably on the high-end of the wait time. When I first accepted the job, it said there will be a $5 delivery fee plus $1 boost pay. Now in Orange County right now, they are paying $5 delivery fees plus “Boost Pay,” which gives you a little extra money. So $6 payout for the job and then you get to keep 100% of the tips.

DoorDash doesn’t take a cut from that delivery fee, unlike other services. Instead of taking a cut, they actually upcharge the customer. So if a burger costs 4.50, maybe they’ll charge $5 to the customer, and that’s how they make their money. But in short, I went into this Raising Cane’s place, placed the order for them. It was lunch time. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet and it looked pretty good. So I ordered one for myself, too. I then left to drop it off at the drop-off location.

It was like a hair dressing salon type place where they had a bunch of students learning. A lot of the issues that kind of come up as a delivery driver, I kind of hit on the first ride. I happened to find this place, it was super packed, super busy, so I had to wait five minutes to park. I had to go in, wait five minutes to order, then I had to wait 10 minutes for the food, then I had to drive to the place.

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How much the delivery paid

Once I got there, I couldn’t really figure it out because there was only a parking lot that had a gate that went up and down. Eventually, I figure it out that you could probably get validations. So I just went in to the parking lot and parked there and then I went inside, made the drop off. The drop off was super easy. Luckily, they gave me validation. So I came back out, ate my lunch in the car, and then left. All told — well, not the part where I ate my lunch — but it was 45 minutes worth of work.

I ended up with $2.85 tip. So for a total of $8.85 for about 45 minutes of work. And granted, that was about as long of a delivery as possible since I had 10 minutes to go to the place, then I had all that wait time, and that really kind of speaks to the fact that you really want to look for these jobs that are going to minimize your waiting time, when you have the drive time because you only get paid for that delivery.

These are kind of all the things that you want to to keep in mind as a dasher. Overall, it was about what I expected, maybe a little on the low side of the income but that might be more of a reflection of this job is taking so long. I probably got a little bit of unlucky. I still think that the earnings potential are in that $10 to $15 an hour range.

I’ll be curious to go out and I’m probably going to do some more dashing in the upcoming weeks and do hours at the time, and maybe even a full day. I’ll let you guys know how it goes. If you have any questions about DoorDash, about the earnings, the potential, anything like that, definitely feel free to let me know. If you guys are interested in using one of my affiliate links to sign up for DoorDash, you can apply here. Other than that I look forward to hearing from you, guys. Take care.

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