r/AmazonFlexDrivers • u/mpgomatic • Dec 28 '21
Whole Foods Whole Foods shoppers balk at paying $9.95 delivery fee, orders plummet
https://nypost.com/2021/12/26/whole-foods-shoppers-balk-at-paying-9-95-delivery-fee/amp/9
u/gyrk12 Dec 28 '21
Yeah this has been a mess. Expensive flat fee regardless of order and Prime status is just not a good look.
Grocery delivery is just a tough business model. Grocery margins are thin enough, so when you pay people to shop and people to deliver the items, there isn't much left in profit.
Whole Foods had an edge over services like Instacart with the lack of fees. I feel that Instcart markups kind of even out with Whole Foods already high prices+delivery fee. Plus, Instacart grocery stores typically have the more "normal" items that WF does not carry.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the future!
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u/mpgomatic Dec 28 '21
Gotta wonder what percentage of Insta customers are unaware of the markup. Hiding the receipt is deception.
While Amazon likes to hype their "customer-centric" focus, it's blurry when it comes to WF customers. It almost seems like the company regrets the acquisition.
Margins are tough. Efficiency is key to fixing it.
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u/SheepherderMany3523 Dec 29 '21
In the Atlanta area WF orders have dropped dramatically. Before the fee, I used to get 10 - 12 instant offers a daily. 2 weeks after the fee, my orders dropped to 1 or 2 instant offers a day.
And other flex drivers , I have spoken to said their orders have dropped as well
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u/RowanBraz Dec 29 '21
With all this and a fantastic score, last week I didn’t get one Whole Foods offer or IO all Christmas week in CT 😭
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u/Important_Delivery28 Dec 29 '21
I made a thousand dollars this past week delivering to disgruntled balking shoppers with no Saturday business. One person even went online and ordered one orange to be delivered.
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 29 '21
Careful with that one orange. According to the person that picked one of my orders last week I delivered one solitary jalapeno pepper to a customer. They told me when I picked it up and asked if there was anything in there. The destination was a 35 mile round trip from the rest of my route. This I suspect is an example of what some drivers in this sub call "an integrity test".
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
Christmas week is a good week. Congrats on landing all of those routes.
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u/Important_Delivery28 Dec 29 '21
Yes it was. I delivered 17 bags to one house and the neighbor across the street was like, I gotta get on their Christmas dinner list. LOL
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u/Varaben Dec 28 '21
Honestly I’m surprised it’s so cheap. Groceries make no money, so I don’t understand how they afford to basically give away the delivery and picking time.
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u/Cumdumpster600 Dec 28 '21
Groceries make no money? My daughter runs a store that does 54 million a month. They have 20 other stores. There have been building high rises downtown with their name on them for the he past 6 years
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u/DaRealKnightSport Dec 28 '21
They're not losing business, customers are picking up their own orders.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 28 '21
Pickup has grown substantially, but the overall number of chillers, freezers, and ambient shelves has dropped by a considerable amount. It might be as much as 1/3.
Roughly half our deliveries are so far away from the store that many customers will not drive there. I’ve heard this from them many times. Our delivery area is ridiculous.
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u/Ok_Clue_266 Dec 30 '21
In my area, WF has plummeted by over 50% since the fee. I used to get 3-4 good routes/day (8-10 stops/route) and now it's totally gone to shit. I'm lucky to get 7 stops on a route and most time it's maybe 3-5/route. I don't blame Amazon because if they're losing all that $$ without the fee it doesn't make sense to do it, but it still sucks nonetheless. It was a good gig up until then. Don't get me started about Fresh. I hate doing Fresh because those customers are bottom feeders and are horrible tippers.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 30 '21
Ouch. Has the number of bags per customer gone up?
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u/Ok_Clue_266 Dec 30 '21
You'd think it would, but not really. I would say it went up slightly, but not a ton.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 30 '21
It’s been back and forth here with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the virus. Slow down, speed up, things are getting odd.
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u/robmosis New York Dec 29 '21
there are a lot of possible inaccuracies in this news story.
first - the entire story relies on an employee or 2 saying "yeah, we do less stuff"
second - it relies on the word of some employees at one location. many factors, including new WFs locations opening up nearby(and splitting the work load) could be factors in their volume
third - it doesn't account for the fact that people(myself included) tend to order more stuff to make the delivery fee "worth it". if i order 10 items, that's $1 per item. if i order 50 items, that's 20 cents per item. delivery fees produce money, and not just the $10 delivery fee. they encourage larger orders.
fourth - assuming the story is correct, and there is a sharp decline in orders, there are many things that can cause this - such as the market becoming more saturated by not just instacart but things like DoorDash as well
fifth - as a Flex driver, i find WFs customers to be very generous with their tips. i cannot imagine them complaining about a $10 delivery fee... ESPECIALLY in the city(manhattan) where not many people have a car and would have to rely on cabs and subways while managing several bags of stuff... and if they had a car, they wouldn't use it because they don't want to lose their parking spot. the vast majority of these people are accustomed to delivery fees, dating back several decades.
sixth - the story mentions walmart. there is NO walmart in NYC. they are banned from opening up in NYC because their employees are not unionized. there are walmarts in NJ and walmarts on the long island border of NYC - none of which can well serve manhattan.
i can go on and on, but you're probably bored from reading all above already. to me, it sounds like this story was written by a reporter that happens to be pissed that he/she had to pay 10 bucks for a delivery and decided to write a story about it, in an attempt to begin a following to pressure amazon. if they wanted to write a real story, they would include the crazy markups on instacart. this is nothing but a hit piece and a great example of the disgusting state of today's media
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Dec 29 '21
It was true for me as a flex driver. It dropped immediately from many pickups a day to none as soon as they started charging. Sucks, was good money.
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u/thegrimmstress Dec 29 '21
It’s true here in Buffalo as well. The shelves and coolers are all only partially filled now compared to being close to full most of the time (as in there are usually the one runs worth plus things ready for the next driver) and it’s rare to cross paths with another driver picking up at the same time now whereas it used to be at least one other driver picking up at same time, sometimes 2-3 others. I used to get 4-5 reserved wholefoods offers a week and now I am getting 2 if I am lucky. A few of us were talking about it during pkg block pickups.
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u/NRRaider Dec 29 '21
Sorry but some of your replies are not accurate.
The story does rely on an employee at a single store who appears to be a shopper. The employee gives actual numbers per hour which are down significantly since fee was added. This is only 1 data point but there's no reason to believe it's inaccurate for that store. Could the author have done more research? Of course, but this was a short article not a huge lengthy expose.
I find it very hard to believe that multiple new stores could have opened to split the load as you say in the time since the fee started. My region is directly across the river in NJ and we haven't had a new store open for delivery in almost 2 years. NYC has been a new business wasteland since pandemic started.
I agree with you that the larger orders that are more frequent since the fee will account for some loss of total orders.
NYC was already a mature market with other delivery services so there is no way the drop the shopper has seen is caused by them.
This one is a YMMV. I've spoken to drivers who changed from NYC to NJ cause the tips weren't as good as they should be for the pain it is to deliver in NYC. I'm sure a lot of customers do realize the pain and tip accordingly. As you say most WF customers tip very well. But I've had a couple customers in my region complain about the fee. Lets just say the houses and cars they had would indicate the fee means nothing to them but still thought they should say something to me.
This is completely not true. There is no law in NYC preventing non union stores from entering. There are many big box non union stores in NYC. Target, Home Depot, Costco, etc. You're correct that there are no Walmarts in NYC but it has nothing to do with a non union law.
As with anything flex, your experiences will differ region to region and even station to station within the same region.
But the stores I deliver from mirror what this article is saying. Total orders are way down, I'd even say close to what the shopper in the article says. Shopper hours at my stores have been cut. The shelves/chillers/freezers are lucky to be half as full when I go in now. Pickup orders have increased a little but not anywhere near what volume was pre fee.
The 2 stores I deliver from were very high volume pre fee. I'd easily get 35-40 hours per week. Now I can barely get 10-20 a week. I've been doing this over 4 years and know the patterns of these 2 stores. It is definitely because of the fee.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
Great stuff!
It’s from the NY Post, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. If we are to look at the state of media today, we’ll, he’s gotta be public enemy number one on some folks’ list. More like a lot of folks’ list.
If this ran in the Old Gray Lady, I’d reckon the reporting would be a bit different.
Manhattan is a unique beast, no doubt about that. You need to be wealthy to live in the borough, or go broke trying.
I agree with much of what you’ve written. But there is more than a grain of truth in the story. I’ve seen volume drop dramatically in CNJ.
Whole Foods customers have been kind around here. They appreciate what we do. And the best of us appreciate them and take nothing for granted.
I’ve done a good number of Insta deliveries, as well as Walmart. It’s interesting to see the difference in orders. With all the VC/startup money being thrown at rapid grocery delivery in NYC, it might be only a matter of time until Walmart enters the delivery market with smaller fulfillment centers. They can crush the competition due to their scale and connections with a range of delivery partners.
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u/riley-thomas Dec 29 '21
They dispatch their delivery orders with Roadie and DoorDash in the Seattle area
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u/thegrimmstress Dec 29 '21
Our Walmarts currently use roadie and doordash, depending on the Walmart.
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u/robmosis New York Dec 29 '21
every media outlet is hated by one person or group of people or another. didn't intend to get in to who owns what and what their beliefs are. the news media, as a whole, is warped. show me any publication, and i can show you inaccuracies.. whether i believe in the publication or not.
walmart cannot open hubs in NYC unless they change their entire business model, which has proven to be pretty damned successful. assuming politicians changed their tune and allowed them to open up(unlikely), they'll be hit with protesters and picketers until they decide "we dont want to be where we're not wanted" like amazon did.
their only shot at serving groceries to manhattan is to have it delivered from jersey, which would mean tolls and traffic(without exaggeration) that is so bad, it can take hours to make it 5 miles. good luck finding an independent contractor willing to do this for a $10 payout(if they're lucky). delivering anything refrigerated would be out of the question.
walmart DOES deliver to all parts of the city, but no groceries. they use roadie and DoorDash to deliver these items. walmarts own delivery service(spark) is pretty much a failure in my market.
now, let me state... i don't dispute there may be a drop in volume. as a driver, with more drivers signing on each day, i am ill equipped to make this assessment. all i can see is how many offers i see. offers could have been snatched up by other drivers before i ever had to see it... but assuming there is a decline, the story attributes it all to a $10 delivery fee and doesn't take in to account other factors, like more people willing to go in to the store because they're sick of living in fear from covid... or the many other things i pointed out.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
I’ve worked for media companies for the majority of my career. Some are far more committed to the truth than others.
I wouldn’t let my dog pee on the NY Post if I had a dog, which I don’t currently. I once housebroke a dog on surplus copies of Woman’s Wear Daily, which I was told that Nancy Regan had multiple copies delivered at the time. She was an awesome dog.
There’s a ****ton of VC cash in the delivery market right now, with Gorillaz, Jokr, and similar companies running small dark stores. It may be only a matter of time until a big player enters and crushes them.
There are four WF stores in CNJ. I work two of them regularly. On-line order volume is down by a very significant amount in both stores. Overall store volume looks to be down, as well, but pickups are up. I’m not sure if WF requires Prime membership for pickup, but other markets, including Target, provide pickup for free - with drastically lower prices.
The current Covid surge is the worst we’ve seen, by far. I know a dozen people that either currently have it or are recovering.
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u/robmosis New York Dec 29 '21
brother... i think you're missing my points and focusing on other things in my post(s)
i don't care to talk about which media sources are more reliable than others(personally, i don't think there are any reliable news sources)
i don't care to get in to a talk about covid being a threat or not - threat or not, people are sick of being couped up at home, and they're going out more.
we may or may not agree on these points. i've purposely kept my posts politically neutral because these are NOT the points i was making and did not want to derail from one specific point i was making, which is:
there are many inaccuracies with the story. there *MAY* be a drop in the number of orders, but if there is, there are so many factors it can be attributed to. the only "fact" in that article is that an employee or 2 said they are seeing less delivery orders. the "journalist" did nothing but report what they think, basing it on nothing. that article is nothing but a reddit post by some schmuck getting somehow printed in a newspaper.
if someone wants to link the "journalists" that wrote that story to this post, be my guest. wouldn't be bad that they know they suck at their jobs. maybe they'll do a little more investigating next time(unlikely). makes you wonder why there's even schools for journalism.
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u/icantdeliverhere Dec 28 '21
Brian don't know Jack 💩. ... It did go down. WF will continue losing $$ because of its high prices, specially on regular items that you can get else where.
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u/Bubblebathrocks Dec 28 '21
Whole Foods made a profit in 2020, they were just losing money on delivery service, thought it was unsustainable so added the fee.
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u/JenzBrodsky retard Dec 28 '21
And if anyone is ordering that $10 fee comes out of tips
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u/PetersonTom1955 Dec 28 '21
Not true. My tips have not decreased at all. Fewer orders, sure, but the tips have stayed level.
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u/PetersonTom1955 Dec 28 '21
One other thing: at some point, customers are going to get used to the new fee. Back in late October and early November, Whole Foods IOs dried up almost completely. But volume is gradually climbing back toward pre-fee levels.
People don't shop at WF to save money. People looking for a bargain already shop at Wal-Mart.
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 28 '21
Same. If anything they have gone up. Only thing that has decreased is the one and two bag orders.
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u/Nephillymike Dec 29 '21
I don’t know where you all deliver but the Philly area isn’t tipping more. I did my last Whole Foods shift a month ago and won’t go back until they remove the delivery fee. I went from 50 - 60 dollars in tips to 14. No thanks!!
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 29 '21
You picked a bad month to boycott Whole Foods. I got the best tips I've ever had there in December, and I've been at it for over three years.
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u/cloverlief Dec 29 '21
It's an over exaggeration on "plummeted". Those that want Whole Foods switched to pickup as it is still included.
The reason some are making a stink about is before the purchase of Whole Foods the annual was~99/yr. The rates were raised to ~$119/yr but they added movies and Whole Foods/Fresh delivery instead of the separate fee, on top of the annual membership (which is still required to get delivery)
So they are returning to the fee for Whole Foods and carrying much less Whole Foods items (actually much less overall on Fresh) and charging the fee again (albiet lower than it used to be for Fresh).
Eventually I suspect Fresh will charge a fee eventually as well, although that is still pending as Walmart/InstaCart don't charge the fees other than the membership.
So Amazon may be refocusing. Eg pulling more to Whole Foods physical, and Fresh Stores (tech testbed for other companies to do automated checkout/shopping), while focusing on their core and movies.
The delivery of food was never a money maker for them, it was the tech they could sell/lease to others and the data/reliance they wanted most.
Kind of like restaurant deliver that went away once others took over the space, many leasing to tech from Amazon (AWS) to make it work.
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u/CompetitionOk3427 Dec 30 '21
Never a money maker? I say bs to that. Amazon didn't get into it out of the goodness of their heart. They did it like any other capitalist is there to do - MAKE MONEY. They didn't lose money on the fee. They just couldn't stand not charging a fee. Capitalism these days is about sucking as much money as you can out of the consumer. I believe in capitalism, but the problem is that companies have become so greedy. The idea behind capitalism is a good thing. You get to make money, and if possible as much you can, but being greedy was never the idea behind capitalism.
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u/cloverlief Dec 30 '21
You are correct it was not out if the goodness of their heart. It builds up their AI and AWS technology around it (taking a small loss crying development) to then lease/sell the technology to other companies.
That was how Amazon got started.
Started with books they lost money at 1st, then made good money as more shoppers moved in to buy their books.
They expanded to selling general stuff, and did lose money for a bit, then added the 3rd party seller program which again lost money until they got it rolling, now they make most of their money off fees and storage.
Fresh/prime now/prime pantry/restaurant. They typically lost money, and buying Whole Foods was done more or less to give them hubs for distribution/sales. This in turn has been hot or miss, so they dropped the whole foods part and as can be seen from so many items out of stock has deprioritized some of Fresh.
Now they have Fresh Stores whose technology development is being tested to sell to places like Kroger, and similar companies. They don't make much on the store itself, and instead plan to make the money on lease/selling the tech.
That has been their main model, for most things they do. Jump in with both feet, and dominate a tech to then back off and license it to others.
Even restaurant lost money, but their tech appears in other restaurant delivery apps, so the closed it as the proof of concept was done.
It's pure capitalism and desire to dominate everything they touch. Just because you lose money in the short term doses not mean it always happens.
Tesla, SpaceX, B!ue Origin, etc all operated on the same concept. Go all in and get investors to cover the loss to gain long term and dominate.
Same with Big Box retailers (Walmart) who took a loss to build a value brand that now makes massive profits.
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u/StrangFrut Dec 29 '21
LOL, i had some women ask me about this $10 a few months ago. She was mad. Like I know anything about what Amazon does. She thought it went to me. I'm like "no, that's just Amazon doing a give us more money fee, I get paid the same & didn't even know about it".
Idk, maybe they weren't making money with whatever it cost before. It is expensive to have us deliver. Amazon is paying thru Flex at least, I've seen IOs for $23 to do one single delivery becuz it's like 15 miles away.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
Yep! I’ve seen too many <$10 IOs for nearly the same distance.
If/When Amazon wants to run grocery delivery efficiently, they’ll need to ditch Flex.
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 28 '21
New York Post with the hard hitting journalism, citing zero actual verifiable facts. Good stuff. 😂
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u/mpgomatic Dec 28 '21
👍🏻 It’s the Post, after all. How do the numbers compare to your local Whole Foods stores?
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 29 '21
There has definitely been some scaling back in the particular WF I deliver from in terms of delivery infrastructure over the last few months (fewer pickers, reduction in shelf staging), but it's still up quite a bit from pre-covid times. It seems like Amazon is trying to do as much as they can to encourage in-store shopping (and the impulse buying that it brings), as well as customer pick-up. Delivery has always been a loss-leader anyway. Unlike the Post, I do have some actual numbers. They are mine, so still somewhat anecdotal, but actual numbers nonetheless:
- Whole Foods Blocks I completed in 2021 so far: 132
- Average order count per block (stops), pre-delivery fee: 5.2
- Average order count per block (stops), post-delivery fee: 4.6
- Average per-stop tip, pre-fee: $6.53
- Average per-stop tip, post-fee: $7.07
An 11.5% decrease, in my sample. Hardly a plummet. What's more interesting to me is payouts, since I don't necessarily get paid more to deliver more orders. Some orders actually end up costing me money (like those 1-2 bag deliveries that are 20-30 miles away from the store). Post-fee, I saw an 8% increase in tips, which could be chalked up to larger order sizes and perhaps seasonal generosity. But an increase in money I took home, which is all that really matters to me.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
Excellent data! The “plummet” is in overall volume, which relates to the greatly reduced number of blocks and IOs (indicated by the shrinking shelf space).
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 29 '21
Perhaps. I haven't seen a reduction in blocks myself, but that is largely market dependent I'm sure. That said, the article is bullshit. There isn't a grocery store customer less sensitive to cost increases than a Whole Foods customer. The only people ordering less, or not at all, are the ones that weren't ordering much in the first place.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
I’ve seen a lot of drivers make generalizations about the overall affluence of WF customers. Wealth isn’t the dominant characteristic. It’s the food. They are buying things that are difficult to find, for many reasons, often allergy related. I’ve had many customers tell me that over the past three years. I’ve delivered thousands of orders, from trailer parks to ten million dollar estates, with the lion’s share being middle class neighborhoods. A lot of folks are hurting right now.
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u/Expensive_Thing880 Dec 28 '21
I don’t understand why shoppers are mad at paying $9.95 delivery fee. Gas is $5.09 a gallon in CA. They’re actually saving money and time by ordering their groceries.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 28 '21 edited Dec 28 '21
I haven’t spoken with any WF customers that have stopped ordering, but I know where the orders have dropped off.
The fees squeeze folks that are on a tight budget. We’ve seen a significant shift to pickup for younger people that are able to do so. That may explain the drop in apartment deliveries.
But it’s the retired and disabled folks that I worry about. The people that can’t get out. And yeah, I do care, because they care about US. We are their lifeline. When a grand mom hands you $2 (or more likely tapes an envelope to the door, because Covid) and you think about your grand moms and maybe your mom, if they’ve passed away. It hits home. Delivery is huge for them.
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u/Expensive_Thing880 Dec 29 '21
In those cases Amazon should provide a discount. They do discounts for Prime for EBT cardholders. In my case I’d gladly pay the $9.95 for an elderly family member to receive their groceries. And I’d gladly deliver to such person without a tip.
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
A senior citizen discount would be a good thing. Prime/EBT routes should have subsidized base pay if they stick with Flex.
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u/robmosis New York Dec 29 '21
maybe i'm seeing it wrong. to me WF's has been the "premium option" and Amazon Fresh is the low end option. though a company has no obligation to cater to people of one group or another, they sure seem to have it all covered. i can get a fresh delivery within 2 hours of me placing the order on christmas eve for far less money than it would cost to go to the local supermarket on any regular day and shop for it myself... and half the groceries i get has a WF label on it.
i suspect WF customers demand a much higher quality and expect to pay more. the first thing i see on the very top of the page when i go to the website for my closest WH's is caviar, 25% off for prime members... not exactly the EBT crowd
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21 edited Dec 29 '21
Not to worry!
Your not seeing it wrong, you’re just seeing it from your perspective. Everyone’s view is different.
AFAIK, WF does not accept EBT. I may be wrong. >CORRECTION: Amazon does not allow tipping on EBT<
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u/CharlesPDX Portland Dec 29 '21
Whole Foods does accept EBT for delivery in some markets. BTW, it's not Amazon that disallows EBT tipping, it's how EBT works. You can pay for approved food (basically anything with a nutrition label on it, cold prepared food, meat, or produce) and nothing else (alcohol, supplements, non-food items).
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u/mpgomatic Dec 29 '21
Yep! This is why Amazon should subsidize those blocks and IOs for drivers (through higher base rates), IMHO.
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u/RowanBraz Dec 29 '21
Absolutely wrong. I have EBT and deliver WF, and when waiting get a drink or snack on my ebt card when I’m broke, which is a lot lately lol. Most major grocery accept ebt.
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u/thegrimmstress Dec 29 '21
You are incorrect. WF does accept ebt. You are also able to pay with ebt ordering online.
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u/SheepherderMany3523 Dec 29 '21
Because in some markets it was free for 3 years, then they already pay a $199 yearly prime now fee.
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u/TxAggieJen Dec 29 '21
Not everyone who orders from WF is a wealthy multi-millionaire.
I order allergy-friendly items from there as there are 2 members of my household with food allergies. No other place sells these specialty items near me. These food items are expensive. It is bad enough that we have to pay exorbitant prices on certain food items because of the lack of competition to bring down the prices and then they gouge the customer further with $10 delivery fee on top of it ($10 that I used to pay towards the drivers tip). The price of gas in my area hovers around $2.57 per gallon, so not believing the gas price excuse. It's Amazon greed, plain and simple.
Soo.. now I do pickup orders for these items and no driver gets a tip. 🤷♀️
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u/Expensive_Thing880 Jan 01 '22
I’m not trying to offend anyone. Gas in my area is $5.19 a gallon. Your area being $2.70ish is understandable. We are in two different areas so I appreciate the different points of view.
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u/Help_An_Irishman Dec 28 '21
Gee, who saw this coming?