Hmm... Recently, my sleep schedule has been completely reversed. I sleep during the day and stay up all night watching cybersecurity courses online. As a result, I have nothing to do around five or six in the morning, so I decided to go for a ride. But today, I suddenly had the idea of trying out being a delivery driver for Ele.me (also known as Fengniao delivery, since we don't have Meituan delivery in our small county). So, I spent an hour doing deliveries and wanted to share my experience of delivering food in a small county.
Hmm, one advantage of staying up all night is being able to see the sunrise.
My vehicle is a F30c with the new national standard. Originally, I planned to work for Shansong delivery because their pay rate is different from Fengniao's. Shansong's pay rate starts at least at six to eight yuan per delivery. However, after running deliveries for Fengniao in the morning, I found that the pay for three deliveries from Ele.me is similar to one delivery from Shansong. The order volume is high, but the pay is too low. So, I decided to work for both platforms.
To be honest, delivering food feels like a technical job, especially in a small county. I have even thought about doing this full-time if I can't make it in the future. The base salary in our city is around 2.4k, plus additional wages. But after running deliveries for an hour, I feel like I'm almost there.
Firstly, there's the issue of delivery. As a new driver for Fengniao, you can take up to three orders at the same time, with a delivery time of about half an hour per order. If you, like me, take three orders at once, it's impossible to meet the new national standard. However, I removed the speed limit and reached 55km/h. Even so, I was still rushing, very rushed. 😢 There are no people on the road in the morning, and I ran through all the red lights (don't learn from me). Otherwise, there wouldn't be enough time to pick up the food and deliver it. It's not that I'm not familiar with the roads, but having three orders together greatly affects the efficiency of your delivery.
The whole process is like this: I start taking orders at six o'clock, and in one hour, I deliver four orders. I missed two orders and accepted one Shansong order worth ten yuan, but I couldn't deliver it in time. I canceled it and only got half of the pay. I'm tired. It turns out that saying you want to deliver food is just a lie.
Then, there's the issue of customers. In one hour, I encountered all kinds of customers.
Including but not limited to: not providing detailed addresses (I had to spend ten minutes on the phone to figure out the location), writing vague addresses and refusing to come downstairs, and customers who were on the phone the whole time and could only receive the food through a photo.
It's not a big deal, I guess it's all part of experiencing life, right? 😁 It's okay, I can endure it.
Lastly, there's the issue of battery life. I have a 72v32a battery, and it was completely drained after one hour of delivering food. So, if you want to do food delivery, you must use a swappable battery scooter or switch to a scooter with a larger battery capacity. Otherwise, the battery won't last at all. Luckily, I didn't accept a fifth order, or else I wouldn't have been able to go back home.
In conclusion: I earned five yuan in one hour. Time to wash up and go to sleep.