One thing that could change is when you get a batch, we could decide which order to deliver first. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense the order of the deliveries/Also I’ve noticed the same drivers always get the shop and deliveries and never take the curbsides pickups. They just sit in the parking lot waiting for them. The store doesn’t want us sitting in there parking lot. I feel if you’re within a 2 mile radius of the store the orders should be passed out evenly amongst the drivers. Another thing is when you assign orders from stores that I’m so far away from. It would cost me money to take those offers. So it ruins my acceptance rating. Maybe send those orders out unassigned. Example: you send me an order from a store that’s 9 miles away and the offer is for $8.00 for 7.8 miles. So I reject it and it ruins my acceptance rating. One more thing it’s not fair for the customer to take away the tip. We work so hard especially in this heat of 100 plus degrees and we do everything right and they take it away. It’s called tip baiting. They add a large tip so the driver will accept it and then they take it away. That’s one of the biggest thing we drivers do not like. Thank you for listening
Firstly let talk about the tips, I think our driver right is violated by the customers and the app itself I mean Walmart. The contract is an agreed upon price prior to the completion of the orders. Some customer I strongly believe inflate the tips knowing that when they get their order their will remove it to nothing. I call this manipulation and unethical behavior. Next thing is the location. We suggest that the trip to the store be at least fairly covered. Gas is expensive. Some customers have 3 to 4 cars yet they are expecting driver to deliver them without receiving a fair tip. If the delivery is to be free, it should not be covered at the driver’s expenses. We take our job more seriously than a 9 to 5. I personally work up to 15 hours a day sometimes even more. The other thing is the distance and may be the amount of items. Free shipping does not mean workout session for delivery drivers. Some customers exaggerate in the amount of items they order and worse those customers leave in apartments. They do not usually like coming to help carry their own orders when you are doing the back and forth move to satisfy them. On top of that they will discreetly remove the tip your thought you might receive and after all that you get more frustrated. The last updates mess up the order dispatching. We literally do not receive orders at the same rate as when we started. Something need to be done.
App is pretty user friendly, and you can actually make some pretty decent money being a Spark Driver. However, one major downside that I’ve noticed pertains to the time frame drivers are given from the moment an offer is accepted and when they check into a pick up spot. Particularly when it comes to EXPRESS/ASAP Delivery orders and the time limit you have to start the trip once you’ve accepted the order before you get a notification saying that your trip is at risk of being delivered late, and if you don’t start soon it may be reassigned. I live about a mile from Walmart so it only takes 5 minutes to get there, and in that amount of time I’ll have already been sent 2 of those notifications…I mean, the time frame is so small that by the time I pull into a designated pick-up spot, the offer has been reassigned to another driver…or put back into the “Open Offers” queue. This small time frame is particularly unfair when you consider the fact that, even if you make it to Walmart before your offer is reassigned, the ASAP delivery isn’t even finished being shopped for so it’s usually a 30 minute wait for the order to be ready - and even after it’s been marked as “Ready” most delivery drivers get stuck waiting even longer (like 1-2 hours) before their order is brought out, or they bite the loss and just cancel the order…which means your Metrics take a negative hit but at least you might still have a shot at catching new offers and actually earning money.
They recommend you arrive at least 15 minutes before the scheduled pickup time but when you do you cannot confirm arrival until the scheduled time so you end up waiting until that time to check in and then you have to wait even longer until they bring you order out that needs to be fixed it’s extremely inconvenient. Usually the stores are busy and will take half an hour to bring your order out the app would adjust the delivery time to when the store brought out your order but lately it hasn't been doing that and making it appear that I’ve been late delivering which isn’t that case. Orders will show an estimated amount for example $27 but once you select it the amount will change to $16. Orders will get double booked I waited an entire hour for an order at the store and finally the employee came out and said the order was already picked up and I was paid $2.50. I had shopped for an entire order which took about an hour and it kept giving me an error when I tried to get an exit pass they were unable to fix it and removed the order. The whole ordeal with the $15 per delivery incentive was handled terribly in my opinion and should’ve been addressed as soon as the notification for that incentive went out instead of when it was paid out and then taken away. Also a suggestion if someone rejects an order it should stay rejected especially if it’s not in their vicinity.
When working for Spark Driver it can be a waiting game, sometimes you will get horrible Offers and sometimes really good offers that pay well. Most of the time you will be driving far so you will be at the gas station twice a week which will take away from your earnings. Your car will also take a beating driving all around which I wish I could get a delivery vehicle. Here is the thing I wish they would stop and that is giving customers 24 hours to change there tips which there will be customers who will tip bait a delivery driver ever so often. This is how they do it. Say for example you had a offer that said 57 dollars 15 stops, you so without tips your looking at 37 dollars and with the tips your looking at 57 as it says for tips 20. When your done completing those 15 trips your hoping you get what you saw in the first place right which is 57 dollars, well guess what the customer who is a tip baiter will take that 20 back as he has the 24 hour customization to do that without the slightest reason why he took it back, so then you only make 37 which I find very criminal. We are here to provide for our families and sadly we have to hope the customer that promises that tip that you see before you click on a job will pay you that tip..
Working below the poverty level. Eight hours to make less than a hundred dollars but then there is the cost of gas, vehicle maintenance, tires, and they wear out fast with driving over 100 miles a day. 20,000 miles in about eight months. Sometimes when the app crashes then a driver will be lucky to get $20 on four hours. Then sometimes don’t send any offers for over two hours. A driver will be lucky to make $10 an hour but they don’t pay on driving to pickup an order or driving back after an order was delivered. But if you need to make some money for food, it’s barely enough to pay for groceries or rent. I’m very disappointed but not surprised that Walmart would pay people about half the minimum wage. Just look at the stores and how minimal they are staffed with employees. A multi billion dollar company takes advantage of the drivers. It’s similar to the history of the experience of Walt Disney of being taken advantage of and manipulated into poverty. Walmart should at least pay livable rates for drivers. Or are they playing favorites for some of the drivers? But then how much a driver gets paid depends on the zone they drive in. Some zones make drivers drive for well above 100 miles for significantly less money and less than $80, but could reach 200 in a day to earn a little closer to $100. So, what a driver makes is lost in gas and wear on one’s vehicle, but it’s worse for those driving SUV or trucks.
Doesn't this App know how to read drivers locations? This App needs to be fixed so it can detect drivers location areas and stop sending pick up orders several miles away from the stores in short amount of times for pick up and delivery! It is not allowing map navigation updates, can't read proper addresses, and tells you are not in the right delivery location address, while you know you are in the correct address. Some customers need to put extra details of their addresses, for examples: apartment buildings number located in between, floors because most of them are extremely difficult to find. Additionally, when orders state ready in the app, that order is being picked up( still picking up), when you waited for long periods of time and call them, they tell you either ready or they don't have in the system. Even if they tell you it is ready, they will take 30 minutes to one hour to bring it outside to you especially if you are a black person driver. Spanish and white drivers are the first to be serve and get their orders for delivery even though they are far away from the stores or not even reach the park lot number. Orange City FL, Walmart, Deltona Howland BLVD Walmart, and one Walmart in Rinehart Sanford FL starting to act just like that also. Really, what's a joke this spark driver App! This app doesn't read drivers' locations, I believe they do it on purpose to not send trips to me or to only send one $ 7 two stops strips to travel 40 miles away!
For the last month or so, I’ve been dealing with a big issue with my metrics. Being a full time driver, I fully depend on this work. I’ve been calling support 2/3 times a week only to get the same answer.( They will create a ticket and have my report escalated to a higher team) We all know the higher your metrics, the better round-about offers you get. Since dealing with this issues I admit I haven’t been taking those low pay but large orders that even come in batch orders. For example: start of the day my metrics is at 60%, I decline 3 round-about that day but I take 10 orders that day also. The next day I’m at 50%. How!! That was happening for weeks. I’ve gotten so many excuses of why that was happening. Knowing it wasn’t my fault. Last week I finally spoke with an agent who told me that it was a problem with the system and they were working on it. On Sept 19 I woke up with my metrics at 100%. Fully excited ready to go make money. Get out there offers wasn’t great, declined 3 offers that day, and the next day I’m at 72% . The math is not right. Same issue yesterday and wake up the morning and I’m at 33%. Spark!!
Pros: -one of the best courier apps as far as customer base (in my town) - easy to use - one of the better paying courier apps - wide range -large orders (more than 3 customers), single batches, and in store shopping. -in store shopping shows you the aisle and section, usually accurate. Cons: - I think the Walmart employees hate us. - The terms and conditions aren’t clear. - employees deliberately look into your vehicle looking for something to be wrong. -loooong wait times. (Supposedly you get paid for waiting over 30 minutes, I have yet to see that.) - sometimes the items are very heavy. The worst cons: - in store shopping will have you in Aisle A, send you to aisle F, back to A, over to G, back to A. If you skip ahead and the item is not in stock can’t see the replacement options. (Please put this in alphabetical order.) -with two stores in town, I will be all over the place as the east Walmart orders go to the west side of town and vise versa. What I wish would happen: -we should be able rate employees and vise versa. (I had one lady YELL across the parking lot asking for help for a question. Leaving me embarrassed and other Spark drivers looking at me weird.) some of these employees are extremely rude. - please have a distance around the store we are at. I drive so many extra miles going back and forth across town. - the aisles for in store shopping to be in alphabetical order. I waste a ton of time walking back and forth in the store.
Hello anyone interested in driving with spark. I just want to say I’m a driver coming from other platforms who enjoys independent work. When I first joined this platform I would receive decent orders for a reasonable payout. Recently the order availability is terrible. Payouts being $7-less then ten dollars driving up to 7 miles which might not seems too bad for some until you calculate the miles and time you drive getting back to the store because that’s the only way you’ll receive another order (which can take 15-30 even 45 minutes to get, even in a “busy red zone) Example $7-possibly $10 for 7 miles and 7 minutes back is 14 😕 only receiving that small payout. Then they throw a good paying order to compensate for that time and miles. Which your actually gipped because prop 22 would have given you the additional instead you work for it. I don’t know I just feel like at the end of a long exhausting day 5-8 hours I’m only coming home with $50-$70 and almost half goes back into gas ☹️ oh and tips aren’t very going either (but inflation is a you know what) hope this helps someone. P.S they have also hired way to many drivers, like mentioned sometimes your waiting over 30 minutes for an order you probably don’t want to take but do because your desperate
The app itself is fairly frustrating. There always seems to be technical issues that makes it near impossible to consistently accept orders. I will say during my time as a driver they did attempt to make improvements on the app, but I won’t be driving for them any longer due to too many missed payments and the tipping system. You get paid weekly and have several outlets to receive payment. However, the pay is not worth it. I took this job as a side job, working 15-20 hours a week and barely made minimum wage. Those in a different location/work different hours might have a different experience. But on more than one occasion I had to file a report for payment discrepancies due to accepting orders at a different rate than what I was paid. Then the tipping system was fine for the first month or so but I went from a near 100% tip rate to almost 0% even when my orders were on time, good metrics with no issues. I find it hard to believe that after delivering to dozens of homes not a single one offered a tip. The most recent app update allows drivers to see pre tips/estimates and no matter what the number always goes down to zero so can’t rely on that at all. The app is said to have an automated system to allot orders based on a round robin system but it seemed the more orders I completed the longer it took to get another offer, so be prepared to wait for hours for only a handful of deliveries.
Been driving for a month now and I can say it has been a good experience over all. The three negative things I can say is 1- the time to pick up an order should be changed. I sometimes have 20-30 minutes before I can pick up an order and will have to wait in my car the entire time. So I just started to door dash during those 20-30 minutes to at least get some money. 2- The customers have 24 hours to change the tip. It should be firm once they place the order. They can easily change the tip to less money. And 3-one of the Walmarts I went to was extremely backed up. They had over 100 orders backed up. I went at 8pm and one of the workers came by and said it would be an hour before getting the order. Since I was hungry, I went to eat and came back. The same guy then tells me it’s not ready yet so I wound up waiting another hour. So it was 2 hours waiting. It got delivered by 10pm and the person that made the order had ordered it at 1pm. She was very understanding and even changed my tip and gave me more money. I will not be returning to that Walmart. Luckily the app lets me change the zone and I can go to another city to work. Other than those two things it’s been a good experience so far.
June 24 I was supposed to get my CA adjustment after waiting a whole day nothing was deposited. Spoke to a agent they told me 24-48 hrs to wait so I waited Wednesday would’ve 48 hrs since Monday still nothing gave it a lil more time. Thursday got in touch with another agent told me it’s a problem with earnings gave me a reference number told me to wait another 24-48 for earnings team to get in touch with me so I waited. Nothing deposited no one contacted me. Saturday talked to another agent said it was a problem with the app gave me another reference number said technical support will get in touch in ANOTHER 24-48 HRS so I waited AGAIN nothing not surprising at that point. Talked to another one today now all of a sudden it’s that the ONE banking only does adjustment deposits on Tuesdays which if that was true why didn’t it go through last Tuesday? Or why didn’t any other agent say that when they knew all the info this one did? And surprise surprise she gave me another reference number and said to wait 24 hrs is it going to be like this every time an adjustment has to be deposited waiting more than a week for it to go through that’s if it even goes through tomorrow which I’ve lost all hope by now. Moral of the story these agents don’t know what they’re talking about and don’t help at all they just tell you to wait and give you reference numbers which probably arent even getting passed on to anyone
I completed my 1st order today and can I just say it was traumatizing! The entire experience! I am a seasoned Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Door Dash, Food Dash Driver with a 4.9 -5.0 rating O.K. I don’t let people eat in my vehicle is the only reason it’s not a perfect 5.0. (I quit those because people have gotten to crazy for ride share.. door dash customer are the most unappreciative and my cousin said this was much better)This app needs major work. 1st they throw you to the wolves with minimal instructions. Second the customer said she couldn’t contact me and I couldn’t reach her either. She lived in a new developing neighborhood that couldn’t be found on Google and her Notes about that couldn’t be seen until after I confirmed delivery. Now make that make sense. I should have seen those notes before hand. She was in her car driving around looking for me looking for her O.K. Then WalMart’s system was messed up which delayed the orders being filled in a timely manner. After they scan my order it kept showing it needed to scanned again on their end which took forever. So I only did 2 orders which took 2 and 1/2 hours due to app and store issues and called it a day. Yes I tried support but it was going with a pre recording about submitted documents and waiting blah blah blah and I had perishable items that needed delivery immediately! Didn’t have 25 mins to waste to get a real person on the line.
The app is okay, but I’ve noticed that sometimes it will keep spamming the same low offer batch orders, like deliver 10 orders at 25 miles for $30. I could do one shopping order that pays that much and have way less mileage. There should be a way to keep those offers from coming back 10+ times. And I don’t mean they keep offering more money every time it comes around because eventually it’ll restart at the initial amount they offered, and it doesn’t usually go up by a huge amount, anyway. Also, sometimes I have to wait a long time for pickup orders, but the ETA for pickup doesn’t change. And I can’t stack or plan orders even when I have plenty of time to pick up another order for later in the day. I’d also rather be able to convert a pickup order to a shopping order and do it myself if I have to wait over an hour past the expected pickup time. Also, customer service is alright *when* I can actually reach them. Sometimes it just says there was an error over and over. I wish they had phone customer support because pulling over and messaging support isn’t ideal for a driver. Otherwise, they pay well, and I do plan to keep driving for them, despite the annoyances, because of that.
I can not able to accept or reject order because button is not working. I talked with customer service several time but EVERY SINGLE PERSON GAVE ME SAME ANSWER. Here is their answer; 1. Restart the iPhone 2. Update iOS 3. Force close the problematic app 4. Clear app cache Please check your Spark Driver App settings for in-app alerts by following these steps: 1. Go to the menu. 2. Select Settings. 3. Select Troubleshooting 4. Confirm that Spark settings, Token registration, and Test notification are all checked off. 5. If any section is unchecked, you should follow the instructions on the app. 6. Select Run Tests on the bottom of the screen. 7. You will get a test notification to your mobile device They don’t know how to solve issue even worst thing everybody gave exactly the same answer like a robot! Still I am trying to fix the issue but they don’t know how to so it! I did 100 times what they told me but it is not working , I think you have to work again and again because those are not enough and they have to learn how they can solve the problems.
I’ve been driving since end of January. Started off great. Made great money as a side job. Then when they sent out an alert saying “they are concerned about gas prices”, it’s completely cratered. You call driver support or their “tier 1”, to say they are incompetent is an understatement. Every single person tells you the same thing and it’s all wrong. So I have started dealing with their “tier 2”. This morning I called and asked for tier 2, was told that I was given wrong info and couldn’t ask for tier 2. Well, I’m tired of dealing with their incompetence so I got belligerent. I was then transferred to another tier 1 operator who then transferred me to tier 2. I have been trying to get a store blocked due to the store’s incompetence since Aug 5. Still trying to get it blocked. Well I’m the mean time it’s taken my acceptance metrics down to 74%. Being at 74, you don’t get their “premier” offers unless your over 90%. All my offers I’ve turned down are from the store I’ve asked to block. Said store is 35 mins away. Drive there and wait 30 mins, so in total I’ve got 65 mins in, only to drop the order for long wait with no penalty but wasted 65 mins and the gas for $2.50. All in all I lose a dollar on this run. Maybe if they could get their driver “support” together and their escalation process resolved, it would be good. Until then, it’s just one hassle after another
I had to submit my ID on the app to verify my identity. Ever since I did that, the app won’t let me do orders because “it hasn’t been processed yet”. I’m assuming this is a glitch. I’ve called like 10 times, emailed like 10 times to see if they are working on this issue for me, and I get no response, other than “we will send your info to tech support” that’s it. I was once left on hold for an hour, then it hung up on me. I’m sure because I have been pestering them. I (like an idiot) quit my job so I can focus on this full time.. now I can’t even use my app to make deliveries. This is going onto the 4th day of no work, and I haves feeling they won’t follow through on trying to help me. I feel like I’m being ignored, not taken serious.. and this is my livelihood they are messing with. I feel stupid and like they don’t value the time I’ve put in, or about me receiving any earnings. No integrity in this company that I’ve seen so far. I used to work in store for Walmart as well, and there management is so unprofessional. They are rude and behave like staff Sargent’s, when I only get paid $17 an hour BUSTING MY BEHIND for no appreciation. So I quit and decided to give spark a try. This has been a nightmare. I’m stressed and I’m so sad. The tech team doesn’t seem to take their job very serious considering all these bad reviews. I’m BEYOND disappointed, quite disgusted actually.
Pay is tad better than other independent contractor apps. I am disappointed when you need to call customer service to get help with a delivery the people on the other end of the phone are just as clueless as you are in the situation that you are in. Another thing I would HIGHLY recommend is figuring out how the spark app can work online & offline for those of us who work in areas where cellphone service isn’t all that great. I know I work up in and around mountainous areas and signal is lacking in some of those areas and a lot of times I can’t complete deliveries because of this so I have to call spark and that takes forever because they have no idea how to fix the situation. I also would recommend some sort of order organization. My area(according to the app has 13 locations) I can get orders in one area and have to drive an hour to another area to drop off when there is a location 5 mins up the road from drop off. Make It make sense. Also if customers don’t tip y’all need to compensate for that even if it’s just $2-$5 extra per(single)orderor even $1-$2per order in a multi batch. Also however yall figure out the times for orders y’all don’t factor in traffic of any caliber, accidents, stops for gas etc. which isn’t fair to us drivers.
This long over due to say but when these companies first started they was only charging $1 to use the platforms. Sparks don’t show how much they charging you. The customer get 1 and 2 waters and don’t tip. Plus they live in an apartment and the company don’t take care of the drivers. This company 2 years ago paid good before Walmart took over. I use to make $175 at the less but almost $300 a day. Now the orders got cheaper, no tip, and multiple orders, high miles. You buying gas way more. It’s a insalting to us as drivers, using our car and we see $9 for 11 miles and the customers has 12 items plus waters. Now they want us to shop and deliver for multiple people with the same money. Technically they don’t pay you to shop. We spend 20to 40 mins shopping and then bag it up and put it in the car. Drive there, take it out and put it on their porch or go to an apartment on the the 3rd floor for $12 . Now everything need to be $20 and up. Everything has went up but Walmart giving free deliveries wayyyy to much and that’s why the drivers not making out. You have to really be out working from early morning to night to make money. It take 5 hours to make $100, while u tearing up your car on these roads. I DONT RECOMMEND SPARKS find another hustle.
Roll out zone selection for all. I only have one Walmart in my zone, when there are over 20 Walmart’s in my city. I could call and switch zones all day but no one wants to do that, so I sit and wait, while other markets have ability on certain androids to do this… doesn’t make sense why everyone cant choose their zone on app to actually work, instead of sitting at a Walmart that has no orders! Also if you have two orders you should be able to go in which ever order the traffic and situation permits, for example, option to switch deliveries or “skip” and have it come back, all other batch platforms have this capability so I know it’s possible. (For example, last batch of day, you do one closest to store first, then the one on way home, then you go home) who wants to drive home, then back to a home near store, then back home, at end of night. I believe the tech team is listening and hopefully soon this app could be a 5 star app! Most 1 star reviews prob are more dispute related than app based, although, lately, there have been some issues, although they could be on Walmart’s end. End of day we’re all hoping for an amazing app!
I have been in constant communication via email with whoever runs the app. I turn the app on and I can literally be sitting in the parking lot of Walmart and it says I have an offer and I have three minutes to clean the offer but within two seconds the offer is gone. I think it is completely horse crap that you get an AR rating based on a first come first serve offer that 99% of the time doesn’t even come across my screen. I have a brand new phone so that can’t be the problem. I accept most of the offers that are sent to me. But the problem is you can never claim any of the offers because they disappear the second they’re sent. I don’t know if somebody’s using a bot but it’s ridiculous and I’m almost to the point I’m about to go to a different delivery platform. I think this first come first serve is ridiculous because if somebody does have a bought then they’re grabbing all of them and not allowing anyone else to do them. They need to do like most of the other platforms have done and actually send the order to a driver and give them the specific amount of time to claim it which they say they do but that’s not happening. Because it disappears within two seconds of it coming up there. I’ve addressed this multiple times with tech-support and have gotten nowhere. Just frustrated and fed up.
The orders are starting to look like instacart with multiple piled on for the same pay as just normally 2, the app continues to freeze constantly! And there is a shortage of associates at walmart in AZ because it never fails to arrive on time for your order and multiple other people are there waiting and it can take over 30min, this impacts our stats and makes deliveries late! Your rating us on delivering things at a certain time and there not even ready when we get there to pick them up and there still being shopped. Your costing us money especially if we have to cancel because your reps tell us to cancel even if a order was already picked up and shouldnt impact us if your app isnt recognizing thing’s correctly. This started out good but its going to be not worth it if there aren’t improvements because alot of time is wasted and stats impacted by walmart associates getting orders out when we get there and check in. A 2.50 compensation isnt even helpful if we wasted 30 min waiting and drove 15min to a store for nothing. Definitely not referring anyone and will be going back to instacarts platform like many others are doing because this is setting people up for failure if not corrected. And im tired of wasting the gas for nothing.
I love this app and the incentives, but I had been off this app for a while after my husband got covid and fell broke his leg and one thing led to another and he’s Ben down for 1 year now as of Oct 6th but I really need to make up some money now, so I had been taken off the app because I hadn’t been on for so long , so I called and they re-instated me. The problem is that ever since this happened I do not have the option to put in my available times . I only have the spark now option and you know of your not scheduled or have put in as available time that you are getting any leftovers ., but the option is just gone from my app. I called again and spoke with someone today who told me to erase the app from my phone and put it back on later and see if it would fix the problem but it hasn’t . It. Just keeps putting me back with the same app. It just seems to to the cloud and when I reload it , it just comes from the cloud in the same way so I’m at a loss as to what to do so I can set my availability up and don’t seem to be getting anywhere. So I’m a little frustrated. Other than this the app has worked fine for me.
Ive done Doordash and Uber eats and earned a lot from both of them so im not new to the delivery game. Ive racked up hundreds of miles with Spark driver, and it beats both of them in my opinion with how much you can earn per hour. 2 things i hate about this app is #1 the costumer service; the app would get this error where an order that has been picked up and will still be in the system. That error would cost you time just waiting there and when you contact Costumer support, theyll claim that you will receive reimbursement for your inconvenience but you will NEVER get it. Good luck disputing any type of errors on their part; Spark map giving you wrong address, App telling you to bring back an order that was not picked up by a costumer to a nearest Walmart, etc. You will NOT get reimbursed. #2 the tip system; this system is whats stopping this App from being the greatest delivery app of all time. if i see that i have to drive 13 miles for a delivery, and im earning $18 dollars from it but im only receiving $6 today and ill get the "tips" 24-48 hours from that day then ill lose interest in doing that. Why not just let us earn the entire total if were spending gas for that delivery?
As in all things Walmart you get what you pay for. Walmart, Spark and the people of Walmart of course I have no advice for you. As for anyone considering using Spark for gig work I WARN YOU DO NOT DO IT. Do anything else. Take a beating with a baseball bat for 23 hours a day and you will come out better. The App in general is a constant mess and has many problems. The work generated from the App is a dead end no matter how good you make think it is at first, it will end badly and at some point you will be deactivated, you will have no opportunity to appeal regardless of how great you may have performed the work. You will feel sick when that moment comes and you look back at what all you sacrificed to be just dropped as if you are dirt under the “great” people of Walmart. I wish I could make a difference and expose this Spark App and Walmart for the disgrace that it is, but I know I can’t. I can only take the time to tell you from just a good ole boy to anyone who will listen do anything else or do nothing at all but run away from Spark and run as fast as you can.
Spark is disappointing they deactivated my account without reason unexpectedly and I’ve been driving for them for a year and three months I’ve did over a thousand and some deliveries and one day after doing deliveries all day when home an same day account said deactivated called no one could give me reason waited seven days for a email never got one called back and they told me the deactivated was upheld still without a reason which was confusing because I did nothing wrong at all I’m almost sure someone at the Walmart lied on me because customers service said it was for behavior but only ppl could say that is store personnel which they lied cause I did do anything but delivery a bunch of stuff and it’s just crazy how spark just deactivated my account and can’t give me a reason why not only that I had just referred to people to drive for spark and then where supposed to be 300 dollars incentive from both referrals spark cheated me with the deactivation if I knew they would do this I would have never referred anyone to drive for spark so they are unfair and leave you completely clueless less they could do if give you a reason why they deactivated your account after you made them all them deliveries and ran up all them miles on your car an EXPLANATION IS THE LESS THEY COULD DO! I HATE SPARK!!👎🏼👎🏼
I enjoy driving for spark but the app has little desirability. When I first started, there was a bar graph when looking at your zone that gave you potentially busy times. Since an update a bit ago, that is now gone. I used that graph to plan my week, as I have a family and needed to be available for them at certain times. So they switched to the orange circles that would change in color from dark orange to a peach color, dk orange being busy and peach slow. Lately looking at my zone, the orange circles don’t change, they are always the same shade of orange. To sit all day with the app open, damages your metrics. I have 5 stores in my zone and I’m giving roughly 15 minutes after accepting an offer to arrive at the store for pickup. From where I live, I have one Walmart within 5-7 minutes of me, and it’s anywhere from 25-35 minutes give or take to make it to another store in my zone. So on time arrivals are a moot point if I accept an offer at another store. Which in turn, damages your metrics if you don’t accept. On the subject of ASAP orders, once accepted, you get maybe 4 minutes to arrive at the store for pickup. It’s frustrating to sit and not receive orders all day.
I love spark and am able to make so much more than any other independent contractor gigs. But with that being said, I’ve had an issue for over a month now with this app. This only happens at one store and it happens to be the store that I make the most money at compared to my surrounding stores in my zone. Every time I pick up a shop and deliver order for this specific store, and once I arrive at this store, I go to confirm arrival, but then I get an error message. “Something went wrong! An error occurred on our end. Please try again” go and try again, and get the same error. I have uninstalled and reinstalled this app more than an app should even be uninstalled and reinstalled in one day, I used WiFi only, I used data only, I even restarted my phone more than I even should in one day. I’ve done everything. And support is NO help at all in figuring out why. They keep telling me it’s my app it’s my phone. No, it’s absolutely not on me or my end it’s you guys! And emailing them is a joke. You get a different person who responds every time and they make no sense at all when they respond. Somehow they are not understanding the error that I repeatedly explained in full detail to them. It’s infuriating and annoying and I don’t understand why this is so hard to get figured out and fixed.
The app is super easy to use and I like that they have pretty good gps coverage unlike other gig apps that got ya driving miles down the delivery locations and have to hassle with the time and such to get a job finished However I do wish you guys would work on the times you have things expected by as I’ve noticed in the big cities I can’t even come close to making a time you guys need to add quite a bit more time and account for the fact that there are too many people waiting for other pick ups and sometimes it takes too long to pick stuff up and there’s no credit from hey I picked this up and Walmart was late giving me the stuff and there’s no extra time allotted for that and the time it takes because there’s fires are the time that it takes for others and then it dings ya and the fact that if you have a batch order it will hit you on each one of those whereas those are considered one order with you guysFor incentives and other account purposes which makes it a little bit unfair But other than the time crunch and the time expected being a little unrealistic the sparks app itself is absolutely amazing
For your first few weeks you will receive a very high volume of orders, after they realize you start making more than they’re willing to pay per week they begin to limit the amount of orders you receive as well as “top dollar” orders. They tell you to maintain a 70% acceptance rate or more to receive the best offers but this has not proven to be true. They send out incentives for 12 or more orders but then tell you there just so happens to be low order volume during the duration of the incentive in that zone. I have reached out to customer service and they have no answers. I was making decent money in the beginning but my income has been cut into 1/4 of what I was making when I first started. The delivery range covers millions of people in my city I find it very hard to believe that from one week to the next people just stop needing groceries delivered. Inconsistency in the order volume when the app indicates high volume based on historical data does not make sense. If order volume was low on my device why is it indicating that it was high last week when it clearly shows otherwise. NERD POWER I guess anything to collect funding for their employees leaving us to pick up scraps to keep business going. Your rating is horrible for a reason the developers need to be investigated
I haven’t been doing this for a long time but I have noticed some things that need to be fixed. It gives me 15 mins to get to a Walmart before the actual pickup time. That’s great and all if I don’t spend 90% of my time sitting in the Walmart parking lot waiting for an order when it says my area is busy. Say I accept that order and go to a designated pick up spot. Even if the order is ready it will not let me check in until that “suggestion pick up time”. You would think if the order was at least ready it would let us check in and get the order quicker to the customer. If Walmart employees are behind with getting orders out Walmart should start sending out “shopping” orders for people to help the associates get caught up while still making money. I’ve sat at a Walmart for over an hour waiting for 2 orders to be brought out to me. Walmart should not notify drivers if the order is not close to being finished or done already. It is hurting our accounts waiting on orders to be picked when we get the notification 15 mins prior to pick it up when it hasn’t been picked yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the app cause I am making some money but somethings need to be adjusted for better customer service.
There metric system is the baddest system I’ve ever seen, I’ve been working for so long with them and Im seeing my customer rating are going down and down, so I’ve decided to not pick big order, I’ll pick small one so it’s not hard for me to do good on delivery, but still my customer rating are going down, and then I found out that when there is something missing from the order I’ve picked from curbside, customer still give us bad rating, and that’s not our fault, it’s on Walmart that they don’t put that item in the order or they don’t have in the stock, there is nothing to do with us, because we only doing delivery for Walmart, picking up the item inside and get ready for delivery it’s not on us, that’s Walmart employee do, we only delivery, and still we get bad rating for not our fault. They really need to fix that, and another thing is that customer are allowed to change their tips in 24 hours, and it’s happened many time with me, that I’ve got good tips when I picked the order and then after 24 hours I’ve seen there is no tips added to my account and when I contact Walmart customer and they told me that customer can change their tips in 24 hours, so they might have change the tip amount or they decided to not give any tips, so it’s not worth for us.
There is a disconnect between Walmart and spark. I have had several arrivals on express orders that are not showing Walmart of my arrival. When you call in they don’t see you but spark says you are there and waiting. Walmart refuses to release the order because they apparently lose the additional 10$ they charge the customer. The worse part is you then have to reach out to spark and go through a whole process and explain in great detail the issue. Meanwhile you have lost time and money and in the end your order has to be cancelled. I have had this happen numerous times and I know 4 other spark drivers that have all experienced this as well. It is very costly to the driver. I sat beside another spark driver just yesterday this was happening to. Spark needs to release the orders to the driver when this happens instead of just canceling the order and sending it back out into the round robin pool. If I have sat and waited I should be allowed to make the delivery and I’m sorry but a 2 or 3$ arrival fee doesn’t cut it after you sat there 30 minutes dealing with the headache and still lose the order. You are stuck in limbo when this happens. Needs to be addressed!!!
Current update is showing fewer and fewer orders, the new 3 part orders don’t cover the cost of delivering them. App needs to provide a map of the store like scan and go does to help us find item locations. New update has us limited to one device signed in at a time, I use a tablet to do the orders because it’s larger and easier to see items on the shop orders, and is easier for customers to sign on, it has data but it doesn’t have a cell phone, so shops now go like this, sign in, identity verify on tablet, start shop, customer messages, sign out of tablet, sign in on phone, identity verify on phone, answer customer, sign out, sign in and identity verify on tablet and resume shop, customer messages again, repeat above. Needs to have a way to link a data capable tablet and our phone and use them at the same time. Apps not too bad to navigate. Doesn’t support split screen like other apps do. Rejected orders continue to be sent back pulling your score down each time you reject them. Review time too short to check before taking the order. You only see the base order not the edited order. No explanation as to why customer rating falls, can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.
I have only been using the app for a short time. I have read some of the other reviews as well. The app could certainly use some updating . One I see that the app is routing you in straight line miles. Then when you hit navigate it takes you out of the app to a third party mapping program of your choice. In reality they pay you based on the straight line miles instead of actual miles. Which cuts your pay. Second thing I see that needs improvement is the time in which you have to make a decision in the trip. Everyone is so gung ho and trigger happy they just accept whatever. They need to at least give you a minute to decide on accepting or not! Third, DDI needs to change the tip structure to once the customer makes the order the tips need to be included and non refundable at this point! As I have had customers remove tips after delivery. And done nothing wrong when delivering there order! Finally they need to shop the orders themselves. These orders are never right! Therefore they should use there employees to do that side of the business. We hired on to drive not shop!
Its been going on for a month or more that I am not getting deliveries at all. Maybe one or 2 in the period of 2 weeks I haven't went weeks on a row without getting any orders. And everyone else I know in my area that work in this (family) is getting orders everyday and throughout the whole day. By the way I was one of the first drivers in my area when it started and I was very happy with the job everything was running smooth. Until more drivers started getting hired you guys started prioritizing new drivers instead of the ones that began this with you guys. I feel as if Im being thrown to the side since I get no orders and if i do it would be "first come first serve" I never get orders assigned to me with the 2 minutes timer anymore. I try calling you guys and no one has an answer and even sometimes ignore me by saying that you guys can't hear me over the phone and hang up on me. Overall the job is fine but you guys are managing the amount of drivers and orders very bad. If we only go 2 days without working you guys stop sending us orders or make us (inactive) and thats not how its done because you guys don't know what can happen to a person, like a back injury or anything there are people like me who do this full time. Very disappointed ATT: Jordan Gonzalez
The app is pretty good and you could make some good money using it. BUT the downside is at times you have to wait a long time to get your orders. I've sit for an hour and half one time and there has been a couple of times I had to cancel from waiting so long and that's not good for your ratings. There was one time I accepted a shopping order for $50. I was in the store for at least 45 minutes hauling this heavy buggy around with all the stuff. I pay for everything, as soon as I got to the door the customer canceled. There was another time I accepted an order left home, drove all the way to the Walmart, set there for 40 minutes, when a story associate called telling me that the order was no longer available. With each of these incidents I called and reported the situation and was told that I was going to be compensated. Which Spark should be a shame of compensating someone $2.50. Yes I said it guys two dollars and 50 Cent for your time and gas being wasted. I think that is completely not cool. The app also needs a lot of work. There is a lot of glitches. Other than that guys I will say when the times are good, I do make decent money.
Love doing the delivery’s and being able to pick and choose which one is best for me so I’m not away from home all day but… when you pick up multiple orders in one batch and going from one store to homes around that store location is great but when they send you to another city in the same batch it’s no point in that when there is a Walmart in that city and that’s where their product as well as driver should come from. For example there are two Walmarts in Lexington nc and one in Thomasville NC address in Thomasville needs to come from thomasville store not lexingtons store that’s on hwy 64. The way gas prices are from everything going on in our world today it’s crazy to be putting those orders in the same batch. Just like yesterday I was doing runs from thomasville cause they had more than near my home but going thomasville to high point was beyond crazy high point has two Walmarts those orders should have came from high point Walmart. It’s becoming summer time and transferring cold items from store to vehicle and then vehicles being opened and closed for multiple stops in one batch is not good for the product. I feel that’s unsafe and can make someone sick. Please do better with the combining orders.
Until someone tried to fix something that was not broken now my app freezes crashes and I don’t get offers most of the time until they’re expired or someone else already got them. I have to change my zone to the same zone just about every day and contact support 3 to 4 times a day and I’m on from the morning till night only getting 2 to 5 offers per day if that sometimes, because my metrics to go down in my metrics were almost perfect prior to the the update before last and now it’s very hard for me to make money and I did leave my other job for this because I saw what kind of money could be made prior to all the applications errors I was told that they would escalate my case and it should not affect my metrics (however it did and still currently is)even though I always accept EVERY OFFER THAT COMES IN RIGHT AWAY! Also so that I could get back to delivering the way that I use to and nothing has been fixed yet! However I was just told last last night that Walmart can NO LONGER REQUEST DRIVERS which means at one point they could so hmmm this has me wondering… which came straight from the delivery side at Walmart an employee who answered their phone!
I have been driving for Spark for a while now. The app will present you with a job, and miles. The miles you end up driving will be substantially longer. When you call back to ask, they will tell you that you agreed for those miles and will not compensate you for them. You are spending your gas, money, taxes, and wear and tear for a few bucks when it all boils down. However, if they offer a job for $50, and you have a cancellation, not because of anything you did, get through to the end of the job, and now have to take the item back, you’re screwed again. Though they will point out that you took the offer when it is about being shorted mileage, they won’t keep their agreement with the up front money they offered. Not to mention all the drivers running more than one app at a time. You call to complain, they say sorry l, but because so many of us idiots are willing to be taken advantage of, they don’t care, Walmart is raking in the $$$ at your expense if you do this.
I’ve only been doing Spark for a few months. I do all the other major delivery services, (Instacart, Shipt, Doordash, etc). So far customer service has been great for me. Wait time is always under a minute and they are quick with fixing issues. I do wish they were a bit more like Instacart in some ways. For instance, I wish they’d eliminate zones altogether and just give you orders based on where you are automatically. Instacart obviously knows by location services where you are and once you put yourself as available, it just stands orders to you without changing zones. I would also like to see Spark/Walmart put all pick-ups in the same area. It would make more sense if we only had to go to one place for pickups regardless of grocery or gen merch. Often, when I go inside to pick up no one is there and I have to wait a very long time. Usually they are over at grocery pick up and have to be called inside. Just put all pickups at grocery. Lastly, fast pay would be great too. There are a few smaller issues but hopefully with time they will get those things worked out.
Driving for spark is alright, but DDI needs to do something about the bots that seem to be running the system. Many offers flash across my screen, I'm looking straight at them, click and there's nothing there. That effects my metrics, appearing I never accept surge offers or FC/FS. Next, there does not appear to be anything in the app that is paying attention to your vehicle size, offering jobs to me when I have a small four-door sedan, to deliver a screen door to a customer. The location services should be fine tuned, for example, in our zone, we have four stores that are miles away from each other. There is no way to do an ASAP when you are 20 or 25 minutes away from that store, not to mention the horrible traffic we have here. In another example, I had to cancel an overly large Home Depot item today and I have been re-offered the same job three times. I went to the website to look at the item to see if I thought it would fit in my car but when I got to the store it was way too big. I hope this helps someone, somewhere.
I first started driving for Spark in October 22. When I first started I never had an issue with the app until right before Christmas when they “updated” it, and then all of a sudden I wasn’t getting any order notifications or offers, and I was having to restart my phone all of the time because it was glitching out and freezing up. (I use an iPhone 13)They messed around with the app a little more, and I was getting offers again but they were very sporadic and few and far between, and I was still having to constantly restart my phone. It didn’t matter if I sat in front of my local Walmart or not. They did another update and while I’m getting more order notifications now I’m having to restart my phone sometimes 2-3x per order… And don’t even get me started on my metrics! It seems like every time I go to hit accept the order is no longer available but my metrics are getting docked for me not accepting the orders.. How can I accept an order that is no longer available?!!! I’ve gone from a 92-94% accept rate down to 66%. I’m so freaking frustrated and fed up with this whole thing. It’s making it so it’s not even worth doing.
Great side hustle but the app does have some issues that needs to be fix. One will be when you accept an express order you have literally 5 minutes to confirm arrival at the store. That’s unrealistic especially if you are not near proximity of the store. I also notice it does not update the time when a driver is not available to pick up an order. Example, you accept the order at 2:40pm and confirm arrival at 2:45pm, it will say the order should be delivered by 2:15. Like what? So far my metrics have not been affected by it but still. Walmart may need to converse more with their stores on timing because sometimes the order will not be ready for curbside pickup at all or it may say ready and you still have to wait 30 minutes to an hour. I did reach out to customer support about this and was told you can cancel 30 minutes after the arrival time. You still will receive partial pay and it will not affect your metrics but this is still a big issue. Overall, you still make some decent money depending on where you live. I live in a rural area with only one Walmart and made $80 for only 5 deliveries.
Voice over three years of positive experiences and over 6000 deliveries I was actually doing very well. Then when I updated my insurance, I ran another background check and deactivated me because they found a driving while suspended license conviction on my record. Since I knew that wasn’t true, I had to do some research and I found out that somebody else with my same name but different drivers license. A different license plate did get one. When I sent that information in to the background people, they confirmed it and changed my driving record back to spotless. It took seven weeks, 22 phone calls, and for peels just to get them to respond. Every time I called somebody I got different information. They are not on the same page. Finally spoke said yes your driving record was corrected but you’re still deactivated. They don’t give you a reason which is absolutely ridiculous. I’m still not sure why they kept me deactivated, but I ended up finding a better gig so it all worked out in the end. They did lose three families that shop at Walmart though. Both my children and families and now my family no longer shop there. The deliveries weren’t bad but the spark customer service was horrible.
The store have a few employees that will bring out the products in time and some need to do better. A lot of the customers are horrible, when it comes to delivery service you’re looked at as a slave and the customers don’t even know their own home information. They will give you the address to the apartment complex but won’t add what building or what apartment number. And I’ve had some bad experiences where I don’t want to go in anyone’s home so why does Walmart force me to conform to customer demands of coming inside the home when delivery can be at the front door or meet me in the lobby etc there are so many ways to compromise for the driver also. We’re already traveling and shopping YOU CANT MEET ME TO GET YOUR (ish?!) unless physically unable just doing too much that makes this job so difficult. And why the heck am I getting penalized for late pick up after dropping off a order and accepting a new order the pick up time can be within 5 mins but I’m 13 mins from the store and I’m the culprit???!!!!! Very disappointed in the system spark drivers matter just as much as the in store employees and Walmart should do better looking out for people who helps make the company grow each and every day.
Update: sadly I’ve given this more chances and have experienced the exact same thing about 10 times….. original review: What I’ve just experienced driving for Spark is exactly the reason why I don’t do this often. I waited for over an hour and a half in the pickup spot, order status “Ready” and the guy parked behind me who had been there for 10 minutes received their pickup. Mind you I had my 2 year old in the car. I’m a single mom trying to make some extra money. She was so patient, but an hour and a half is beyond patience. There was still no sign of my order coming out. They offer “incentives” to convince you to go out there and deal with this mess. But I mean come on! “Complete 10 or 15 trips and get $24 extra.” But batches trips only count as ONE trip. And sometimes they will literally lump EIGHT orders/deliveries into one batch and the pay is like $17 🤯 I couldn’t in good faith recommend this for anyone as a means of earning money. Not only did I miss out on those $30 today, I burned my gasoline to keep my child cool while waited in 90+ degree heat. All while the order said it was READY!! Also, it would be nice to be able to see if the order is ready or not BEFORE you accept the order.
After driving and delivering for four years with a 4.5 customer rating, 2,861 deliveries, never delivering to a wrong address, 100% on time arrival, 84% acceptance rate and 2% drop rate I was deactivated for a non-criminal minor traffic violation. Repeated appeals and arbitration were unsuccessful. They allow too many drivers to sign up for smaller towns and deactivate the good drivers while keeping the ones who can’t speak or read English and smoke in their cars or have children who are not old enough to be left alone in their cars. They also all talk about the customers and what they purchased and where they live etc. they break all the terms and conditions especially stealing orders and delivering to the wrong addresses. One even had her dog inside with her doing a shopping order. As this was my only job I have not worked in a month. I have two children and we are now forced to live in the car so thank you Walmart spark driver platform for caring so much about your contractors and the communities they can’t afford to live in anymore. I would give no stars if I could maybe five stars if I could be reactivated and be able to work again. All because of one traffic ticket that didn’t even happen while doing an order. Wow.
I understand Walmart/Spark is a company that naturally is there to make a profit, but in doing so they screw over their Spark drivers. Customers can leave a pre-tip on their orders, but Spark allows them to change the tip up to 24 hours afterwards. and since Spark is self paced drivers, so little, drivers rely on those tips. customers regularly remove the tip after delivery, leaving drivers with a whopping $6 for almost an hour of work. yes, drivers receive approximately $6 per delivery, or $8 for a double. This includes driving to the store, waiting curbside for sometimes a very long time (can be an hour or more), and then using our gas and cars to deliver. Customers should not be allowed to remove their tips without calling in and giving a legitimate reason, for something the driver did wrong. Being upset because of substitutions or for out of stock items, or late deliveries because the store is so far behind, and removing a tip for these things out of the driver’s control is unacceptable. Drivers have complained to Spark about this for a long time, but of course, since it doesn’t affect Spark’s bottom line, they aren’t in any hurry to do anything about it. Spark will ONLY make a change if it affects THEM. So potential drivers, beware.
With the Spark Driver™ app, you can deliver orders, or shop and deliver orders, for Walmart and other businesses. All you need is a car, a smartphone, and insurance. After you’ve completed the enrollment process (including a background check), you will be notified when your local zone has availability. You’ll then receive details for accessing the Spark Driver app. BE YOUR OWN BOSS As an independent contractor, you’ll enjoy the flexibility of working around your own schedule. You can shop and deliver, or only deliver, as little or as often as you like. EARN MONEY Making money is easy because you earn each time you complete a shopping or delivery order. Plus, you always keep 100% of confirmed customer tips. Incentive programs and referral offers give you the opportunity to earn even more! EASY TO USE After you’ve accepted a trip, the app helps you every step of the way — from navigating to the store, to helping you find items in your shopping trip, to delivering to a customer’s location. For more information about the Spark Driver app, you can visit www.drive4spark.walmart.com.