BullSHIpT bonuses: Overpromoted and undervaluing shopper effort

By: Guest Writer

SUMMARY STATEMENT

Shipt’s most recent holiday stunt was a series of Thanksgiving bonuses. While they may have served as good PR for Shipt, these bonuses were a slap in the face to Shipt shoppers.

Bonus amounts were as low as $2/order. Shipt shoppers had to average approximately 9+ orders per day, often for multiple days on end, in order to meet quota. Only 26% of Shipt’s bonuses were reasonably accomplishable, and 41% were completely unachievable.

What made the achievability of these bonuses so difficult?

• High order quotas — Many bonuses required shoppers to shop/deliver up to 15 orders when lines were long and story inventory was low.
• Geographically spread out Metros- Long delivery drives often make shopping/delivering back-to-back orders impossible.
• Too few orders & too many shoppers — Shipt has oversaturated metros with new shoppers and given them order priority. Veteran shoppers reported being on the Shipt schedule for multiple hours without receiving any order offers.
• Random promo pay — Shoppers reported promo pay randomly appearing on orders after delivery or after a customer tipped, causing them to not count towards bonus order quotas.

On the day before Thanksgiving, most Metros had a woefully inadequate, day-long bonus that required them to complete 9+ orders on average. Starting that morning, Amazon Web Services experienced an outage affecting Shipt. Shoppers could not claim or process orders. Orders disappeared from the shopper app. Shipt shopper cards stopped working at checkout. Access to HQ support lines and chat features were unavailable.

Constant issues destroyed Shipt shoppers’ income goals and any hope of earning their bonus in a reasonable timeframe. Shipt also refused to reach out to customers regarding ongoing issues, forcing shoppers to absorb customers’ frustrations, on top of not being able to meet income goals and bonus order quotas. They also refused to do anything to make amends with shoppers who had attempted (or did) work that day.

Shipt also decided to screw over Shipt shoppers with order bundles. Shipt’s multi-order bundles are known as “Shop One, Shop One for Free..” Shoppers who took bundles in order to meet their order quota essentially lost their bonus money by taking these orders.

Bottom line? Shipt’s unachievable bonuses come as a slap in the face to Shipt shoppers who have already endured unethical and illegal labor practices from Shipt in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Shipt admitted multiple times to withholding tips from numerous shoppers. Over the summer, Shipt transitioned to a blackbox, algorithm-based pay scale. According to an MIT study, this pay scale is a pay cut affecting more and more shoppers each week, and is cutting into their income more each week. Shipt’s pathetic excuse of Thanksgiving bonuses do not even begin to cover the amount of money Shipt shoppers have lost due to Shipt’s ongoing pay cuts and tip withholding. They are a backhanded slap to the shoppers who built this company.

FULL REPORT

On November 9th, Shipt blasted newswires and media outlets with the announcement of Thanksgiving bonuses for all Shoppers. According to Shipt’s press release, “Shipt will be offering bonuses ranging from $50 to $300, with exact amounts varying by market but always scaling based on the number of shops completed in the time frame.”

However, all was not as it seemed.

These were not bonuses at all. They were sales performance incentive funds, a short-term incentive to drive workers to produce immediate results. In the corporate and retail world, bonuses are either a retroactive financial reward for achievements that deserve special recognition or a predetermined financial amount that is an additional percentage of an employee’s payroll. Unlike what Shipt offered, a true bonus does not require extra work from workers to earn the said bonus.

Now let’s get into the meat of Shipt’s bonuses.

THE BASICS

We collected data on more than 180 Thanksgiving bonuses.

In order to earn their bonuses, Shoppers had to meet an order quota which ranged from 4 to 30 orders, depending on the Shipt-imposed timeframe to complete the orders. For some bonuses, Shoppers had 1 day to meet their quota. For other bonuses, Shoppers had multiple days.

Bonus amounts per order ranged from $2 to $16.67 averaging at $6.31 per order. Total bonus amounts ranged from $25 to $200.

On average, Shipt Shoppers had to shop and/or deliver 13 orders to earn their bonus. Many bonuses were multi-day bonuses. Factoring this into account, Shoppers had to average at 9 orders per day for the duration of the bonus in order to meet the quota.

ACHIEVABILITY

At a surface level, these seem like respectable bonuses.

However, 41% of these bonuses were completely unachievable, and 33% were extremely challenging to accomplish, according to Shoppers. Only 26% of Shipt’s bonuses were reasonably accomplishable. Why?

Order Quota

Shipt’s bonuses required Shoppers to shop an absurd number of orders. Many 1-day bonuses required Shoppers to shop/deliver up to 15 orders in a single day, leading up to Thanksgiving. Assuming there were enough orders for all Shoppers, still shopping/delivering 10+ orders during the holidays is nearly impossible. More items were out of stock per usual, slowing down Shoppers due to communication with customers about substitutions. Stores were crowded and checkout lines long, further slowing Shoppers. As one Indianapolis Shopper said, “It’s nearly impossible to do 10 orders back to back [in these conditions].” Even attempting to do 10+ orders in a day would cause customer service to decline.

To make matters worse, many Metros are geographically spread out, making it even more difficult to meet order quotas within a reasonable timeframe. Some zones within a single Metro can take up to 2 hours to get from one side to the other. This makes taking back-to-back orders to meet the bonus quota impossible.

One Philadelphia Shopper wrote, “Shipt’s lack of common sense and support for Shoppers over this last year has been disheartening for us vets. We see all they’re doing to force out those of us who built the metros and know what a great company Shipt was before Target bought them.”

Too Few Orders & Too Many Shoppers

Shipt is currently in the midst of an unnecessary hiring frenzy, as they attempt to rid the platform of longtime Shoppers who are frustrated with Shipt’s pay cuts, tip withholding, app glitches, and other issues. In most Metros, due to over-hiring and oversaturation of Shoppers, it can be difficult for Shoppers to be offered orders, much less decent ones worth claiming.

To make matters more difficult, new Shoppers get priority in the order offering algorithm for their first 10 orders, costing longtime Shoppers the ability to shop for their regular customers.

One Florida Shopper was on the schedule for 8 hours without getting an order offered to her. The next day, she did not receive any orders for another 7 hours, eventually giving up for the day.

Bundles

With too few orders and too many Shoppers, Shipt is better able to force Shoppers to claim “bundled orders.” Following in Instacart’s footsteps, Shipt’s bundled orders group 2 orders together. These orders are commonly referred to by Shoppers as “Shop One, Shop One Free,” a sort of BOGO pay structure that benefits Shipt to the detriment of Shoppers.

Shoppers that accept bundles are essentially paid the equivalent of one, single order, despite doing twice the work of shopping and delivering 2 orders.

A Shopper who accepted 3 separate bundles, each for $10, would have essentially lost $30 compared to if they had taken these 6 orders separately. If their bonus was only $30, they essentially “lost” their bonus in an attempt to earn it.

Promo Pay

Promo Pay is an additional incentive for Shoppers to claim orders “in distress” that are nearing their delivery window. If an order has Promo Pay attached, it is visible to Shoppers before they accept an order and is labeled on the order offer card. During the bonus time period, there were not many, if any, orders that had promo pay attached. This is especially true, given that Shoppers have been struggling to even claim orders.

In order for an order to qualify towards the bonus quota, it had to NOT have Promo Pay attached and be delivered on time. While attempting to earn their Thanksgiving bonuses, dozens of Shoppers reported claiming orders that clearly indicated they had no promo pay attached. After they were marked as delivered, the order would show $1 in Promo Pay attached, voiding its eligibility for the bonus.

When Shipt was contacted, most Experience Team members claimed the order had been a Promo order the entire time, despite it not showing as a Promo Order in the Shopper app.

This caused many Shoppers to be unable to meet their bonus quota or unfairly force them to complete more orders in order to meet their quota.

Wednesday’s Bonus Shitshow

On Wednesday, November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving, dozens of Metros had a day-long bonus on this day. On average, Shoppers had to complete 9–10 orders to meet their bonus quota, high demand from Shipt. Many of these bonuses were already unachievable and woefully inadequate, especially when you take into account the amount of extra work it takes to fulfill orders the day before Thanksgiving.

However, things were about to take a turn for the worse for Shipt Shoppers.

Starting between 9 and 10 AM Central Time, Amazon Web Service experienced an outage affecting major companies across the US, including Shipt. While this may have impacted Shipt’s profits slightly, it proved devastating to Shipt Shoppers.

Shoppers faced system-wide issues, with different issues affecting different Shoppers. A Shopper could face none, one, or multiple issues.

• Shoppers could not claim orders.
• Shoppers could not process orders.
• Orders already accepted disappeared from the Shopper app, despite still being assigned to the Shopper.
• Orders were assigned to Shoppers that they had not accepted.
• Orders already delivered disappeared from Shoppers’ order history.
• Shipt Shoppers’ cards stopped working, forcing Shoppers to pay out of pocket for orders.
• Access to HQ support lines and chat features were unavailable.

The results were detrimental to Shoppers. Shipt eventually offered late forgiveness, so that orders delivered late would still count towards the bonus. However, Shoppers still were unable to claim orders for most of the day in order to qualify for the bonus. Many Shoppers who had been assigned orders that they did not claim were forced to work extra, unable to drop these orders. Plus, many of these HQ assigned orders were not showing up on the Shopper app.

Shoppers found out the hard way when they received a text from HQ 10 minutes into the delivery window asking why they hadn’t started shopping for the order. If Shoppers don’t shop an order “assigned” to them or drop an order during the delivery window “too many times,” they can be deactivated from the platform.

When Shipt Shopper cards didn’t work, Shoppers had two options. They could wait for their cards to get fixed (which was not an option on this day) or pay for the order themselves with their own money and be reimbursed by Shipt later (up to $500). This presents several issues.

First of all, Shoppers must get HQ approval to be reimbursed over $500. With HQ unreachable, Shoppers would have to drop orders after they reached the $500 threshold. This rendered them unable to reach the bonus quota.

The other issue is that most people doing gig work are doing it because they need the money. 78% of American workers say they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a 2017 CareerBuilder report. Given the current economic climate and pandemic, this number is likely higher. Most gig workers like Shipt Shoppers are not working gigs that are known for exploiting workers for fun or side money. They’re doing it because they need the money to pay the bills. They cannot afford to essentially give Shipt a free loan, especially during the holidays. Shoppers who couldn’t use their Shipt or personal cards to pay for the order had limited options. They can call the Shipt customer and have them come to the store to pay and cancel the order later. However, since the groceries technically were not purchased through Shipt, there’s no pay or tip for the Shoppers. In the past, doing this has also incurred the wrath of HQ. The other option is to abandon the order in the store and contact Shipt once they are reachable again. Unfortunately, this too would likely invoke the wrath of Shipt. Sadly, there is no situation that is a win for the Shopper.

All of these issues destroyed the income goals of Shipt Shoppers and any hope of earning their bonus.

Shipt’s Response

The Amazon Web Service outage affecting Shipt started around 9 or 10 AM Central Time. Though issues became immediately apparent, Shipt did not make any sort of response or send out a notification until 12:52 PM, over 3 hours after issues started on one of the busiest days of the year.

Unfortunately, Shipt only sent an email to Shoppers. Nothing was sent to customers — as a whole or just to ones who had placed orders that day.

Shipt’s systems regularly experience major glitches — whether the fault of Shipt or a third party. Glitches range from Shopper-customer communication going down to orders not processing and cards not working. Shipt HQ never addresses widespread issues with customers themselves. Instead, they force Shipt to absorb the wrath of the customers, acting as a sort of Shipt whipping boy.

The Inadequacy of Thanksgiving Bonuses

Shipt’s unachievable bonuses come as a slap in the face to Shipt Shoppers who have already endured much at the hands of Shipt this year.

In both April and August, Shipt admitted to withholding tips from numerous Shoppers.

This summer, Shipt transitioned all Metros to a black box, algorithm-based pay scale. A study by Coworker in conjunction with MIT showed that this pay scale is a pay cut affecting more and more Shoppers each week, and is cutting into their income more each week.

The bonuses Shipt offers do not even begin to cover the amount of money Shipt Shoppers have lost. The MIT study showed that in October, Shoppers were losing $0.50 — $3.00 per order. This number has likely increased for all Shoppers, most dramatically affecting veteran Shoppers.

For example, Birmingham Metro transitioned to the V2 pay scale on July 15th. If full-time Shoppers completing 40 orders per week are only losing $1.25 per order, they have each lost $900 since the V2 pay scale rolled out. Remember, this is in the middle of a pandemic when Shipt Shoppers are essential to the welfare of their communities

Birmingham had a $35 bonus for the completion of 10 orders on Wednesday, November 25th, the day of the outage. Most Shipt Shoppers were either not able to meet the order quota to earn the bonus or had to work from dawn to dusk. After Thanksgiving, Shipt releases another bonus for Birmingham Shoppers. Complete 30 orders on time without promo between 11/27 and 11/30 to earn an extra $100. This required Shoppers to complete 7–8 orders per day to earn the bonus. Both bonuses require Shoppers to work full-time hours during the holidays.

These extra $135 in bonuses that require sacrificing family time during the holidays do not make up for the $900+ Shoppers have already lost on the new pay scale.

It’s also important to note that many Shipt Shoppers have lost more than the $50/week loss described in this example. These bonuses are a pathetic excuse for a thank you. They are most assuredly a backhanded slap in the face to Shoppers who built this company.

What Shoppers Say

It’s important to share not just the data of Shipt’s mistreatment of Shoppers but also Shopper’s personal stories and opinions.

With our pay being reduced and a saturated market not to mention the app issues, it wasn’t a bonus but an incentive to be on the schedule. -Ohio Shopper

Orders were low and were very far apart geographically. Any Shipt Shopper seeking to fulfill a recent bonus opportunity in either the Phoenix or the Tucson metros would have to be willing to drive hundreds of miles back and forth across the tens of thousands of square miles in their metros to qualify for bonuses. Of course, this would have high costs to Shoppers in gas, vehicle wear and tear, time, and risk. The bonuses came across as completely unrealistic and symbolic of an out-of-touch HQ that fails to understand the distance challenges of gargantuan Shipt metros in the American West. -Arizona Shopper

I have got zero recognition for all my work and dedication during a global pandemic, even though I risk my health every time I accept a shop. -Vermont Shopper

We had a total of 5 bonuses. It is ridiculous that these bonuses got worse and worse as the week progressed. It is ridiculous that [each bonus was] only for 1 day with that many orders expected. They [HQ] were also admitting to retroactively adding promo pay to our orders so they wouldn’t count towards the bonus. -Illinois Shopper

A mere pittance compared to what we would have made on regular V1 pay. -Delaware Shopper I’d rather be paid fairly and transparently. -Houston Shopper

It’s not a bonus if we’re killing ourselves to do it. Typically a bonus is a thank you for hard work. — Houston Shopper

We are oversaturated already [with Shoppers], and this requires you to take orders that have unreasonable payouts. We are devalued and paid shameful wages. -Missouri Shopper

This is not a bonus. Bonuses are gifts, not incentives to do more orders for less pay. -North Carolina Shopper

They’re scams and dangerous. I call them death traps. You’ll have to rush on every order to shop and deliver likely causing missing items, terrible customer service, or worse, accidents. -Houston Shopper

If we worked that day of the entire app glitch we should get that bonus anyway because it wasn’t our fault. -Pennsylvania Shopper

I felt like they ended up making it harder to get offers and I sat multiple time frames on the schedule with zero offers. -Michigan Shopper

After the Wednesday Shitshow, I had no magic left to bring. -Minneapolis Shopper

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