Shipt is a delivery service that’s owned by Target, but it operates as a completely separate entity. Shipt shoppers take a customer’s list, go through the stores on their behalf, then make the delivery. They might be called to deliver goods from a variety of sellers, including grocery stores, big box operations, pharmacies, and pet stores.
Being a Shipt shopper has its good and not-so-good points, but when we look at Shipt shopper earnings during the first quarter of 2022, it appears that things are looking up! In this post, we’ll delve into the details of the quarterly earnings and share some insight into how current economic conditions and Shipt’s corporate vision might affect earnings. Then, we’ll offer strategies and recommendations for pushing your earnings higher and keeping them that way.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- Shipt shopper pay: facts, figures, and trends
- The bigger picture: customer demand and Shipt corporate policy
- Shipt shopper expenses: how to keep them down
- Shipt shopper earnings: how to raise them up and keep them there
Shipt shopper pay: facts, figures, and trends
Shipt shoppers have to do more than just shop and drive their deliveries to their destinations. The company is very big on customer service. That means shoppers are often asked to make extra efforts when it comes to getting customers exactly what they want, delivered promptly, courteously, and accurately.
Fortunately, it appears that Shipt shoppers were rewarded rather well for their work in the first quarter of 2022. Let’s look at the earnings data:
How much do Shipt shoppers make per hour?
Our nationwide figures show that Shipt shopper hourly pay in January was $18.51 and has gone down only slightly over the course of the first quarter. In February, gross earnings per hour amounted to $17.63, and in March the average earnings were $17.62.
While there has been a slight drop since the beginning of the year, there was only a very minor change between the second and third months of the quarter. With a quarterly average of $17.92, Shipt shoppers made about 14% more than Instacart shoppers, whose average hourly pay for the quarter was $15.78.
How much do Shipt shoppers make per order?
Gross earnings per order is an important angle to take when analyzing grocery delivery driver pay. This is a number that answers questions such as “Is driving for Shipt worth it?” From what the Q1 2022 figures indicate, the earnings per trip show a trend that’s somewhat unsettling.
Gridwise data show that earnings per trip, or order, for Shipt shoppers dropped by 22% over the course of the quarter. January’s figure was $19.67. In February, the earnings per trip fell down to $18.87 and then took a dive to $15.30 in March. While this isn’t encouraging, Shipt shoppers still out-earned those doing similar work with Instacart. Instacart shopper earnings per trip averaged $16.06, compared with $17.95 for Shipt shoppers. This Shipt vs. Instacart comparison isn’t as dramatic as the hourly earnings, but it still shows Shipt earnings to be somewhat higher.
What about Shipt shopper monthly earnings?
Median gross monthly earnings figures for Shipt shoppers are is far more encouraging. January earnings averaged $290.50, and after going down to $203.70 in February, rebounded to $283.46 in March.
Here, the difference between Shipt and Instacart is much more obvious. Shipt shoppers’ monthly average for Q1 2022 was $259.22, while Instacart shoppers earned an average of only $185.58. That means Shipt shoppers made 39% more than Instacart shoppers in monthly earnings during the first quarter.
The bigger picture: customer demand and Shipt corporate policy
As we look more deeply at the Q1 2022 Shipt shopper earnings trends, it’s easy to see how changing economic factors could impact both net and gross earnings. Inflation and rising gas prices have certainly given both customers and Shipt shoppers pause before creating large orders or automatically filling up the gas tank.
Customer demand and expectations
Fortunately for Shipt shoppers and the online grocery delivery business in general, customers are more eager than ever to gobble up their services. Some 71% of consumers have ordered other packaged goods online within the last quarter. While this number is down 2% from a year ago, the growth and security of online delivery work is evident when compared with the 2017 figure of 17%.
The top reasons people give for shopping online are saving time, avoiding the inevitable impulse buys that happen at random inside the store, and personal safety. The practice of online ordering has become so common, a report from Powerreviews.com points out that 68% of all consumers have ordered online and have either picked up their items or had them delivered.
While it’s encouraging to note that customers are placing online orders as furiously as they did at the height of the pandemic, it’s important to realize that customer expectations are on the rise, too. Customers want to be able to get their goods when they want them, but they also expect personalized service.
Shipt corporate policy: service first
There’s plenty of buzz around the topic of time and delivery. Companies such as Doordash have put a huge emphasis on super-fast deliveries by launching a new New York city based Dashmart. Other, smaller, companies have invested heavily in delivering within 15–30 minute time windows and have not been terribly successful.
This scenario is what drives the corporate policy as stated by Shipt CEO, Rina Hurst, in this article from Forbes.com. Hurst is certain that while customers expect to receive deliveries on time, those small delivery windows are not what most of them really want from a service like Shipt. Hurst asserts that her research shows that Shipt customers value the quality of service, rather than speed.
While stating that only 50% of orders received by Shipt are for delivery within an hour, she emphasizes that Shipt’s practices involving the personalization of online shopping are much more widely desired by customers. These include everything from shoppers working directly with the customer when substitutions are necessary, to allowing customers to designate a “preferred” shopper with whom they can work on a regular basis.
A recent survey of online grocery shoppers conducted by Coresight.com shows that speed of delivery was sixth on the list of customer needs, behind low or no delivery fee, availability of items, and quality of service. As Shipt attempts to balance service, speed, and cost for their customers, Hurst notes that Shipt customers are likely to set up large orders, rather than send for a few simple convenience items. Most of the time, large orders don’t require quick turnover.
The company’s desire to keep service at the forefront is a long-term strategy that might well pay off. If it does, it will have a stabilizing effect on the amount of work available for Shipt shoppers. Given that orders are larger for service-minded Shipt customers, tip earnings will be higher as well.
With larger economic forces on the horizon, such as inflation and supply chain disruptions, keeping earnings high will depend on how well Shipt shoppers can minimize expenses.
Shipt shopper expenses: how to keep them down
While gross earnings might be staying high, many expenses for Shipt shoppers are increasing. This means that net earnings for Shipt shoppers could be going down, due to general inflation and intensely higher prices on essentials. Here are a few things Shipt shoppers need to do:
Out-maneuver the high price of gas
National average retail prices as of mid- to late April are hovering around $4.10 per gallon. While a huge increase over the same time in 2021, when the average price was $2.87 per gallon, it’s an improvement over mid-March of 2022, when the average price spiked at $4.26 per gallon.
Will gas prices ever go back to where they were a year ago? Considering current global conditions, probably not now, and maybe never. Consider the fact that, while prices often rose by twenty or thirty cents per day on their way toward the $4.00 mark, they are coming down at a much slower speed.
Shipt, like many other rideshare and delivery companies, has just announced plans to help Shipt shoppers with the extra fuel expenses. They’re offering driver discounts on gas fill ups, bonuses for the busiest of their shoppers, and the addition of in-app language to encourage customers to tip drivers generously.
This probably won’t make that much of a difference for most drivers. What Shipt shoppers need is a highly reliable way to get consistent discounts at more than 95% of available service stations. Gridwise Gas offers all that and more. Powered by Gas Buddy, Gridwise Gas sends you to the stations that have the biggest discounts and helps you save up to $0.25 per gallon. Follow Gridwise on Facebook, and get a chance to win in our frequent gas card giveaways.
Measures like these, along with changing your driving habits to avoid wasting gas, will help you keep high gas prices from eating away at your earnings.
Invest in maintenance…cautiously
Your vehicle is essential to your livelihood, so you must take good care of it. Information that Gridwise got from drivers indicates that they spend around $163 per month on maintenance. That’s pretty substantial!
There’s every reason to cut this cost down to a much smaller size, and you can do that with Gridwise + CarAdvise. This great Gridwise benefit lets you shop around for service centers in your area, talk to experts who actually know what they’re doing, and then get up to 40% off retail prices on maintenance and repairs.
Keep an eye on depreciation
That cliché about your car losing much of its value the moment you leave the lot is true. This car depreciation tool from Omnicalculator.com indicates that it goes down to 91% of its retail value as soon as your car is “used,” even for one minute.
By one year, you’re down to 81% of its original value, at two years 69%. Three years in, your car is only worth 58% of the initial price, and by year four the value goes down to 49%. In five years’ time, your car is only worth 40% of its value. These sobering numbers might push you to reconsider investing in maintenance and repair items, from brakes and tires to fuel pumps and radiators.
When you use your car to be a Shipt shopper, your worries about depreciation can become even bigger. Odometer readings and wear and tear rack up faster for delivery drivers and reduce the car’s value at even more prodigious rates.
It pays to make sure your vehicle is still worth investing in—that is,for repairs and maintenance, and even registration. Carfax states that the owner of a $30,000 vehicle is looking at losing $18,000 over five years, or $3,600 annually.
If you’re facing sad facts like this about your car, it could be time to get a new vehicle. Let the Gridwise Auto Buying Program help you out. You can get as much as $3,500 off MSRP and find the best prices on used vehicles. Depreciation is a fact of life, and when your car is a crucial component of your ability to make money, you can’t afford to let it wipe you out.
Now that you know how to keep costs down, let’s look at ways to drive your Shipt shopper earnings up!
Shipt shopper earnings: how to raise them up and keep them there
Maximizing earnings often means working even harder. While sweat equity certainly helps, that’s not all Shipt shoppers can do. Before looking at the ways to make even more, let’s examine the Shipt shopper pay structure and how you can make the most of it.
Know how Shipt shoppers get paid.
Shipt shoppers deliver more than groceries. They can also be called upon to deliver a whole host of items, including electronics, personal care products, and in some areas, alcohol. The Shipt app tries, to as great of an extent possible, to make customers feel as though they’re really shopping in the store, virtually going down the aisles to choose their items.
Shipt shoppers are the ones who actually choose the items, and they do so after accepting an offer. A display known as an Offer Card appears on the shopper’s screen. The shopper chooses whether to take the offer or not. If the choice is to accept the offer, the shopper heads to the store and gets to work. Once the items are selected, the shopper drives the order to its destination.
The pay per offer depends on several variables, such as the size of the store, how much driving is involved, how complex the order is, whether substitutions are likely, etc. If an order has been sitting in the system for a while and doesn’t get picked up, Shipt adds on extra money they call Promo Pay to incentivize drivers to give the customer a high-quality service experience from Shipt.
In general, drivers get a minimum pay of $5.00 per order, plus 7.5% of the total order cost. Shoppers keep 100% of their tips.
The Shipt Earnings Standard applies to every market. This is the company’s guarantee that every offer will be paid at $16 per hour or more, based on time and effort estimates. This is a part of Offer Pay, and it doesn’t count as an extra payment, the way bonuses and tips do.
If you want to learn how to become a Shipt shopper, click here to see the requirements. Note that Shipt shoppers are paid weekly on Mondays for work completed Monday–Sunday. Unlike Uber or Instacart, there are no instant or 2-hour pay windows with Shipt.
Bank on Bonuses & Referrals.
Like most gig companies, Shipt offers bonuses to shoppers that can help boost earnings. These might be based on timeliness, a specific date or time, or for specific retailers. Bonuses do not apply to Promo orders, but it’s good to know that Shipt invested a lot of money in Shipt shopper bonuses in 2021, offering them twice the amount that was doled out in the previous year.
Shipt’s shopper referral program pays $50 for each shopper that joins Shipt after being referred by the shopper, provided the new shopper completes a required number of orders. Bonuses and referrals are great ways to boost income because they don’t require any extra work. If you have a way of distributing your referral code widely, through a social media channel or newsletter, you could gather a rather respectable pile of passive income.
Increase Orders.
This requires some hustle, but it’s worth it. The more orders you deliver, the more money you make. If you can deliver just one extra order per shift, it might make up for the added costs you’re paying for gas and other items.
Know your store layout.
It’s easy to get into a zombie-like state of overstimulation while you’re shopping in a big store, but if you want to be speedy about your service, you need to learn the layout. The Shipt app will help; but if you already know where most things are kept, you won’t even have to look at a map to find your way around.
Scope out your neighborhoods.
You might stay with just one or two stores or shop around, but in every case you need to know your neighborhood. Use Gridwise to alert you to traffic delays and tip you off about events and the crowds they may create in your area.
Go where the money will be.
It helps when you’re shopping for Shipt to go to the highest paying neighborhoods. The Gridwise Where to Drive feature will show you real data on what drivers are making in various parts of town. Equipped with this kind of info, you can increase your income, and maybe not have to work so hard for it.
Hustle for higher tips.
It doesn’t take all that much to get customers to part with a few extra dollars. If you pour your heart into your job and deliver good service, they’ll gladly give you that something extra. Here are some things you can do to ensure they notice just how hard you’re trying:
- Complete orders on time. Customers love it when deliveries arrive in the first 15 minutes of the delivery time window.
- Communicate clearly, and bend over backwards to make acceptable substitutions.
Keep working. The more experience you get, the better you’ll be at your job. - Use sturdy bags, crates, and boxes for groceries.
- Build relationships with repeat customers—you could become their preferred shopper!
Maximize deductions and mind your business.
Tracking your miles is an important aspect of maximizing your tax deductions. When you let Gridwise be your mileage tracker for Shipt shopping, you’ll get plenty of additional features as part of the package. Simply sync your app to Gridwise, and your earnings will be seamlessly recorded, along with your mileage. You can enter your expenses as they arise and produce graphs that let you see all the crucial data you need to manage your business!
With all these features, plus great access to benefits, deals, and discounts, you need Gridwise!
