Hungry diners may be forced to wait longer for their Doordash orders if they choose not to tip the delivery person, according to the company.
“Dashers can pick and choose which orders they want to do,” the food-delivery app warned, using the popular nickname for its workers in a special pop-up alert to customers this week.
“Orders that take longer to be accepted by Dashers tend to result in a slower delivery.”
The new advisory is part of a pilot program launched by the company to gauge user reaction.
“As with anything we pilot, we look forward to closely analyzing the results and feedback,” a DoorDash spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
DoorDash pays its “dashers” between $2 and $10 per delivery — depending on the distance traveled to make a delivery.
In addition, they get to keep 100% of all tips, according to the company.
The firm said that customers can tip in cash, but they, too, would have to wait longer for their food.
Reaction on social media was mostly negative.
“Tips are based on service not the working conditions. Door Dash needs to pay them more first and foremost,” one user on the social media platform X wrote.
Another X user wrote: “Tipping is not a requirement and I hate when people pretend it should be.”
The user added that he would gladly tip “when I feel the dasher deserves it, but don’t tell me I have to tip.”
“If a dasher deserves so much then take it up with DoorDash to accommodate them appropriately,” the user wrote.
Others disagreed.
“Man Doordash shouldn’t even let you order food at all if you ain’t tipping them f—in Drivers,” another X user wrote, adding that the dashers are working through “rain sleet or snow bringing y’all s–t and your lame a– can’t throw them an extra few bucks.”
DoorDash announced its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday at the close of trading on Wall Street.
The company’s stock price has risen by more than 20% over the past six months.
It was trading at around $74.50 a share as of Wednesday afternoon.
DoorDash groceries and food orders jumped in the second quarter as the company posted its highest revenue since it began offering its shares in Dec. 2020.
Total orders in the second quarter rose 25% to 532 million from a year earlier.
But it also posted a $172 million net loss — which is down from $263 million in the same period from a year prior.