What It's Like To Be An Amazon Flex Delivery Driver

this is the line for Amazon flex drivers they line up every day like this one day shipping used to be a luxury now delivery drivers are lining up outside this Amazon warehouse in the Bay Area to help make it the norm for 100 million Prime members Amazon just doubled the speed of prime shipping from two days to one with the faster speed now available on more than 10 million products show your ID they scan it and they let you go Amazon flex drivers like Mont has our on-demand contract workers similar to driving for lyft or uber they load up on packages and deliver them to your door they're part of Amazon's solution to take control of the most expensive part of the shipping process last mile delivery we've been building for over 20 years to support this network that's eventually just constantly getting faster and we knew would begin to migrate to a one-day service the big difference for us is all about how we get product from our fulfillment center to that last mile location so what's it like to deliver for one of the world's most valuable companies we spoke to flex drivers around the country to find out [Music] you place the order and poof it can feel like magic when that Amazon package shows up at your door in just one day but it's definitely not magic amazon spends tens of billions on shipping every year and it set aside eight hundred million in the second quarter of 2019 to transition to one day most of that investment is going towards the infrastructure and transportation costs associated with speeding up delivery to the millions of prime customers who are about to begin to experience one day as the new normal in the last quarter of 2018 amazon shipping costs jumped 23 percent reaching a record nine billion until an item arrives at a warehouse near your home it can be shipped in bulk but then each package needs to be hand-delivered to a different address which takes a lot of people and a lot of time amazon pays to outsource much of this to carriers like UPS and the US Postal Service which charge a fee and those fees just went up in January the post office increased its last mile shipping rate by nine to 12 percent depending on package size the less Amazon can rely on these shipping giants the more it can control these costs it's building up its own logistics network delivering 26% of its own packages last year for last mile delivery Amazon has small business partners some delivering out of 20,000 Amazon vans and in 2015 it launched Amazon flex I've been driving for Amazon flex roughly since 2016 on and off it started in November 2018 here in Lexington and that's when I started so the most part I like it if you happen to live closer to the delivery station if you go on the Amazon flex ready you'll see that there's so many people who are totally frustrated with the job but they continue to do it Amazon flex is available in about 50 US cities anyone over 21 with a driver's license auto insurance and at least a midsize sedan can sign up after clearing a basic background check drivers and areas with open spots can start picking up and delivering packages Amazon wouldn't disclose how many drivers have signed up or what percentage of its last mile deliveries are made by flex drivers compared to its shipping partners but it did tell us the program is expanding we build out these small businesses of the delivery service providers and we have flex which is our on-demand crowdsource delivery piece so we need all that to meet the various types of delivery we do in each of our geographies and I think you're gonna see expansion on all fronts there drivers use the flex app to sign up for a block which ranges from three to six hours then they head to a warehouse where they find out how many boxes they've been assigned to deliver in that time frame amazon advertises that drivers make 18 to 25 an hour flex drivers are responsible for their own vehicle costs like gas tolls and maintenance on the day we drove with Montes in the Bay Area he was assigned to a route 36 miles away from the fulfillment center in rush-hour traffic with 45 packages to be delivered in under three hours he would have made $67 I have to weigh out the what it cost me to get there and if it's worth it or not in this case it's not worth it hey that's 36 miles I don't know if I can take it I might just have to forfeit it okay yeah sorry about that Dave will probably write you a ticket which is just like you know yeah that's fine I appreciate it though no money and I'm gonna get a write up I could get two of those before they deactivate me instead Montez helped a friend on his route that day something they do often needing two sets of hands to get the job done on time one thing you'll see is we're constantly parking looking for parking but when you have someone helping you you just grab the box you have it ready scan it drop it it just makes more sense his friend made a hundred and five dollars delivering around forty six packages in three and a half hours these are like the good days that you makes you want to get continue doing them son but unlike lyft and uber drivers who can simply turn off the app when they're taking a break Flex drivers are paid an hourly rate with a set time to complete deliveries within so many feel pressured not to stop do you feel like you have time to take a break do you feel like you can go by the restroom no no absolutely not like I try to go before my shift and then just hope that I don't have to go during it some drivers like Elbert asked us for varying degrees of anonymity because they want to protect their privacy or their ability to keep working with Amazon you're already an hour in because like they'll send you someplace nobody sure I'm in LA traffic all the time yeah I have to deliver like twenty some taxes each power justice is in my blood so you know you feel anxious stressed but flex drivers we spoke to in less congested regions from Arizona to Kentucky to New Jersey said they're rarely assigned too many packages and they often finish deliveries early making the pace relaxed and the hourly pay much higher because you're paid for the full block no matter how long it takes you it's really easy a lot of routes I actually finished early so coming out between 25 and 30 dollars an hour doing flex you just when it does take longer than the assigned number of hours to deliver flex drivers can call Amazon to request an earnings adjustment although some told us it's not always approved any time I'm overwhelmed and it's just it's not people - completing three half hours within my block I'll just call them at the end say it's not finished at the time you can check it in my app and usually you know it goes without a problem sometimes they compensate you and sometimes they wouldn't like nobody really knows it's like a it's like you send an email and hope and pray that you get paid for the overtime most flex drivers we talk to supplement their income with other gig jobs like uber lyft post mates and doordash flex is more labor-intensive with repeated hopping in and out of your car and sifting through piles of packages to find the right one but it's appealing to some because you're not allowing strangers in your car or being rated for your performance as far as pay goes goober advertises that drivers can make fifteen hundred dollars a week and one study which analyzed data from 30,000 rideshare drivers in various markets across the u.s. showed that drivers made an average of 1865 an hour in 2018 before expenses so how do the drivers compare Amazon flex to others overall it was a good experience I think that driving for flex is more lucrative for the driver compared to pretty much any other similar like driving based gig a lot of times I'm sort of weighing the options up should I take this Flex rod or should I a lot of people sort of go through this decision making on what they should do as far as what gig they should do tonight it's all based on these conditions and past experiences you barely make enough as it is and then given the cost wear and tear on your vehicle and just a low pay and everything make a living Montez has had trouble finding a full-time job he doesn't have a college degree and at 28 is still living at his parents house to make ends meet he's mostly stopped driving for Amazon because he says he makes more by doing temp jobs like private security or driving for lyft and uber but sometimes Amazon flex is simply the most convenient gig as bad as it is sometimes you still kind of want to have that option so it's it's it's tough it's a bittersweet relationship maybe a lot of these people can't get a regular job they're vulnerable and they're they're not making enough money to pay the bills in I feel like Amazon you know is definitely taking advantage of these people when flex drivers accept a block they don't know how many packages they'll be assigned or how far they'll need to drive until they've waited in line at the warehouse which is time they don't get paid for just knowing what it is you're gonna get would solve like 99% of the issues because you show up you know and you don't know where you're going you don't know how many boxes you have you don't know if they're gonna fit for several drivers we spoke to safety is the biggest concern Montes and other drivers told us they've been assigned large loads of packages that barely fit in their cars whenever you do make them fit its piled so high that it reaches the roof of your car and you can't see your back the back mirrors you know you just see boxes so it's not safe definitely in a statement Amazon says safety is our number one priority we communicate with delivery partners regarding safety topics including safe loading practices another issue amazon does not provide flex drivers with any branded clothing to identify them rapper ice-t tweeted about this last month saying he almost shot a regular person making an Amazon delivery and Amazon tweeted back that they'd escalate this to our logistics team for review Jonathan in Connecticut told us about a similar experience while delivering I'm pulling up to this house I get to the front door and you know this guy just comes running out like hey what are you doing and he's talking so fast in it and he's just like you know so he was just talking so fast and he wouldn't let me talk so I I kind of I had to yell and say I'm with Amazon and I'm just delivering your package I was thinking you know I'm in Connecticut you know I'm a Puerto Rican guy in a white guy's yard and like you know who comes on there shoots me in her face and ice and questions you know that was my fear after another delivery where he says a customer let his German Shepherd charge at him Jonathan paid 45 dollars out of his own pocket for a custom sweater on Etsy it's an unsafe job you know I made it safe for me by making myself visible by making myself look more like an Amazon employee but most of these people don't I think Amazon the least they could do is give us something that would make it a little bit safer I've gotten a lot of mean glares from people because who is this guy he's just in front of my driveway or he's parked in front of my house he's just wearing a yellow vest you don't even have to wear that vest it's just I do it because at least I look less suspicious for those who rely heavily on flex for income the pressure is extra high to finish one block of packages and get on to the next sometimes I will feel like I need to rush and sometimes I'll have to go to the bathroom real bad but I'll have to hold it in because I'm not exactly in an area where there are any restrooms or stores nearby and sometimes I kind of have to bend the rules of the road a bit so I can get back to where I was supposed to be going several drivers told us the Flex app is part of the problem the navigation and Amazon app isn't good but it can be dangerous because it will try to send you wrong way on one-way street and some drivers told us the way the app works encourages distracted driving unlike lyft and uber zaps which send new rides to drivers phones automatically the Flex app requires drivers to manually tap refresh to secure their next assignment competition can be high and blocks are assigned on a first-come first-served basis so drivers who want to make more money are constantly tapping the Flex app even while driving if you want to get blocks then you have to be tapping on that refresh button in the app pretty much constantly but how do you do that you're delivering so it encourages people to do it while they're driving you're constantly on your phone while driving and that can become dangerous yet people have to you know make some kind of living silly they're always checking the phones while people are desperate and you're looking for work when they're driving and inevitably this is please don't let it happen to me or anyone yeah this is gonna cause collisions and it could cost loss of life because people are taking attention away from the world while they're looking for work other drivers told us they feel unsafe because routes are assigned without factoring in weather hazards or type of car like one time when Montez got stuck in a muddy driveway on a rainy day while helping on a friend's route I called the support and I said hey this is what would happen you know can you guys help me and they're just like no you know and how many boxes do you have left and you know can you finish your deliveries I'm just thinking wow that's the first thing you asked me I called a tow truck I had to pay for that of my own pocket because there's no there's no benefits I ended up losing money that day and I still had to finish my deliveries in a statement Amazon said it provides delivery partners with 24/7 Road support if delivery partners come across issues while making a delivery we work with them directly on a resolution Amazon is looking at several high-tech solutions to ease the burden on delivery drivers and to lower the cost of that last mile delivery in early June Amazon announced its new autonomous delivery drone will be operating within months and it has a one-year FAA permit to test them we're building fully electric drones that can fly up to 15 miles and deliver packages under five pounds to customers in under 30 minutes Amazon also has patents out for a giant flying warehouse and drones that can react to flailing hands and screaming voices amazon also announced last month that it would pay full-time workers to quit if they'll help with that expensive last mile delivery instead the program offers as much as $10,000 to employees who want to leave the company and start their own package delivery services this could help Amazon grow its number of small business partners that deliver that last mile alongside flex drivers early response is great we give three months salary to as further support wheelies vans and in vehicles to to people who sign up for this and we ensure that they have enough work so that's viable business it allows us to complement the capacity that we have with our great carrier partners over 16,000 ploys have already taken supplements Amazon is even testing a new sidewalk robot called Scout to help with that especially labor intensive last mile delivery but until drones and robots take over that task Amazon will still need to rely on a variety of people to bring us our packages in just one day [Music] you you

Channel: CNBC

Views: 1,851,318

Rating: 4.7511163 out of 5

Keywords: CNBC, business, news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, Stock market news, stocks, classic footage, retro footage, amazon prime, amazon flex, amazon deliveries, does amazon deliver on, amazon two day shipping, what are the benefits of amazon prime, amazon prime benefits, amazon prime now, amazon prime day, is amazon prime free

Id: TlcP2aTOp-Q

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/popsicle_of_meat]

That sounds terrible.

[u/LTChaosLT]

I wonder why they don't give them some amazon apperal so they be recognizable? Is it because they then would be classfied as employees and not a contractor? Or hell they definetly could provide drivers with some stickers for a car so at least people could see that the car driver is affilited with amazon so they don't get shot.

[u/brightondude]

So I did this for a bit when I didn't have a full time job. I tried it to see if it would be a good way to pay my monthly expenses so I didn't fall into debt.

Spoiler, it was not worth it. Not even close. (At least for me.)

First thing, It was always a struggle to fit all the packages in to my car. That said, the cars at the pick up point ranged from civics to bug SUv's to theoretically I imagine they'd find a rack of packages that works for you. I have an old Acura sedan that's big but not efficient with space so it was a struggle to fit the amount of packages they give you to deliver in a set period of time.

Full disclaimer, I only did a limited number of shifts.

The last shift was the deal breaker. I signed up for a three hour shift. The towns I was delivering to was 45 minutes north of where the distribution center was. I tried to deliver all my packages, however, nearly half way through my deliveries I had one I couldn't deliver. I was at a big apartment building in not the best part of town. Another resident in the building (who happened to be walking into her apartment while I was trying to buzz up) told me her mail was stolen all the time. I was worried the package would get stolen and I had no idea what was in it. Could it be a stupid toy or a precious piece of family history that was irreplaceable? No idea. I didn't want to risk it so I walked back to my car and tried to figure out what to do.

At this point I was less then an hour from the end of my shift and 45 minutes from the distribution center. I called the help line to see if I should keep delivering packages and get overtime or if I'd need to go back to the distribution center now. The guys would not give me an answer other than to say attempt to deliver all your packages and then bring the rest back. I asked if I would get overtime for the extra hours I worked because of the undeliverable packages and he wouldn't answer. So I decided to not spend any more of my time or my gas money/mileage with no clear guarantees so I drove right back to the distribution center, returned all my packages and never signed up for another shift again.

I was worried they'd black list me or not pay me for my last shift because I was "only able to deliver 50% of what I was given" however I still get texts and emails trying to get me to sign back up.

Once I realized that Amazon couldn't organize the routes appropriately and take the no shows on their dime, not their drivers I was done.

So essentially unless you're willing to push back on or except their corporate bull shit, don't do it.

[u/LegoGuy23]

The driver in the video is using the same Hyundai Elantra as me.
I really couldn't imagine trying to deliver packages in one.
Without an SUV or a hatch, packages would just be falling all over the rear seats, and crushing each other.

Plus, I think people really don't consider depreciation and maintenance costs they're taking on.
There's a reason the government highly recommends companies pay their employees $0.50+ / mile to cover these costs, when they're using their own vehicles.

[u/Pirelly]

weird flex driver but ok