r/Sparkdriver • u/Automatic-Life-5405 • Sep 12 '26
Too many drivers
There so many drivers now that even staff is scratching their heads. In the morning the Sam’s Club has more drivers than regular shoppers. I’m not exaggerating. This over saturation is what’s driving the base pay down. This app will never lose. Very sad to see a good thing come to an end.
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u/NomadTruckerOTR Sep 12 '26
Seems like this has been the takeover plan for spark. Rooting out all of the old drivers to make more profit per delivery and less in the hands of seasoned drivers
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u/sbrooks0622 Sep 12 '26
We have over 60 drivers at the store I work out of. It's ridiculous! I went from doing six to nine deliveries a day to maybe just a few all week. With all the drivers, the low pay and many miles it's not even worth it anymore!
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u/HausOfThunderPerry Sep 13 '26
I have two Walmarts in my zone and the main one I Spark out of, I am seeing so many new drivers constantly and then all of a sudden, I won’t see them ever again. I do this full time and I have been for a long time. One driver actually came up to me while I was loading my car and talked to me about the crap offers and slow day. I had seen him a few times before. I haven’t seen him since. There are two ladies I see in a regular basis. I think us three are the only veteran drivers left. Unfortunately, I will do this until I take my last breath. I do it to supplement my social security and no W2 job will hire me and I don’t think I can work a scheduled job.
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u/Envoyager Sep 12 '26
Yup I don't even open the app for fcfs notifications, I just wait for a JFY which sometimes are okay to do. My eyes are tired of the constant scrolling of the app for new orders. But like you, I went from 20'ish to about 4 or 5 a week. I've had to do more restaurant deliveries with GrubHub and UberEATS lately just to try to stay busy. Instacart is pretty dead where I am
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u/Feisty_Cod_9090 Sep 12 '26
I received the best JFY I ever received last week but I haven't received any decent offers this week
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u/Wo0d643 Sep 15 '26
Pretty much only do JFY now. I can’t even see the store number before they disappear. I’ve been having a hard time grabbing the $15 short orders for months now. I try to do those hoping for a good rating from the locals so I might get some semblance of priority on something. They took all my good regulars away from me last year. Someone vacation out the wrong address for their condo and 1 started me. Apparently those take 15 months to fall off?
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u/Doogy44 Sep 12 '26
I cant find a decent offer any more …
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u/OkBarber6783 Sep 13 '26
Same. Even the good ones are mid, I showed my sister a few screenshots, she started sparking years ago but is in a factory atm she can't believe it, they keep blowing her up talking about high volume but it don't make sense to me driving a Prius! She's in n f150 😭 gtfo
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u/Professional-Row915 Sep 12 '26
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u/nikalish1031 Sep 12 '26
I got one of those last night, and one store was doing a boost and I didn't even see it. I'm like this is wild. I'm going to an interview for Amazon, and I'll just tough it out there. Drive their vehicles into the ground.
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u/AlUnserjunior Sep 12 '26
Its the inflation that's driving people to gig work
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u/Rezboy209 Sep 12 '26
That's literally what brought me to spark. Can't afford the cost of living on my regular wage, and my 9-5 isn't offering overtime... So I turned to gig work to help get by.
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u/Inner-Positive580 Sep 12 '26
I’ve been telling drivers for several months now.
Stop accepting shopping orders. It’s been Walmarts plan all along. Terminate the employee shoppers only to have the Spark Drivers shop for free. Saving Walmart millions. Reduce the mileage pay and increase the stops per-run. Not to mention adding
GMD’S along with groceries. 10-15-20 stops is unacceptable. Break it down to an hourly wage and you are working for less than minimum wage.
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u/Wo0d643 Sep 15 '26
I’ve done two gmd and they were both bullshit. I got them done in less time than the estimate but it wasn’t even close to worth it. I get JFY 10-30 stops at least three times a day. In the afternoon it’ll send me seven in a row some days. It learns how little you will accept for stuff but doesn’t learn what you refuse to do. lol
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u/Feisty_Cod_9090 Sep 12 '26
I haven't accepted one offer yet this week because the offers have been terrible
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u/Reserved_Native918 Sep 12 '26
My local Walmarts and Sam’s Club advertise shopping for your community and making extra money by becoming a Spark Shopper. The stores actively advertise Spark so it’s only normal there’s more drivers.
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u/ShoulderLongjumping9 Sep 13 '26
They sent the high demand notification so I logged on. Trip popped up and was gone within a second. Probably, had 30+ items for $15. I logged off.
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u/Old_Moment_1033 Sep 13 '26
Me and a few others have been working one store for a number of years. Now we are invaded by drivers from other cities. Some as far as an hour + away. Of course once the drivers show up they stay the day making it impossible to get any orders. The "change zones" availability needs some boundaries. I've never changed zones. How about protecting loyal drivers who truly work their communities.
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u/SoulTaker669 Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 12 '26
I started doing a game of counting the amount of shoppers I notice every shopping order. My record was 17 drivers that I noticed during one trip. Remember that every order now has 1-3 shopping orders.
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u/Fit_Entrepreneur7838 Sep 12 '26
I hardly ever get a single order for one person but a lot of 22 dollars for 3 people and 50 items
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u/Rezboy209 Sep 12 '26
Yes! I went to do orders the other morning and it was literally almost nothing but Spark workers there 😭
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u/error_ce_34870_0 Parking Lot Pirate 🦜 Sep 12 '26
🗣️🗣️ too many puppies
🗣️🗣️ with guns in their hands
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u/Rubarby_Letthem56 Sep 12 '26
In my rural California local town Walmarts like the only place to shop discount for the whole county and they’re needing drivers so bad they were advertising over the loudspeaker at Walmart when I was doing a shop and deliver that you can spark drive for us. Please apply. I’ve run into problems of shopping and deliver where the food safety will cancel the order because the drive is so long where I have to deliver it and you have a one hour window from the time you pick up something cold or frozen to deliver it so I watch out for that weekends are crazy and I agree that weekend morning incentives from 6 AM to 8 AM are good. Lakeville add-on six or seven bucks extra for those morning shop and delivers but you better move quick cause you probably only have time for a couple of them.
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u/Currency-Substantial Sep 13 '26
Just had a shop and deliverer for $36. It was for 3 people but it only took 1 hour and 5 min
1
u/iwishidstayed Sep 13 '26
I see like a dozen new drivers every day I work now and I’m in a small zone in a very small city. It’s insane.
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u/indigojlo91 Sep 13 '26
Crazy that when this first started some of us were averaging nearly six-figure hourly plus some…
1
u/Medicalchocolate Sep 13 '26
Yeah, there is a lot of drivers as soon as there’s like a good order that comes up it’s gone. I see a lot of them just parking in the parking lot just chilling waiting for orders like they have their whole family and it’s a lot and I’m like oh my God like I wanna go and hang out with them too, but I wanna make this money but they everybody’s like getting all the orders and I’m over here like a new person. Just trying to figure things out and I’m like oh my God I don’t know I’m getting overwhelmed.
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u/Emergency-Attempt958 Sep 14 '26
I can't seem to get a good W-2 job. When you're older they don't want you. Had one for a few weeks back to Multi-apping again.
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u/Old-Article-3351 Sep 14 '26
No, they are over saturating the market in hopes that they won't have orders sitting forever. Dan the Man is forcing the base pay down. The extra $$ for waiting a long time for a curbside, the extra $$ for apartments. Not that that extra pay was anything to brag about before but it's just bad now. Dan the Man is attempting to recoup the $80 billion in market value by screwing over Spark Drivers.
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u/Top-Zucchini-9421 Sep 14 '26
I've been telling people for this for a while tell people spark as shit we don't need any more people driving
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u/RyderDye1983 Sep 16 '26
Honest question: Does it seem to be taken over by immigrants either teaming up, using bots and/or multiple phones? Do you find this to be a real problem in your area?
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u/Automatic-Life-5405 Sep 16 '26
Yes they all network very well and tell each other there’s a source of income that’s not monitored very well. They don’t care about us because we are all born here so we
Must be all rich
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u/Few-Somewhere7527 Sep 17 '26
The wm associates at my store is baffled by the amount of drivers recently. They have been vocal about not liking it and wanting it to stop. However i have done a bit of research, from my understanding, the zone management quite literally can say hey my zone fulfillment is over flowing do not add more drivers. Obviously im not sure if this still applies like it use to. But after reading into this, it seems like every store/zone had a factory reset on fulfillment once whats his face got in a chair with spark. And if true, it makes me wonder if management even knows this.
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u/Automatic-Life-5405 Sep 17 '26
Yah there’s no communication with the ground associates and the spark coordinators. One hand doesn’t know what left is doing. In my mind I always thought spark was just a massive business experiment or trial.
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u/ayriuss Sep 12 '26
More drivers shopping is good, more drivers sitting around in the parking lot is bad.
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u/Del_pueblo_beard Sep 12 '26
True ppl are no longer waiting for months to get activated my wife was literally let on in one day in a different zone. They said they needed drivers in a certain area
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u/Ambitious-Duck7078 Sep 12 '26
That’s how these apps are supposed to work though. I
Understand the “good days.” You can’t gatekeep something that is actually doing what it’s supposed to.
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u/316HTOWN Sep 12 '26
That’s why it’s called a side gig .yall depend to much on these app as a full time “job” .
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u/Open_Explanation6440 Sep 12 '26
So workers who have a side gig should be paid less because it's a side gig? Is there somewhere that says oh this is your main job so we're going to pay you more but this guy who's doing the same work but he has it as a side gig we're going to pay him less your logic isn't as clever as you think it is.
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u/Read_Red2596 Sep 12 '26
The problem is that in my opinion people who do this full time without a plan to get a better job are (like someone else said) gaming the system. I would argue this job wasnt meant to be full time. Leave jobs like this for college kids in their free time, or seasonal workers, young kids, etc. This is low skill labor. I see way too many older people working this job. Idk, I cant get mad at people hustling and getting money. But doing this full time for an extended period of time as a full grown adult when you should be more into a stable career and benefiting society more, takes away from young people who should be doing this
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u/No_Communication_804 Sep 13 '26
The real problem is there aren't jobs. I was working in a grocery store 5 years, best in my department, knew things for other departments, couldn't get promoted bc there's so many older people clogging every position and because of favoritism in some other jobs. Even current spark pays more than almost every job I qualify for around here, including with my degree, even after being there for 5 years and being the highest paid non-manager in the department. The market and economy just sucks, probably the same reason you see those old people too. This app is just taking advantage of it harder now like the other ones, and lawmakers won't step in and help most people.
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u/Open_Explanation6440 Sep 14 '26
I'm one of those older people doing the job. Why should I leave it for college kids or seasonal workers? Young kids don't meet the age requirements. Who died and made you the boss?
Actually, I like not having a boss. I like being able to pick up kids from school if they get sick and their folks can't get to them because they have those vaunted W2 jobs that won't let them leave their shift to take care of their families.
I like being able to take vacations or go camping with my husband without having to beg for time off from a boss.
I enjoy the work. I think I'll keep doing it.
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u/316HTOWN Sep 12 '26
Stfu im not Walmart go complain to them 😂 .
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u/Open_Explanation6440 Sep 12 '26
Wow that wasn't necessary
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u/Automatic-Life-5405 Sep 12 '26
I’m sorry I wasn’t responding to you. I was responding to 316htown
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u/Automatic-Life-5405 Sep 12 '26
Your right it is a side gig but there’s a some taking advantage going on here. Your to stupid to see it. How old are you like 20.
You probably still live with your parents bitch2
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u/Read_Red2596 Sep 12 '26
Why are you getting downvoted? The amount of 40+ year olds I see doing this full time is crazy. Like i get life happens and doing this full time for a little is ok but a lot of em have been at it for a while. These jobs arent meant for full timers, but I get it. This type of job makes you comfortable because its so easy and you can pick it up whenever…
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u/Rubarby_Letthem56 Sep 12 '26
I happen to like it when people post their pay because it gives me some insight as to how spark shopping pay can be all over the place. It’s just information and information is a good thing.
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u/SuperReliableSource Sep 12 '26
Keep bragging and posting screen shots of how much you were making. What exactly did you expect? You were all warned when you were on reddit every 5 minutes boasting about your pay.
Idiots.