Walmart Spark offers four types of deliveries:
1. Curbside Orders
You won’t have to drive directly to the customer’s home. You only have to assemble their order, and the customer picks it up at a designated loading area at the Walmart parking lot.
2. Express Deliveries
These deliveries aim to assemble and deliver a customer’s order in as little time as possible. Spark promises to deliver up to 95% of express orders in less than one hour.
3. Online Orders
These are the most common types of deliveries. Customers shop online and have their goods delivered straight to their door. Because this delivery type doesn’t necessarily require contact with the customer, there’s often no tip for the driver.
4. Shop and Delivery Orders
These are the most time-consuming deliveries since they need the driver to act as a personal shopper — find the goods in the store and deliver them to the customer’s door.
These deliveries are made available to Spark delivery drivers through one of three different approaches:
- First Come, First Serve Orders: Available orders are sent out to all Spark drivers working at the time, and the first driver to accept the order gets to deliver it.
- Round Robin Orders: Order requests are sent directly to an individual driver based on their location. In this case, you have a few minutes to accept the delivery request before it’s passed on to the next driver.
- Surge Orders: These delivery requests have higher earnings due to “Surge Pricing”. They come about when there’s a high demand for drivers, and are designed to incentivize all available drivers to accept more requests.
No matter the delivery type, there are steps you can take to maximize your income as a Spark delivery driver.
For example, you can accept order requests quickly and move through the store to reach your delivery address as efficiently as possible.
Don’t waste too much time on unavailable items or let them derail you. Speed is essential if you want enough time to promptly complete more deliveries during your shift and boost your earnings.
Examples of Walmart Deliveries Drivers
These are some of the deliveries Spark Drivers might handle:
- Grocery shopping: for goods offered at the grocery section of Walmart. These include fresh produce, frozen foods, pantry food, and other household essentials.
- Pharmacy shopping: drivers can pick up prescriptions and over-the-counter medications from Walmart and other stores like Sam’s Club.
- General merchandise shopping: for several items like electronics, toys, clothing, and other items offered at the store.
- Dotcom shopping: when clients make online orders for several items like cleaning supplies, office supplies, and other household items.
- Special deliveries: This is only available at specific locations where drivers can pick up orders containing alcoholic beverages. Customers must enter their ID information to have their orders processed.
- Returns: In this case, Spark Drivers pick up orders from clients and return them to the store.
Pro Tip:
You can take multiple orders simultaneously to increase your productivity and earnings during a shift.
To pull this off, be sure to map out your route beforehand to maximize efficiency over multiple stops and simplify your delivery process without hurting your delivery times.
Spark Delivery Requirements
Some deliveries from Walmart require special handling or have specific requirements. You can check the order notes for those.
Most grocery delivery services require temperature control and extra care, especially when handling fresh produce and some food types like eggs.
Drivers usually use insulated cold storage units and bags to keep fresh and frozen foods at adequate temperatures for safety.
General merchandise items don’t require any special handling if they’re properly packed. Some electronics or household items should be packed with bubble wrap to guarantee safety.
