Source Every day, hundreds of Wildberries auto couriers leave the roads of Russian cities. They were lured to work with decent earnings, but in reality they receive a penny, they are fined and intrigued by them. One day in the life of a Vologda courier
“The whole road is dead, and the last 60 kilometers are generally porridge, sand and water,” Wildberries Go courier Masha is indignant. “Looks like I might just get stuck, but there is no connection here and not a soul on the road. Loaded from 3:30 at night, on the way from 6:00. It's now 13:00 and I haven't arrived yet. For this adventure I will receive a little more than 3000 rubles. It has already taken 5000 for gasoline (I have a crossover), the same amount is back. I killed the car, time, effort, and in terms of money in a big minus. How is this to be understood?
At night, Masha loaded up in Vologda. She had to take 30 boxes to the point of issue of orders (PVZ), located in the village of Luza, Kirov region. There are about 530 kilometers between settlements. She expected to earn money, but halfway through she realized that she had been deceived.
In response, the dispatcher asked for the order number and fell silent – stepped back from solving the problem. And at least she was the only one!
— I have been working in the company since July of this year, — Masha shares with Life. – During this time, I didn’t see anything – strikes, brawls. Every month it only gets worse, the management constantly introduces new rules. Recently they introduced “responsibility for defects”, that is, if I deliver an expensive defective (not my fault) goods, then a fine will be imposed not only on the storekeepers, but also on the courier. I'm already thinking of quitting.
A closed world of delivery people
Auto courier is one of the professions in demand today. In order to become one, you need not so much: a driver's license and a car (sometimes not even your own – by proxy). There are no special requirements, such as, for example, for professional drivers, for deliveries. Due to the fact that such activities are not regulated or regulated by the state in any way, the owners of courier companies have recently taken advantage of their position by prescribing convenient rules for the work of employees.
For example, within each delivery service, a class of privileged couriers is formed who have managed to establish good relations “with the elders.” They get the shortest routes and the biggest orders. For trying to enter busy lanes, newcomers can simply be beaten.
Another factor in successful work is dispatchers, these routes are components. It depends on them whether the courier will ride around the immediate vicinity with a maximum of orders or go hundreds of kilometers along lousy roads or even off-road. If the dispatcher is biased towards one of the drivers, the delivery man may well start working in the red. Therefore, couriers prefer at least not to quarrel with them.
Fines are imposed for a variety of reasons – sometimes for broken goods, and sometimes, it seems, from the bullshit: in this way, company managers can outweigh their shortage on ordinary drivers .
– My friend works in a warehouse, they recently deducted 20 thousand from his salary, they say, for some offense in September. And it’s not clear why at all: there is no evidence, there is no camera recording for September either, says Masha, a Wildberries Go courier.
Only they will allow the courier to take the maximum amount of goods and spend less money on car repairs: it will definitely happen after a couple of months of work.
How Wildberries Go does not make money
Life correspondents got a job at Wildberries Go by installing a proprietary application on a mobile phone and registering in the system. An ordinary passenger car was indicated as a working vehicle. The very first attempt to get an order at the Krasnogorsk distribution center was in vain. In one of the messengers, a certain dispatcher Chyngyz wrote to the couriers, saying that he would place the order only if a minibus or truck entered the route. It was not possible to speak with Chyngyz on the phone, the man, in his own words, works not in Russia, but in Kyrgyzstan.
The same picture was waiting in the distribution center located in the Moscow district of Tekstilshchiki. Here, the correspondent from Life was also advised not to waste time looking for orders without a truck.
“Take some Gazelle and that’s enough,” one of the drivers wrote in the general chat. – I took, say, 50 boxes – and by the evening I had earned five thousand, for two flights – already nine thousand. But you need another cart. There are different [delivery points], some have a barrier – you will need to carry boxes.
An experienced delivery man advised to take care of the goods, as the company shifts the payment for broken or defective items to the driver, and also warned about ” thieves” couriers who divided the most profitable routes.
Despite the fact that the routes are fixed, in Tekstilshchiki we managed to take four boxes – this is the maximum of what fit into the passenger car. It took about three hours to deliver the goods due to the incorrect operation of the application. Addresses were inaccurate in it, and each time I had to circle around the neighborhood. The income of a three-hour trip: a little more than 400 rubles. Minus fuel and lubricants and car depreciation. Sparsely.
From this experiment, Life also found out that the price of delivery varies from region to region. If in Moscow they pay 100 rubles per box, then in the region the price is already lower. In Lobnya, near Moscow, couriers from Life earned only 381 rubles for delivering four boxes, but, however, in less time they spent only an hour and a half.
How car couriers work in Moscow
Apart from Wildberries Go, there are dozens of companies in Moscow that deliver goods from online stores, and their work is also far from sugar.
— It just seems that in Moscow the roads are good everywhere. Try to ride around the courtyards of the city outskirts – you can leave the wheels in the pits for once, – in a conversation with Life, the courier Sergey is angry. – After the first month of work, I got to repair the suspension. Then, in one of the yards, handing back, he combed the starboard side with a metal rod sticking out of the ground. Somewhere struck a bumper. In general, everything that I earned in two months I spent on repairs.
Life’s interlocutor was forced into the delivery of goods: just before the 2020 pandemic, he lost his job. When quarantine was introduced, the work of a car courier meant both some kind of income and a legal way to move around Moscow. The property was an old Mazda-3, so Sergey, without thinking twice, got a job transporting boxes to one of the small logistics companies operating within the metropolitan region. in order not to lose several hours in the queue for loading, you need to arrive at the warehouse long before the start of its work, by five or six in the morning.
Drivers arriving at the loading point are marked in the list. At the same time, storekeepers do not always adhere to it, they often start with thieves. At this time, dozens of people are waiting for delivery: they smoke, they drink coffee from vending machines. The long wait is exhausting, everyone gets nervous, sometimes fights happen because of the priority.After the car is clogged to the eyeballs, there is a whole day of trips ahead along the route issued by the dispatcher. Worst of all, when it runs through the area with Khrushchevs without elevators. Many residents of the upper floors of shopping trips prefer to order food, water and household chemicals on the Internet and receive boxes at the doorstep of their apartment. At the same time, surcharges for lifting weights on foot up the stairs are usually not provided.
– It's not very cool to drive around elite LCDs. Often it is impossible to park at the entrance due to the closed territory of the complexes. You have to look for parking somewhere on the street, and it will not always be near the address. If there are several boxes and they are also heavy, you have to make several walks from the car to the apartment and waste time, – the interlocutor complains. — For such cases, I even got a two-wheeled cart, in the car I keep it between the seats of the first and second rows.
Time for a courier is a valuable resource, because earnings are accrued for the number of deliveries. You spend more time with one client – you will have time to go around fewer points. And those who have not waited for orders may complain – in this case, a fine is inevitable. Therefore, many couriers do not even waste time for lunch, they have a snack right at the wheel.
– Tipping is given, but a little and infrequently. As a rule, they put 50-100 rubles, who are poorer, sometimes they treat them with sweets. I never got more than 300 rubles a day, but girls are more willing to pay – they sometimes get up to a thousand rubles a day.
moneybags living in luxurious residential complexes in the south-west of Moscow, in which, it happens, there is only one apartment on one floor. You will never get a tip from them,” Sergey says.
Compensatory expenses for couriers – for gasoline and mobile communications – are provided for by many courier companies, but they still do not fully cover the costs. Also, traffic police and MADI fines are usually not paid, including for improper parking while waiting for loading at the warehouse gate.
Couriers also have hazing
It is especially difficult for beginners: after a brief briefing, which usually no one immediately learns, new deliveries are put on the line and with all procedures such as issuing a waybill, receiving goods, final daily reporting, they are left alone. None of the delivery aksakals have the time or desire to prompt and explain – this is where internal competition comes into play. Despite the fact that certain areas are not officially assigned to couriers, in fact, dispatchers work in close conjunction with the old-timers of the company, the source complains.
A good route is, firstly, the areas adjacent to the warehouse, secondly, areas with good transport infrastructure, with the ability to drive directly under the entrance. And – importantly – areas with a solvent population: the middle class is more willing to pay tips.
As a result, the best routes always go to those deliveries who came to work at the time the company was opened, the rest go to break the suspension in illiquid areas. And in the regions this problem is much deeper.
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