DoorDash: Gear Check No. 1

Even before I started delivering for DoorDash, I was already thinking about gear. Four deliveries into my app-based delivery career, now I’m thinking a lot harder about it.

“Hot bag”

After your first DoorDash delivery, they promise to send you a free “hot bag.” I have no idea what this object is or will look like, but it certainly would be nice to have a sealed, waterproof bag to carry deliveries around in, since I’m currently using cloth tote bags.

Bike lock

The entire foundation of my app-based delivery experiment is my free access to micromobility services like scooters and ebikes. But as I found out on my very first delivery, freedom isn’t free: when I parked my ebike to wait for an order to arrive, someone reserved it literally out from under me, leaving me scrambling for a backup scooter.

What I need is an additional bike lock, so I can keep access to ebikes even when I head into restaurants for pickups or apartment buildings for deliveries.

Bike gloves

This is another object I simply hadn’t expect to need: it turns out holding onto handlebars for an hour or two a day really takes a toll on your palms and fingers! I’ve got a few solid blisters already coming in, which hopefully a decent pair of bike gloves will keep to a minimum going forward.

Drink holders

Of the four deliveries I’ve completed so far, only one customer has had the fierce urgency to order a fountain drink, and to my credit, I got her fountain drink to her intact, but it was a close-run thing.

I expected “odd-shaped” food items (pizzas, legs of lamb, things of that nature) to be the biggest delivery problem, but I quickly realized finding a way to keep beverages upright is going to be a much more immediate priority. Until my “hot bag” gets here I’ll plan to bring homemade cardboard dividers with me, but I’m going to need to find a permanent solution soon if people are going to keep asking me to haul around gallons of soda every day.

Conclusion

App-based delivery workers who use cars obviously have more flexibility in terms of the kinds of equipment they can carry around: coolers for cold drinks, insulated bags for hot food, pizza bags for flat food, etc. But when you’re operating exclusively with bikes and scooters, you don’t have all those options, so I’m going to need to build out a set of equipment that will meet all my needs, without taking up any more space that absolutely necessary — even (or especially) if that means missing out on a pizza delivery every now and then.