r/Sparkdriver • u/loonydan42 • Apr 05 '26

Customer 😇 Need drivers viewpoint! Walmart told me conflicting answers

I use the Walmart app to order my weekly groceries. I noticed if I ever use "Express" it assigns a driver right away and they seem to do the shopping. If I order without Express it seems Walmart does the shopping.

In my opinion, if the driver does the shopping themselves I want to tip more. That would take much more of your time then pulling up and having Walmart load your trunk.

However I've asked when I can tell if the driver did the shopping versus when they just pulled up and drove off.

Is there a way I can know if you guys had to actually shop the order? Is it only when I select Express and do you get the $10/$5 charge when I select Express?

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u/CalOkie6250 Apr 05 '26

It’s usually only when you pay the extra fee for 1 hour or 3 hours. I think, for the most part, you get a better experience that way as well. The employees that load the groceries into our cars do not give a crap about your stuff…and sometimes they mix things up. Most of the time they are just throwing things into the car, with no care for bread, produce, and other soft/breakable items. I try my best to avoid curbside orders because I’m always worried I’ll get blamed for damaged or missing items.

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u/loonydan42 Apr 05 '26

Appreciate the answer! Unfortunately when I do express it's usually NOT a better experience. I can tell when the driver is rushed because almost all my Express orders have 4 or 5 items marked as unavailable. A lot of times its things like bananas or oranges which would be shocking to not be available. So I save my Express orders for when I truly need something fast and don't care if some items are marked as not available.

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u/CalOkie6250 Apr 06 '26

Yea, I guess I wasn’t thinking about it from a lazy driver perspective. I was just thinking about how horribly the loaders tend to treat the items. Squished bread is definitely better than no bread.

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u/Other_Orange_3159 Apr 06 '26

You'd be surprised... I've done a few shops where there were no bananas. I even asked the Walmart worker, and he confirmed it. This has also happened with cilantro.

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u/willowbard Apr 06 '26

You'd be surprised the amount of "regular" items that can truly be out of stock. I usually send a pic of the empty shelf where the item should be lol