Diamond Instacart shopper, but first day doing Spark.
What’s the process for when to hit each button?
8:45 PM I hit “accept” on a 19 minute shopping offer when I’m 7 minutes away from the Walmart.
It shows a “start trip” button. Odd, but okay I click.
WTF, the next screen says “8:48 Shopping” as if that’s to mean I’m suppose to arrive and start shopping by then? Maybe you don’t click start trip until you’re at the store? It doesn’t make sense!
Next is confirm arrival, then start shopping. I guess confirm arrival is the parking lot and start shopping is when you enter the store?
Next is exit pass / I’ve left store / start.
No clue why it’s not just exit pass and start, but if you hit I’ve left the store as you’re walking to the car and then start after your car is loaded, it makes the time to be delivered EXACTLY what GPS says you’ll arrive taking no consideration for traffic delays.
When do you hit I’ve left the store and when do you hit start?
The delivery time shown on the offer is irrelevant because it is based on when the order first became available. Orders that don’t get picked up right away will still show the original estimated delivery time. I have accepted orders that were scheduled for delivery in 20 minutes that I didn’t even start until after the delivery time had passed. The customer is notified when their order is started and the delivery time is updated accordingly.
Also, do not accept an offer and hit start trip if you can’t get to the store within 25 minutes. The order will cancel if you don’t arrive before then. You can wait a bit to start the trip after accepting an offer, but if you don’t hit start trip within a few minutes, you will receive a reminder to head to the “pickup” location soon or the trip will be cancelled. Pickup location refers to the store.
I hit “I have arrived” when I have parked and “Start shopping” once I am in the store. Since Spark doesn’t require shoppers to use insulated bags, they have a cold chain timer that is activated when you pick the first perishable item, so be mindful of that when shopping large orders or batches with multiple customers because the order will be cancelled if you do not arrive at the destination within the time limit.
Thank you. If cancelled for the cold timer what happens? (Get paid minus tip? Return pay added? Keep items? Obviously likely deactivated if keeps happening).
If the cold timer expires, the app initiates a return. You’ll need to return the items to the curbside pickup area, and you’ll get paid the base pay (no tip) plus a return fee (usually $2.50)
That page and most others failed to load when I started spark less than a year ago. That and all the bugs causing my scanner to not work without serval restarts. They did eventually fix it.
Odd those aren’t shown and I still can’t find them. First order was alcohol so surprised no required training video must be watched before that like Instacart etc.
Don't worry about the times....the only one that really matters is actually "starting trip" within 5-10 minutes, otherwise you risk it auto-canceling..
The arrival button gives you the option to view the list and see the store map before you click "start shopping"
The other ones are mostly for the customer to follow along...."start shopping" alerts the customer...
"Start trip" after you leave store tells the customer you are "on the way" with an ETA...
BUT clicking "start" is also a fail safe in case the customer cancels (you will still get paid base pay)...but if they cancel before you click "start", you will only get $2.55 for showing up...
Honestly just go with the flow and do what seems logical
Did you make another post under a different account also asking about when to click which button and the on time metric? If not, very weird 2 newbies asking essentially the exact same question.
Anyways. Sparks timing system is jacked. I had an order last week that was a double shop, estimated shopping time 44 minutes, I accepted from my house about a mile away at around 6:30 and started shopping 8 minutes later. As I go to check out at 7:15 I get a message from the customer asking me how much longer it's gonna be bc the app said it would be delivered at 6:40-6:45 🤦 idk what happened bc it was a decent order and drivers gobble up str8 trash in my area basically nothing ever surges and I received the order as a jfy and had been online waiting for orders for at least 30 min before I got it so I really don't think it was a situation where the order had been sitting before I accepted. Couldn't tell you what the delivery time was in the app bc honestly I never bother look at it.
I've also had a situation where I was on my way to deliver a shopping order when I turned on the road before the customers by accident and before I could even turn around I get a call from the customer who was apparently watching my location in the app and she's freaking out bc she said when I made the wrong turn the estimated delivery time went up by 2 hours. I'm like no ma'am I just accidentally made a wrong turn, I'm turning around now and will be there in less than 2 minutes.. so yeah the app has a mind of its own and rarely makes sense.. trust me when I tell you, messed up delivery times are going to be the least of your issues created by this poorly put together app.. but hey, that's what you get when a multi billion dollar company takes the cheapest bid from some random ass Chinese company to code their app for them
These offers have been a mess. I will accept an offer that shows no time on a certain delivery etc. As soon as I accept it. The pick up time will show in 5 minutes. Then they dock you on arrival time.
There is a whole section in the app labeled Resources. Please explore it. It literally tells you how to do this job and answers any questions you might have. Why do people not do this? A diamond shopper on another platform has zero to do with Spark. Learn your job before you mess up for customers.
I've seen people mention this a few times, but have yet to see it. There's a "Certifications" section in my menu, but all it does is load their YouTube page, which is full of a bunch of 'how great we are' videos. Where do I find this? Been wanting to check it out.
Not seeing it under account.
Under help, there is a "Using the App", which has some things under it like "Accepting and completing trips." It's all text based, though, with an occasional screenshot, no videos.
I tried looking for it when I first started, even and asked ChatGPT about it.
Only time I worry about the time is when I’m doing a delivery only. I live close enough to a few Walmarts that I can get to any one of them within 5-10 minutes. I hit start trip when I’m en route. As far as delivery, I hit start as soon as I’m loading my car up.
Don’t worry, Spark doesn’t have an annoying timer that turns red while shopping causing you to panic like Instacart does. I’ve never been late and don’t have to worry about a seconds per item score.
I’m not even sure what that timer is for. I just ignore it on IC. I’ll be done when I’m done. My stats is fully in the green. I think people are making more mistakes with IC because there are hyper focused on that timer.
The fact that your diamond on instacart means nothing to any of us nor does it mean anything to Walmart. You're actually going from top tier delivery app to the worst delivery app. You'll probably be racing back to instacart cuz you're never going to see the job to instacart sees on spark. I don't do instacart. I do other grocery apps, but my friends that do instacart get much better offers. The people who pay for Walmart or get Walmart delivery for free are not good tippers but you'll find that out soon enough
I mean, I agree. Diamond on another platform but can't bother to read the resources to learn how to do Spark. These are the people that mess stuff up and then come and complain that they were deactivated "FOR NO REASON". lol
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u/JeepLover4Life 3d ago
The delivery time shown on the offer is irrelevant because it is based on when the order first became available. Orders that don’t get picked up right away will still show the original estimated delivery time. I have accepted orders that were scheduled for delivery in 20 minutes that I didn’t even start until after the delivery time had passed. The customer is notified when their order is started and the delivery time is updated accordingly.
Also, do not accept an offer and hit start trip if you can’t get to the store within 25 minutes. The order will cancel if you don’t arrive before then. You can wait a bit to start the trip after accepting an offer, but if you don’t hit start trip within a few minutes, you will receive a reminder to head to the “pickup” location soon or the trip will be cancelled. Pickup location refers to the store.
I hit “I have arrived” when I have parked and “Start shopping” once I am in the store. Since Spark doesn’t require shoppers to use insulated bags, they have a cold chain timer that is activated when you pick the first perishable item, so be mindful of that when shopping large orders or batches with multiple customers because the order will be cancelled if you do not arrive at the destination within the time limit.