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Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

bloomberg.com

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Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#331

Post by piffey »

Glyptodon wrote: post #101
jonlucc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's another problem with this. I recently was rear-ended while I was stopped at an intersection, and the second question my insurance company asked me is if the car was being used for commercial (ride-sharing) services then or at any time. I wasn't, but I assume this kind of delivery would be commercial use, and the cost to add this to your insurance would be way too expensive to make it worth it for the…

I assume Walmart's going to have to carry car insurance for deliveries. It doesn't seem like there's any reasonable way they'd be able to "contractor loophole" it.

If they follow their usual model they'll probably find some way to offload the cost onto taxpayers.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#332

Post by __jal »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #305
__jal wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are attempting to recast the question to looking at median subsistence-rates worldwide. The Walmart workers we are discussing work in communities in the U.S. Certainly, some folks in the world survive on $1/day. That doesn't work in the U.S. We know that Walmart wages are insufficient alone, because workers there tell us that they need, for instance, SNAP to feed their kids. Thus SNAP is, in part, now a subsidy t…

The point of this discussion is to shine a light on how ignorant the OP's question was. The original question was whether a person could live off $40/day. But that's not what OP really meant was it? What they meant to ask was whether or not a person could live OP's approximate standard of living on $40/day. And the answer to that is obviously not. If you make more than $34k/yr you're in the global 1%. Virtually no on…

> SNAP is a subsidy for every industry that sells products that people on SNAP might purchase

You're missing my point. SNAP is a direct subsidy to Walmart not because they sell food, but because many of their workers cannot live where they live without being enrolled in SNAP due to the low pay.

SNAP subsidizes Walmart by supplementing workers' paychecks.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#333

Post by mahyarm »

rectang wrote: post #132
Glyptodon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume Walmart's going to have to carry car insurance for deliveries. It doesn't seem like there's any reasonable way they'd be able to "contractor loophole" it.

Per the TechCrunch article, workers need to submit proof-of-insurance to participate. The wear-and-tear is going on employee vehicles rather than company vehicles, the additional distance they travel will increase their personal insurance rates, and as with rideshare they will need to pay additional riders on their policies. (If they don't have the riders their policies will be canceled as soon as they make a claim!)…

A lot of rideshare / delivery companies include insurance as part of their service fee while you are delivering / driving people. I would assume walmart would do something similar.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#334

Post by xenadu02 »

baby_wipe wrote: post #323
rectang wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. The difference between the two parties is information asymmetry, not intelligence. Walmart is organized and concentrated and can bring to bear entire departments of lawyers and analysts. It gets to repeat the transaction N times and amortize its costs across all the transactions. The individual workers do not have such resources and are not uni…

If Walmart really is taking advantage of its workers, then why doesn't another company come in and offer better terms? Are you claiming Walmart has monopsony power over low-wage workers?

Various firms do, both large and small, but it is extremely difficult to compete across so many fronts without a massive amount of capital (logistics, distribution, negotiations with manufacturers, real estate, marketing, product development, etc).

The return on investment for such a massive deployment of capital isn't huge and Walmart could adopt your strategies at any time, undercutting your value proposition. I'm also 100% certain there is a lot more collusion going on but with CEOs smart enough not to write it down in an email.

That said, a tightening labor market is forcing Walmart and other competitors to slowly raise pay.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#335

Post by TallGuyShort »

gozur88 wrote: post #265
rectang wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the TechCrunch article, workers need to submit proof-of-insurance to participate. The wear-and-tear is going on employee vehicles rather than company vehicles, the additional distance they travel will increase their personal insurance rates, and as with rideshare they will need to pay additional riders on their policies. (If they don't have the riders their policies will be canceled as soon as they make a claim!)…

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

Ask yourself if you think you're stupid, then read the entirety of the agreement for your car insurance (or any insurance, for that matter), and then ask yourself if you think you're stupid.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#336

Post by jlarocco »

sokoloff wrote: post #328
jlarocco wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the OP was being patronizing. One alternative to this program would be to buy each store a Fedex style van (or a few) and have a few dedicated drivers make deliveries all day. Once you think about that for a few minutes, you start to see all of the costs that they're offloading to employees. Not just insurance, but also vehicle maintenance, gas, etc. I'm sure Walmart has done a ton of cost/benefit analys…

If the delivery is on the employee's typical route home, this could be a win for both the employee and for Walmart (and a minuscule reduction in overall traffic and miles driven). That's not at all the case of Walmart buying a Sprinter van and driving it around all day on routes that weren't naturally being covered.

You've completely missed my point. No doubt it's favorable to Walmart - they've had a team of people running the numbers and they get to set the rules.

The question is whether or not it's actually favorable to employees and whether or not Walmart will inform them of the costs they'll be responsible for. "Here's $10 to deliver this" sounds great until you realize it's $5 in gas, your insurance is going up $50 a month, and your car will wear out a year faster.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#337

Post by analog31 »

gozur88 wrote: post #265
rectang wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the TechCrunch article, workers need to submit proof-of-insurance to participate. The wear-and-tear is going on employee vehicles rather than company vehicles, the additional distance they travel will increase their personal insurance rates, and as with rideshare they will need to pay additional riders on their policies. (If they don't have the riders their policies will be canceled as soon as they make a claim!)…

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart.

Maybe it could have been worded differently, but I interpreted it as being that the workers would have a hard time computing the totality of their costs, not that they are of particularly low intelligence. I suspect most people in the US don't know how to work out the financials on this deal.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#339

Post by dlubarov »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #327
dlubarov wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, UPS truck routes almost never include a left turn). Apparently UPS trucks get around 10 mpg [1]. Not many consumer vehicles are that inefficient. I'd be surprised if UPS's ORION is better at route optimization than a consumer app l…

The no-left-turns rule isn't crude, it's an incredibly valuable (and incredibly obvious) optimization. A mapping service that tells me to turn left in downtown San Francisco at rush hour is literally worse than useless. In many cases, if I follow its directions blindly, not only will I be delayed, I'll delay the traffic around me. It's mind-boggling that Google, Apple, and other consumer-grade routing providers haven…

It's crude because it's too general. Making three right turns might be the right choice on a busy street in SF, but on a side street in a quiet suburb, making a single left is normally the better choice.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#340

Post by codedokode »

baby_wipe wrote: post #323
rectang wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. The difference between the two parties is information asymmetry, not intelligence. Walmart is organized and concentrated and can bring to bear entire departments of lawyers and analysts. It gets to repeat the transaction N times and amortize its costs across all the transactions. The individual workers do not have such resources and are not uni…

If Walmart really is taking advantage of its workers, then why doesn't another company come in and offer better terms? Are you claiming Walmart has monopsony power over low-wage workers?

Whys should other companies offer better terms? There is enough unqualified workers everywhere so there is no need to compete for them.
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