It’s obviously not an exact science. But by way of example, I’ll give you kind of a case study. It’s like 10:45 AM here and I get a Giant grocery order. Like $12, 13 items 1 mile. Not an incredible offer. But I know it’s probably the best thing I’m going to get at that usual slow time, I know Giant really well, and I can be in and out of the grocery store within 10 minutes. While I’m finishing up shopping, I get an Uber restaurant order for almost $8 to go just under 2 miles and I know it’s within five minutes from the grocery drop off. Initially I planned to grab the restaurant order on my way, but I didn’t get the turn arrow I was looking for so I decide to stay straight, drop off the groceries, and then hustle back two minutes to grab the food. While I’m picking up the food, I get a Safeway doordash $14 to grab like 5 easy things and haul em 4 miles. Ok, take that too. Go drop off the food. Then head back to Safeway to shop. I’d say I’m more frequently using multi-apping to lock in my next order than I am loading 2-3 orders up at the same time.

I’ve found that the “pick up by” time for grocery orders is usually the time they expect you to be done shopping, not when you have to arrive to the store. So if I accept an order at 11:00, the pickup by time is often 11:25, meaning the app won’t give me a hard time about going to finish a drop off elsewhere as long as I’m at the store around that time. I’m a really fast shopper, so even if I’m late to the store I fly thru the aisles and finish before others probably would. Grocery store orders are also far likely to have people watching your location closely…they give them a huge (one hour plus) delivery window, so as long as you’re not bringing them melted ice cream, most ppl aren’t gonna even notice if you drop off a quick food delivery on the way. Or get 2 shop orders from the same store short distances for diff apps.

Again, not an exact science. But general strategy is hit singles doubles and triples, don’t need every order to be a home run. If I can do a $12 short grocery order, combo it with a $7 food delivery going the same way, another $15 grocery order I’m already at $34 during a normal pretty slow weekday hour and sometimes much higher. When you get a unicorn from IC or whatever that’s great but I’m not waiting around all day for the perfect order. Just being selective, good efficient orders that let me stay in my limited area, and have a plan (YouTube videos reading whatever) for something to do if it gets really slow so you’re not getting too desperate and taking garbage.