A new feature in Walmart’s Spark app is slowing the chain’s delivery efforts, workers say.
The Spark delivery workers told Business Insider that Walmart’s app has changed a feature that helps them map out their trip around the store to pick up items. Instead of providing a set route that made the best use of a shopper’s time, as the app used to do, the Spark app now tracks the worker’s location in the store and rearranges the list of items based on their proximity.
Four Spark drivers said the feature is slowing them down. In some instances, it also prompted them to pick up items at risk of melting, such as frozen TV dinners and bags of ice, at the start of their shopping trip rather than the end.
“I frequently get anxiety checking my lists every day, making sure I’m not running around needlessly back and forth, wasting my time and the customer’s time,” one Spark worker said.
Wasting time can affect Spark workers’ income, as they are paid per delivery rather than per hour. It could also have implications for Walmart, which has ramped up competition lately with Amazon to deliver fresh groceries to customers’ homes in hours or minutes.
“We work to continuously improve the experience for shoppers and drivers on the Spark Driver Platform by introducing features that help Spark Shoppers navigate stores more efficiently and locate items more easily,” a Walmart spokesperson told Business Insider.
The spokesperson also said the company’s grocery operations “follow applicable food safety regulations and have processes in place to help maintain the cold chain throughout the shopping and delivery experience.”
Melting lasagna and wasted time
The mapping feature, called Smart Path in the Spark app, often prompts Spark workers to pick fresh or frozen items early in the shopping trip, two of the Spark drivers said.
In one case, Smart Path suggested picking up a large frozen lasagna as one of the first few items, the Spark driver who worried about wasting time said.
“It did not thaw out as I was very quick with everything else, but that very well could have not been the case with, say, a new shopper,” the Spark worker said.
On other shopping trips, the app has recommended picking up bags of ice as soon as the worker walked into the store — “a very bad idea,” the Spark worker said.
On Reddit, some posts include screenshots of the app telling Spark workers to pick frozen items first in orders that contain a dozen or more items. Other Reddit users said the shifting list of items makes it harder to efficiently fill orders.
A Spark worker based in Tennessee said that the app’s instructions often send her across the Walmart store where she shops multiple times to fill a single order.
The mapping system breaks the store down into sectors, each marked with a letter and a number. The Spark app tells delivery workers which sector each item is located in.
Often, though, items are located somewhere else, the Spark worker in Tennessee said. The worker said she shopped in early July for an order for a seeded watermelon and used the pathing feature to find it.
“But when I get there, all the watermelons in the display are seedless,” the worker said.
Following the new Smart Path feature requires “extra time and energy I could be spending on the next order,” the worker said.
Spark drivers work around the pathing tool
The Spark workers Business Insider spoke with said they have found ways to work around the new system’s flaws.
Some delivery workers said they know their local Walmart stores well enough to navigate them while ignoring the pathing feature.
“I tried their way, but the app was sending me back and forth through the whole store,” one Spark worker in Florida said. Now, he said, “I follow my own path.”
Others said they’ve been sticking to delivering orders that Walmart employees have already prepared. Spark allows gig workers to choose between orders prepackaged by store workers and those they need to gather themselves at a Walmart store. The latter generally pays more.
A Spark worker in Indiana found another hack: He said that he’s been focusing on delivering Spark orders from Sam’s Club, which doesn’t use the latest pathing feature.
“Thank goodness Sam’s Club still has the previous version,” he said.
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