Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1476751
9 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 AUGUST 2022 which couriers could be able to make the most frequent kind of deliveries and in which area. "We don't have any specific al- gorithm that defines who gets what, except for one criterion, which is that the order from the restaurant always goes to the courier that is nearest to the res- taurant," Samadli says. A more recent addition to the algorithm was to introduce more group orders for couriers, especially in peak hours, allow- ing couriers to accept multiple orders from different restau- rants at the same time. Couri- ers located further away from a restaurant will be given an or- der to deliver depending on the cooking time. If a courier is 10 minutes away from the restau- rant, and the order is expected to be ready in 10 minutes, there is a good chance that this couri- er will be given the order instead of anyone nearer. Samadli adds that Bolt Food also has a compensation scheme whereby couriers get paid for waiting times. "There is an au- tomated process in place where, for example, a courier waits for a specific number of minutes, and the system automatically adds additional compensation to the couriers' earning balance," a process he says, that used to be carried out manually, but only became automatic recently to avoid human error in the way couriers get paid. Bonus payments Payment per delivery varies, depending on the time of the de- livery and the distance covered to deliver the food. Couriers get paid 40c for each kilometre trav- elled, while the bonus for carry- ing out a delivery ranges from 25c at lunchtime hours, to €1.60 between 7pm and 9pm. Beyond this payment struc- ture, couriers receive bonus pay- ments depending on the time of the delivery. At off-peak hours, this bonus can be as low as 25c, while peak hours offer delivery bonuses of around €1.60. Fair compensation has be- come a strong point of con- tention for couriers in Malta. Bonus payments change every day, depending on demand and supply, but couriers have felt an average decline in these bonus payments in recent months. On peak hours, delivery bonuses can climb upwards of €2, dip- ping below 50c on off-peak days like Saturday. Samadli is straightforward in saying that these bonuses are actually "market-correcting mechanisms" that are used to incentivise couriers to carry out more orders when demand is at its highest, outstripping the sup- ply of couriers available. Once again, it is left to the cou- rier – practically self-employed yet severed from the forces that warrant his service – to decide whether to carry out more de- liveries to obtain the bonuses to supplement the travel-delivery pay. By way of example, Samad- li explains that, hypothetically, should there be 10 online cou- riers – the supply – effecting 10 individual deliveries – the demand – then the market is at equilibrium, and there's no need for a bonus to incentivise anyone. But if there are 50 deliv- eries to be made at peak hours, with just 10 couriers to carry them out, a bonus is needed to have more couriers available to carry out the deliveries. "When we see that supply and demand are balanced, we don't need to introduce this bonus because everything basically runs itself in a way that it's efficient. When there is no demand but more supply, it could play against the market dynamics," he said. Whether this means that an over-supply of couriers pushes down the bonus rate, is left up to the 'marketplace' to sort out. Bolt Food's is a hands-off ap- proach to the courier system: the digital platform will not stop people from entering the couri- er game, even if there is excess supply to demand. "We cannot impose any limitations and con- trols on the supply side, so it's better for us to focus our energy towards increasing the demand as this creates a more competi- tive market." Courier strike But when couriers went on strike a few weeks ago, their key demand was simple: increase the bonus payments. At first, Bolt Food promised to "opti- mise its pricing mechanism" in reaction to the strike. Eventual- ly, it said that it will not change its earnings formula, including its bonus mechanisms. The only thing Bolt Food com- mitted itself to doing is to give more opportunities to couriers to increase their overall earn- ings, such as by introducing grouped orders: read, deliver more. This, Samadli explains, is what was meant by "optimising the pricing mechanism". Indeed, Samadli makes it very clear that Bolt Food will not raise these bonus payments for couriers. The only thing that would increase the bonus pay- ments is higher demand – a crude reality of the food deliv- ery phenomenon in Malta. Only with more people choosing not to cook (cheaper food) at home, and being enticed to have res- taurant food brought to their home at an efficient time (deliv- ery times under Bolt have oblit- erated past practices where piz- za places would prepare a batch of orders before delivering them at once), "It's a matter of reactionary changes. For example, when there was a lot of rain in Mal- ta, we knew that it was hard for our courier partners to deliver the food, and therefore we in- creased the earnings for the ex- tra effort they were showing," Samadli says an observation that brings to mind the viral videos of couriers on scooters wading through heavily flooded streets in Malta, trying to deliver their food orders despite the storm. And Samadli admits that this is a hard reality of the courier ex- perience. These delivery work- ers were suddenly incentivised to power through dangerous weather conditions in the name of demand and supply. Samadli says that in such cases, if a restaurant is located far away from an urban centre, it can incur a temporary stop on de- liveries during storms to avoid putting couriers in unnecessary danger. The delivery radius shrinks during bad weather to avoid long travelling distances. Samadli insists that a delivery bonus during a thunderstorm is not intended on making anyone financially better or worse. "We know that, even if we suggest otherwise, there will be couri- er partners delivering anyways. We just want to make sure that the extra effort is appreciated." But Samadli says Bolt Food has not yet sat down with any indi- vidual couriers on the matter yet, and imply extends an inviti- ation to disillusioned couriers to send an email to the company's public address at malta-couri- er@bolt.eu. Threats of another strike do not even appear to phase Sam- adli. "We are already well aware of that some changes are caus- ing some unhappiness from the supply perspective, and we are basically open to discuss this." Samadli even says that no un- ions have approached Bolt Food about its employment model, and that employment authori- ties have reached out to inquire about working conditions and the platform's operations. Recently, the Malta Employ- ers' Association suggested that food couriers should be afforded more protection through a wage regulation order. It said many third country nationals operat- ing in this sector were doing so in an unregulated manner after government changed the rules to allow non-EU nationals to become self-employed during the pandemic. Samadli says the company is open to cooperating with au- thorities in developing policies to regulate the industry. "This is an industry that changes fast, and maybe authorities need some support in understanding where it's going," he says. "We are ready to sit around the table to discuss and provide our per- spective, even share some data, to support an understanding of the market." The simple fact of the Bolt success lies in the revolutionary power of the smartphone with its advanced technology apps allowing consumers to simply order anything they wish in minutes. Clearly, digital plat- form companies freed from the burden of also employing the couriers that effect deliveries, can easily concentrate on mak- ing consumers 'need' their apps even more. And Malta is an important market for Bolt, with Samadli saying that in the last years "a huge acceleration" took place in delivery services. The company wants to extend its food deliv- ery, ride-hailing, and e-scooter services, giving consumers more affordable prices and improved services. The main priority in the next years is to keep bring- ing on as many restaurants and service providers to the plat- form. "We are also constantly look- ing into some other possible op- portunities where we can maybe partner up with some restau- rants or with some companies to deliver even higher value proposition – not necessarily in the delivery sector, although it will be one of our high priorities, but it can be like joint partner- ship with many companies to give benefits, perks or even bet- ter prices for customers as well as our partners." "We have a good number of restaurants in Malta on the plat- form, but it's not enough. Ide- ally, this platform should be an extension of real life – everyone should be there." nmeilak@mediatoday.com.mt