Do you have to use your Doordash hotbag?

When becoming a Doordash driver, one of the first things that we receive from Doordash is a red insulated tote hot bag with the Doordash logo on it. This little red hot bag is to be used to keep Doordash customer's food nice and hot, and the insulation will even keep cold foods nice and cool.

The standard warmer bag is 13X10X15 inches and comes with a carrying handle. Some dashers use their red bags consistently while others never use their warmer bag.

Do Dashers have to use their hotbag?

When I originally wrote this post, I had said that as independent contractors, Dashers did not have to carry their warmer bags. I still stand by that statement, but since then Doordash has made some changes to their terms of service agreement that all should be aware of. I'm not going to lie, this change flew over my head. This is why we all have to be careful whenever there are changes to the TOS, deactivation policy or any other legal lingo.

 

Under the Doordash deactivation policy, under "Abusing the Platform," you will find that Doordash added:

 

Tampering with deliveries or failing to maintain standards of food safety - Opening, using, consuming, or tampering with a delivery or customer order; failing to use an insulated hot bag to safely transport deliveries.

 

You read that right! Failing to use an insulated hot bag is a valid reason for Doordash to deactivate your account! Good thing they don't have cameras on all of us because they would probably have to deactivate 80 percent of Dashers.

 

Please know that I am not against using a hotbag. In fact, I usually have it in my car, but I never carry it out to the restaurant or the customer. Do I always use my hotbag? Nope. There have been long streaks (months) where I didn't have my hotbag with me in my car for various reasons.

 

I know Doordash is saying that they can deactivate you if you don't use your hotbag, but I would never worry about that. In fact, I'm sure most veteran Dashers don't worry about it. New Dashers may read this stuff in the deactivation policy and be scared of getting deactivated for not using their hot-bag, and I think that was the intention of Doordash.

 

I'll say it one more time. Dashers do not need to use their hotbag. Dashers are independent contractors and work for themselves. Employers control their employees and direct how business is conducted. Doordash does not control how Dashers run their business.

 

Sure, they put this in their deactivation policy, but they really should be careful or else they are going to have another lawsuit against them when they deactivate the wrong person for not using a hotbag. Do they even care? They've had so many lawsuits against them for various reasons throughout the years and have had to pay out so much money because of all these lawsuits it makes you wonder. You would think they would have learned by now.

 

We have to be truthful her though, if a dasher wants to decrease their chance of getting a negative feedback because a customer's steak was cold, they may want to consider using their warmer bag. It is a good thing!

 

No Doordash customer wants to receive their food cold. If they do, it will be the first thing that they notice. Can you imagine your cheeseburger and fries arriving completely cold. Sure, if a customer has access to a microwave they can heat it up, but really that is besides the point. Customer's want to receive their food nice and hot.

Is it good to use the Doordash hotbag?

It's always better to be safe than sorry. Keeping food warm that was intended to be eaten warm is always a good thing, and you can't go wrong with the customer if they receive their food just as they expected. Just remember that it could never be a bad thing to use the hot bag. Again though, it's always a dasher's choice whether they want to use their insulated hot bag or not.

Do I have to walk into a restaurant with my Doordash hotbag?

Of course you don't. Keep in mind though that there are some restaurants that will try to make it mandatory that driver's picking up their food must have their hotbag. This is not very common, but if you dash long enough you are certain to run into at least a few merchants like this.

In all my years of dashing, I was only denied a pick up one time for this. The merchant said that I could not pick up the food without my hotbag. I didn't have it so I just canceled the order and promised myself that I would never pick up from that merchant again. I felt sorry for the customer though because it would be a while for them to receive their food, but that was out of my control.

Please keep in mind that under Doordash policy, merchants may require all dashers to have an insulated bag during their deliveries. There is never a point in arguing with a merchant over this. The hotbag that you use does not have to be an official Doordash hotbag. Any hot bag will do. 

There have been a few other instances where the merchant has asked me about my hotbag. I would just reply and tell them that I had my hotbag in my car. Nobody ever questioned me anymore about it, and if they did that would have been the end of that call. I would never go out to my car to get the hot bag to show it to them. They are not dealing with a kid here. In these instances, after telling them my hotbag is in the car, they would give me the food, and I'd be on my way.

Do I have to walk up to a customer's door with the Doordash hotbag?

No, you do not. Many dashers that are very keen on making sure that their customer's food is nice and hot will certainly want to make sure that their customers know the effort they are putting in. If a Doordash customer sees a dasher walking up with the red bag many of them will appreciate it. The thinking here is that this of course should lead to overall better ratings.

If I lose my Doordash insulated bag can I get another one?

Doordash offers back up insulated bags for their dashers. Unlike the first hotbag though, it will have to be paid for. You can find this offer if you go on over to the official Doordash website.

If you are in a hurry to get a new red insulated red bag, you can have one delivered to your front door in 1 day or 2 days if you order from Amazon. They have the official regular tote that Doordash gives away to new dashers, but they also have other hotbags that you may be interested in. I personally use a much bigger hot bag than the one Doordash gives away. I'll explain to you why in a minute.

How often does this dasher use the Doordash insulated warmer bag?

I would be lying if I said that I was your dedicated use your red bag type of guy. In fact, half the time I don't use any hotbag. Sometimes, I don't even have it with me. When I do use the hotbag, I never carry it into the restaurant or even up to the customer's door. Why? I don't feel the need to. 

The hot bag that I use is not the regular 13X10X15 one that doordash gives you. To me, these bags are just too small for most of the orders. The hotbag that I use is a large catering order bag that I received from Doordash many years ago. I cannot tell you the measurements off hand, but it is huge. Picture a real huge duffel bag. They have similar ones on Amazon.

What I do is place this large hotbag on my passenger seat. As I pickup and drop off orders, they go in and out of my hotbag. This system works for me, and it always keeps the customer's happy. It also helps me from having to worry that a hold up of any kind could make the customer's food get cold.

The impact of never using the Doordash hot bag

I've heard dashers say that their ratings have plummeted when they didn't use their hotbag. I do believe them when they say that their ratings dropped, but I question as to whether it was because they didn't use their hotbag. In some cases it may have been, but generally with most I don't think so. I believe that there may have been other reasons that the customers left a bad rating for them.

There was a time span when I didn't use any hotbag for about two months. I don't remember the reason why. I just wasn't using it. During that stretch, my ratings went from 4.60 to 4.90. I can claim that my ratings went up because I didn't use my hot bag. That would be ridiculous though. Of course, I know that's not true.

I know that if I had used my hotbag the ratings would have went up just the same. My point is that my ratings did not go up because I was using my hotbag. If I was using my hotbag, it would be easy to give credit to the hotbag for my ratings going up, but that simply was not the case. It had to do with other things like giving good customer service and being quick with deliveries.

What else should I know about the Doordash hotbag?

There are some dashers that swear that everybody should always use their warmer bag. That is great, but some of these dashers will criticize dashers that don't use the hot bag. These dashers even feel that they automatically deserve a 5 star rating every time they make a delivery because they use their hotbag. That is simply not the way things work.

I guarantee you that most dashers that never use their hotbag will have ratings that are very similar or at times even better than dedicated hot bag users. I am not criticizing those that use their hotbag. I think it it great, and as I have explained, I usually use my hotbag even though I don't carry it out the car with me. Using a hotbag is a good thing, just don't get too cocky about it!

Another point that I want to bring up is dashers that carry around nasty dirty hot bags. I've seen it way too often. The problem in my mind arises when I'm in a restaurant and see a dasher sitting there waiting for the food with their dirty hotbag right next to them. You look at their warmer bag that they carry around with them all day and it looks terribly dirty. It's fine to stand by your loyalty to always use your warmer bag, there is nothing wrong with that, but cleanliness is even more important. If a dasher cannot keep their bag clean, they are probably better off without it.

One last thing I want to bring up here is that if a dasher is not using their hotbag, they will occasionally get some backlash from a customer. I mean, sure, there are those few that will leave a bad rating just because a dasher did not have a red bag upon delivery, but they are very few.

I once had an old lady ask me why I didn't have a bag. Yep, she had the nerve to ask me. At first I was confused as to what she was talking about. When I realized I said "Oh- You mean the red bag!" She said that all drivers that deliver to her always have her food in the red bag. I told her mines is in the car and that it was too big for me to carry out. She didn't like that at all.

Since this lady was irritating me, I then went on to annoy her a little bit more purposely by telling her that Doordash drivers don't even have to use their red bag at all if they didn't want to. She just stared at me for a few seconds and then said "I don't think so" and then shut the door. So yeah, every once in a while you'll have to deal with something like that.