Walgreens is one of the most popular one-stop stores in the country for all your pharmacy-related products.
It boasts a huge $121billion yearly turnover through its 886 stores and employs around 350,000 Americans.
Like most stores, Walgreens now offers a delivery service for its goods including a standard 2-4 day service as well as same-day delivery.
If you’ve just received a delivery from Walgreens or are expecting one soon, then you might be wondering whether you need to tip the delivery driver.
To help you with that, we’ve examined what the custom practice is, how much to tip if you should, Walgreens delivery drivers’ salaries, and much more.
Keep reading to find out…
Do You Tip Walgreens Delivery? The Short Answer
It is customary to tip grocery store delivery drivers and we’d recommend somewhere in the region of $3-$15 depending on the size of the order, the time of year, and the quality of the service.
We’ve covered the details of this below…
How Much Do Walgreens Delivery Drivers Earn?
A key factor for most people when it comes to deciding whether to tip is how much the employee earns.
We’re all familiar with tipping waiters, hairdressers, and pizza delivery as they generally earn fairly poor base salaries.
But what about grocery/pharmacy delivery?
According to Indeed, Walgreen drivers earn $23.76 per hour.
On the basis of a 40-hour work week, this equates to around $950 per week or $50,000 per year before tax.
However, we are aware that Walgreens also uses Doordash for its same-day delivery and their “Dashers” usually earn a lot less than this.
While according to DoorDash, Dashers generally earn $25 per hour, they are paid per delivery and not a fixed salary. Moreover, they have to include fuel costs in that as well.
Therefore, Dashers earn a lot less than the standard Walgreen delivery drivers on average.
Given the median salary in the USA is around $59,000pa, Walgreens drivers generally earn quite a bit below this.
On that basis, we consider it is in good conscience to offer a tip, especially if your goods are being delivered by Dashers who are essentially gig economy workers and rely on tips to supplement their low base income and the lack of benefits you receive when you’re self-employed.
How Much is Delivery at Walgreens?
Another key consideration will be how much the delivery will cost in the first place.
If it’s extortionate, you may be less inclined to tip.
We opened an account at Walgreens to find out.
We found that for all orders over $35, the standard delivery is free which is a very good deal given other stores like Food Lion charge $3.99. For orders under that amount, standard delivery costs $5.99.
For same-day delivery, the cost is $3.99 whether you spend over $35 or not.
So, shipping costs at Walgreens are hardly going to break the bank and are fairly typical in our experience.
On that basis, you may feel that you can justify a tip.
How Much to Tip Walgreens Drivers?
The standard tipping rate in the US is 10-20% of the cost of the goods or services.
So if you spend $100, you should be tipping around $10 – $20.
However, you may think this is quite steep and decide to tip a fixed percentage instead.
If you’d rather tip a fixed sum then we’d suggest $3-15 is ample depending on the total value of your order.
Perhaps tip towards the top end of that bracket around the holidays or if you’re bowled over by the quality of the service.
We reached a similar conclusion when we looked at whether to tip Target delivery drivers.
How to Tip Walgreens Delivery Drivers?
We couldn’t see a way of tipping Walgreens drivers at the online checkout on Walgreen’s online store.
The only place we’ve seen the option to tip Walgreens drivers is when ordering through the DoorDash app.
However, we actually prefer tipping drivers in person as you’re then assured that the driver will receive the tip – it won’t get lost in the system.
Moreover, you can withhold the tip if the driver completely messes up the delivery, which is not possible if you’ve already paid the tip in advance.
When to Tip Walgreens More or Not at All?
There will be some instances where you’ll want to beef your tip up a bit.
For example if:
- The driver has gone beyond what’s expected such as coming up an icy path
- The driver has been polite and professional
- It’s around the holidays like Christmas and Thanks Giving
- If it’s a DoorDash delivery person. They earn less so we recommend tipping more.
You might also decide not to tip or to tip less if:
- The delivery is made to the wrong address
- The delivery is late or outside the delivery window
- The items are damaged
- The driver is rude or unprofessional
Final Thoughts
There’s no question about it, in the USA it is generally accepted that you should tip grocery delivery and this is exactly what we found when we looked at whether to tip Kroger drivers.
We’d suggest a tip of 10-20% of the cost of your order or $3-15 as a fixed amount.
Unless the service has been particularly poor, we don’t generally like to tip below $2 as we find this can look rather tight-fisted.
Tipping is ultimately a personal thing but given Walgreens drivers’ fairly modest salaries and general customs in this industry, we recommend tipping Walgreens drivers most of the time.
