Why direction beats distance
Most couriers believe the order goes to whoever is closest to the restaurant. Makes sense? Yes. Is it true? No. The platform evaluates not just your distance but your direction — and that changes everything you knew about “standing in the right spot”.
How it works
Picture it: courier B is standing 300 metres from the restaurant. Courier A is still 800 metres away, but riding toward the restaurant. Who gets the order?
The answer: the platform waits. It holds the order until A gets closer than B — because an approaching courier is a “promise”: their arrival time is predictable and improves every second. A stationary courier is just a “fact”: they're here, but nothing guarantees they'll take this order and not dash off to a competing platform's offer.
What this means in practice
- Don't be a “standing fact” if you can be an “approaching promise”. Moving toward an active spot automatically puts you on the candidate list — even from farther away.
- The offer won't arrive when you're closest, but when you become the least risky option for the platform.
- Direction is a controllable variable. You change your distance to a restaurant slowly; you change your direction instantly.
The platform isn't looking for the closest courier. It's looking for the least risky one — the one whose arrival it can predict.
How to verify it with your own data
This law isn't theory — you can see it in your own history once it's collected. Courier Logger records your direction and speed before every received order, so after a few weeks you see the pattern: at what distance and moving in which direction you used to receive offers. And Courier Assistant applies that same pattern in real time to every incoming offer.
What follows from this
Two further tactics grow out of this law: the “bird in the hand” moment — how a standing courier can beat an approaching one — and movement as the default strategy, where you're a candidate for dozens of spots at once.