Opinion: Wolt take our role in Iceland seriously

By Elisabeth Stenersen, General Manager, Wolt Iceland and Norway

In an opinion piece on Visir.is, and again on Channel 2, Halldór Oddsson and Saga Kjartansdóttir of ASÍ make quite serious allegations against Wolt that we cannot leave unanswered.

When we launch our popular service in a new country, we familiarize ourselves well with local conditions and get to know the country. We retain local legal expertise, and meet with local politicians, administrators, and unions to figure out how our courier model best fits local practice and regulations. One of the stakeholders we met when we launched was ASÍ.

In the meeting with ASI we presented our model, and made our intent clear that we are open for a Collective Bargaining Agreement) CBA for courier partners. We also invited them to visit us after a few months of operation to show how the model works in practice and how much the couriers are earning. They never took us up on that offer. Instead, we were hit with unwarranted accusations this week that couriers are not making decent money. Our door is still open to ASI to discuss and evaluate courier earnings. Anytime. Taking the discussion straight to the media, piggybacking on an unrelated case of illegal account sharing and courier misconduct, doesn’t really show the door is open to ASI’s house.

Let’s clarify a few important details: What you pay as customers is not what we pay couriers for the delivery. Yes, we are cheap – you can get pizza delivered to your door in 30 min, in rain or sunshine, for as little as ISK 499. However, the courier partner receives on average ISK 1720 per deliveries, and is usually able to make two to three of them at the same time. The pay is competitive and transparent. The courier can see the total payment for the task upfront and choose to accept or reject the delivery at their own discretion – without repercussion.

Our service is popular in Iceland, and we need hundreds of couriers active every week to make it work. Not only do we need to ensure our couriers are happy with their earnings, but we also need to be competitive to be attractive for new couriers - as we recruit tens of couriers a week in busy periods. We see a high interest in this type of work which is a flexible side-gig. About 80 percent of our Icelandic courier partners do deliveries on the side of studying or having another job. The average courier partner does deliveries for 80 hours a month, and satisfaction is high. Courier partners rate how satisfied they are after finishing their delivery for the day, and the average rating has consistently been over 90% since we launched.

Courier partners appreciate the flexibility to work when they want. There are no shifts, no efficiency measures, no fixed attendance times or sanctions if you don't show up for work one day. In addition, couriers can often earn better than alternative jobs, even when you take social costs into account. We can easily scale up our operations when demand surge by giving extra bonuses, for instance when it rains. To maintain the flexibility, we use independent contractors because it is hard if not impossible to have the same model in traditional employment.

Iceland has embraced Wolt. With operations in four cities roughly 70 percent of Icelandic consumers have access to quick delivery. Through the Wolt-service, local businesses have been able to add billions of ISK to their revenues, seen unprecedented growth, been able to expand their business and make them more efficient. At the same time Wolt has provided a flexible way to make decent money for people of all ages and backgrounds in Iceland.

Wolt is a serious business, while we never take ourselves seriously, we are dead serious when it comes to providing a good product, fair business practices and following local rules and regulations wherever we operate. We believe in fairness, transparency and cooperation. And our door is always open to ASÍ to discuss this further.