Lola Market, leveraging subcontracted 'shoppers' to avoid Deliveroo's labor mess

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

Glovo and Deliveroo are the most popular digital delivery platforms in Spain, but there are many others that are expanding rapidly within its borders. Lola Market, business dedicated to supermarket delivery to the customer's home, is already present in 12 cities. The distributors are not called riders but personal shoppers, although they have several features in common those who work for the best known apps - for example, they are autonomous, and the platform assigns them orders. Although in this case, explains its founder, they turn to third party companies as intermediaries to avoid the "labor mess" present in these digital delivery companies.

This is what the CEO and Founder of Lola Market, Luis Pérez del Val, explains: "We really hire third-party companies and these personal shoppers eventually contract with those companies."

Pérez del Val assures that Lola Market does not have commercial contracts directly with their distributors, but rather intermediary companies that in turn sign commercial contracts with autonomous distributors. "Our relationship, of course, with companies (intermediaries) is commercial, from company to company, and there are distributors who have hired other distributors and they arrange each other," he explains.

The companies with which Lola Market works are "from large to small, there are many delivery companies. We work with SEUR, Stuart and those types of companies and with smaller ones, such as one called Comet," says its head. The profile of these personal shopper repeats that of the messengers of other digital platforms: generally men and many of them, migrants.

If you look at the content of the Lola Market website, there is no concept of ​​distance between the platform and the messengers. "Our Shoppers make the purchase for you and take it home in an hour or when you choose," he reports, in addition to highlighting that the shoppers are "people from your city formed by Lola Market who will make your purchase as if it were theirs."

The Frequently Asked Questions section states that "in Lola Market we are always looking for new candidates for Shopper. Even if we still do not serve in your city we recommend that you fill out the application." An application that has a Lola Market logo inside.

The "mess" in messengers

To questions about whether Lola Market is concerned about the labor debate about whether platform dealers are self-employed or salaried - in the best known cases of Glovo and Deliveroo in court and with Labor Inspection - Luis Pérez del Val acknowledges that this concern is what has motivated the use of intermediary companies: "Indeed, that is why we usually try to work with companies to avoid getting into trouble."

And can there be salaried distributors of these subcontractors or do they always work as freelancers? "It is up to them, I do not become more derivative. Contracting with these companies and how they have it is a different story," replies the creator of Lola Market. The businessman says that there is a fixed price per order for couriers, of "about nine euros on average."

Luis Pérez del Val believes that in Spain there should be a regulation that deals with the issue of digital platform dealers, "like the digital freelance in France", because in his opinion there is currently a "legal vacuum": "The economy evolves very fast and it is important that you legislate equally quickly."

At the moment, the greater judgment on the labor model of Deliveroo that has already been solved (of the Social Security against the company in Valencia) with the consideration that the distributors are falsely autonomous. In the case of Glovo, which only has individual sentences, it has resolutions on the side of the labor relationship, but also that guarantee the autonomous model.

Are these shoppers real freelancers?

The experts in Labor Law and digital platforms contacted by this means, Anna Ginès i Fabrellas and Adrián Todolí, explain that to determine whether or not there is an employment relationship between these distributors and Lola Market it would be necessary to know in depth how the contract between the parts and the daily operation of the activity and the application itself.

However, both specialists recognize that, from the information provided by the head of Lola Market to this medium and the content of their website, there are some "hints of labor" that could be studied.

In Ginès's research on digital platforms, ESADE's teacher emphasizes above all "two important elements" when it comes to concluding whether workers are self-employed or salaried. On the one hand, if the platform intervenes or not in the allocation of orders: "A platform can act as a true technology company, which offers intermediation, if it does not intervene in the supply and demand allocation."

In his opinion, when it is the company that assigns the orders through an algorithm, designed by itself according to their interests, "for me it is an indication of subordination, because it manages the work, something typical of employers."

On the other hand, the specialist considers it essential to "specify the conditions of the service. How these benefits are given, when it is paid, how are the commercial agreements with the places where they can go shopping...". In this sense, it would be necessary to analyze whether shoppers have the capacity to negotiate the prices of service provision, for example, and how are Lola Market agreements with supermarkets.

The executive director of Lola Market maintains that the relationship with supermarkets is different according to the agreements reached. For example, Lidl and Dia pay Lola Market a commission for each basket of products that customers buy through their application. In other supermarkets, such as Mercadona, Pérez del Val states that he does not pay that commission, so that his products have a surcharge to customers, so that Lola Market obtains profit.

In the exchanges between the application and the supermarkets not only is negotiated with money, also with data. "We give them valuable information about consumer behaviors, we provide them with extraordinary data - which is very difficult for them to capture. Even many times, we are developing functionalities that allow them to see when they have run out of stock or what products demand the client that they don't have in their catalog," says Pérez del Val.

Adrián Todolí highlights two other features of the provision of the service in Lola Market that he considers could be indications that there is an employment relationship: the training of the messengers that are in charge of Lola Market and the "brand alienation"; that is, Lola Market broadcasts the delivery service as its own and uses messengers to promote itself to customers ("our shoppers"), so that consumers do not contract with María or Carlos, but with Lola Market to take her The purchase home.

Possible risk of illegal assignment of workers

Both experts in Labor Law also indicate the participation of intermediary companies to hire shoppers, who detect a possible risk of illegal assignment of workers.

The Statute of Workers develops in article 43 the circumstances in which an illegal assignment is incurred. For example, when the service contract between two companies has as its objective the mere provision of employees from one company to another; that is, a person is hired by company A but only to actually work in company B. Also when the company that transfers the worker lacks "an activity or an organization of its own and stable", does not have "the necessary means for the development of his activity "or does not exercise" the functions inherent to his status as an entrepreneur."

In any case, Adrián Todolí recalls, the case should be analyzed in depth and, if it is concluded that this illegal assignment exists, a previous step would be necessary. First, "declare the employment on your main company - Stuart or whatever - and then the illegal transfer over Lola Market."

One of the frequently asked questions about digital platforms is whether these companies would be profitable in case they hire the messengers that comply with the deals. At Lola Market, have you thought about hiring the shoppers employed? "It depends on the model. In principle, the model we have is very well designed and we are delighted with it. We can consider everything, but, come on, we are delighted with this model," replies the founder of the company.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

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