DoorDash announces that customers can now order groceries through the DoorDash App from partners such as Smart & Final, Meijer and Fresh Thyme. Further stores such as Hy-vee and Gristedes / D’Agnostino are to be added in the next few weeks.
Through these partnerships, DoorDash has a delivery space of 75 million Americans in markets such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego, Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Indianapolis.
DoorDash started Delivery from a variety of convenience stores earlier this year. Fuad Hannon, head of the company’s emerging industries, also noted that a number of grocery stores are already part of the DoorDash Drive program, a whiteservice where DoorDash takes care of last mile delivery.
Hannon said the introduction of grocery delivery into the DoorDash app itself was a “natural extension” of that effort. And unlike many other grocery services, the company promises to deliver within an hour of placing your order.
“There is no planning, no delivery times, no waiting times of days,” he said.
In order to achieve this, according to Hannon, DoorDash has built “deep partnerships and business relationships” with the grocery stores and coordinated with the inventory management, among other things. Embedded shoppers hired by a recruitment agency do the shopping in each store, and the groceries are then delivered by DoorDash’s Dashers.
Credit: DoorDash
Hannon said these deliveries are being handled by “the same pool of dashers” as restaurant deliveries. Individual dashers will decide for themselves when and if they want to include groceries, but he argued that this presents a new opportunity for them, especially between meals when there is not much demand for restaurant deliveries.
When asked if there is tension with grocery stores in the Drive program that may prefer to attract customers through their own websites and apps, Hannon argued that customers are “largely different users” in the DoorDash app, and he said that the company is “philosophically agnostic”. Information about whether customers are shopping through the grocery store’s website / app or through DoorDash.
“DoorDash provides another convenient way for customers to take advantage of the value, choice and quality of Smart & Final, especially at a time when some are looking to limit travel outside their homes,” said Navin Cotton, director of digital commerce at Smart & Final. in a statement. “DoorDash’s on-demand grocery service is a nice addition to our online shopping options. With delivery in less than an hour, we know Smart & Final customers will appreciate it.”
Grocery prices are set by the vendor and should be the same as what you would find in the store, Hannon said, albeit possibly without offers where you get a one-get-one-free deal and other in-store deals. These deliveries are also included in the company’s DashPass subscription, which offers free delivery and reduced service fees.
DoorDash also offers ready-made meals from a longer list of grocery partners including Wegmans, Hy-Vee, Gelsons, Kowalskis, Big Y World-Class Markets, Food City, Village Supermarkets, Save Mart, Lucky, Lucky California and Coborns.