Product Profile: DoorDash
INDUSTRY
food
Category
food/grocery delivery services
product Profiled
DoorDash prepared food and grocery delivery service
H-Score
23
ranked 24th of 25 within the food industry
ranked 72nd of 76 overall
product description
DoorDash is a local commerce platform that connects customers with local businesses. People use it to order meals from restaurants, groceries and items from convenience stores or other retail outlets. DashPass is DoorDash’s membership program that allows subscribers to get $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on eligible orders that meet minimum subtotal requirements across restaurants, grocery, convenience, retail stores and more.(1) DoorDash also enables users to supplement their original orders with additional items from other nearby stores for no additional delivery fee through their DoubleDash feature.(2) DoorDash dominates the meal delivery market, with a 65% share as of June, 2023.(3)
product use
Customers can login to the DoorDash app or website and browse options from restaurants, grocery, convenience and retail stores, and more in their neighborhood. Once they choose what to order, customers can place their order for delivery to their doorstep. Customers also have the option of picking up their orders directly at certain restaurants and retailers.
who’s affected
According to research published by DoorDash, 36% of DoorDash’s customers have annual incomes of less than $50,000, 45% are people of color, 18% have a chronic illness or disability and 33% are parents or guardians.(4) DoorDash does offer payment through SNAP/EBT cards for people receiving food assistance in select locations and with certain grocery stores.(5) It has announced a commitment to making SNAP/EBT access available in all 50 states by 2025.(6)
influence on health-related behaviors
EATING
moderate negative influence
DoorDash primarily offers delivery of restaurant products, though it also offers delivery from certain convenience stores (e.g. Wawa and 7-11) and grocery stores or supermarkets. Non-restaurant deliveries, which made up 14% of DoorDash’s overall deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2021 (7), are growing rapidly. DoorDash recently reported 24% year over year growth of its non-restaurant sales.(8)
Prepared food delivery services often substitute less healthy restaurant or fast food options for home-cooked meals. In general, fresh, home-cooked meals have been shown to be healthier than meals eaten at or taken out from sit-down or fast food restaurants.(9-13) People who cook at home more frequently also tend to have diets that have higher compliance with dietary guidelines.(14)
In Building H’s consumer research, 47% of users of food delivery services (not specific to DoorDash) say that their orders typically replace home-cooked meals. In addition, the research showed that 37.1% of users eat home-cooked meals five or more nights a week vs. 58.1% of the general public.(15)
The most popular food items ordered from DoorDash in 2022 were, in order: fries; burgers; tacos; salad; and pizza.(16) DoorDash’s recently announced AI-powered answering service for restaurants will upsell callers by recommending additional items for their orders.(17)
Building H’s consumer research showed that users of food delivery services more often order from sit-down restaurants (27.6% say usually or always), than from fast food restaurants (18.0%) or convenience stores (10.9%).(18)
The most popular food items delivered through DoorDash’s convenience store include desserts, sodas and energy drinks, and snacks high in calories and sodium.(19)
DoorDash does include an option for “Healthy” food, and it is easy to find on the top of the homescreen.(20) It is not clear how DoorDash determines which restaurants merit the “Healthy” tag. In addition, restaurants and merchants can also be tagged as “vegan,” “vegetarian,” “gluten-free,” or “halal.”
- Work across the industry to pursue options to rate food establishments on the basis of how healthy their menus are and then integrate these ratings into the presentation of restaurant options and search results. Options for this integration could include featuring higher-rated establishments more prominently, using the ratings to filter search results and raising healthier establishments higher in result lists; or displaying the ratings in the results lists.
- Healthfulness ratings at the individual menu item level could also be used to nudge users toward healthier items.
- Provide nutrition information (menu labeling) required to be posted by chain restaurants alongside menu items from those restaurants.
- For grocery delivery, work across the industry to pursue options to rate the healthfulness of individual food items and then integrate those ratings throughout the user experience.
- Enable users to express preferences for how healthy they want their diet to be; align recommendations with those preferences; and provide users with feedback on how well their choices are supporting those preferences.
PHYSICAL ACTVITY
moderate negative influence
By decreasing barriers to obtaining restaurant food, DoorDash has made it possible for people to have a dining out experience without the physical activity of getting to and from the restaurant.
DoorDash does offer a pickup option. It is not clear how often users select pickup instead of delivery.
- Consider setting pickup (vs. delivery) to be the default option, subject to conditions such as distance, weather and individual abilities.
- Prompt pickup users to walk if the distance is relatively short (i.e. less than a mile), subject to conditions such as weather and individual abilities.
- Promote the pickup option as an alternative prior to finalizing a delivery order.
Sleeping
slight negative influence
DoorDash Dashers(21) can work at all hours, as long as there are establishments open at the time. Through their services, getting late night food is more convenient than ever before, and consequently, customers could forego sleep in favor of late night food. DoorDash noted that “late night” (defined as 12:00 am to 5:00 am) and breakfast were its fastest growing meals for ordering food in 2022.(22) Orders made after 10:00 pm appear to represent approximately 6% of DoorDash’s orders.(23)
Studies have shown that eating within three hours before bedtime increases the likelihood of sleep disruption.(24)
By offering the opportunity to obtain food quickly, DoorDash could potentially be saving people time, which could leave more time for sleeping. DoorDash has published research showing that 65% of customers say that they use the time saved to “rest and relax.”(25)
- Enable users to set preferences as to when they wish to be done eating at night and introduce some friction into the experience of ordering deliveries that will go past their set end points.
Engaging Socially
slight to moderate negative influence
By allowing the delivery of restaurant food that may have not been available for delivery before, DoorDash effectively substitutes an at-home, potentially isolated dining experience for a public experience. DoorDash reported that 18% of online ordering app customers (not specific to DoorDash) chose delivery because they “didn’t want to see or talk to anyone.”(26) DoorDash recently announced a service for restaurants where AI agents can take phone orders instead of human staff.(27)
However, DoorDash does offer a Group Order feature(28) that makes it easy for people to share a food delivery (and presumably eat together).
DoorDash also offers an opportunity to gift a delivery to someone else.(29)
DoorDash indicates that 37% of its customers report using the time saved to “spend time with my family” and 21% report using it to “care for my children.”(30)
- Encourage group orders with neighbors.
- Encourage and train Dashers to interact with customers, treating the interaction as important social contact.
- Experiment with “preferred Dasher” service to foster relationships between customers and Dashers.
- Offer family meal and party planning features to simplify the process of developing menus and ordering ingredients as a way to lower the barriers to hosting meals with friends and family.
- Pursue opportunities for encouraging use of the pickup option (see above).
Getting Outdoors
moderate negative influence
If ordering to their home, a customer is likely to remain indoors throughout the whole process of selecting and eating a meal, as compared to the outdoor experiences that could come from traveling to and from grocery stores or restaurants.
Using DoorDash’s pickup option would entail some amount of outdoor exposure, depending on the chosen transportation mode.
- Pursue opportunities for encouraging use of the pickup option (see above).
- Offer deliveries to outdoor locations such as parks and playgrounds.
Notes
DoorDash. DashPass FAQ on DoorDash website. Accessed July 26, 2023.
DoorDash. Introducing DoubleDash, a new way to shop multiple stores in one order. DoorDash blog, August 5, 2021.
Jackie Davalos. DoorDash Sees Record Orders, Showing Appetite For Delivery. Yahoo!Finance, August 3, 2023.
Public First. Delivering the Goods: The Impact of DoorDash in the United States. 2023. P. 28.
Use Your SNAP Benefits on DoorDash. DoorDash website. Accessed September 27, 2023.
Supporting the White House’s Call to Expand Access to Nutritious Foods and Healthy Choices. DoorDash website. Accessed September 27, 2023
DoorDash. 4Q2021 Investor Letter. February 16, 2022.
DoorDash. DoorDash Releases Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results. November 1, 2023.
Julia Wolfson and Sara Bleich. Is Cooking at Home Associated with Better Diet Quality or Weight-Loss Intention? Public Health Nutrition, Volume 18, Supplement 8 June 2015 , pp. 1397-1406.
Junxiu Liu et al. Quality of Meals Consumed by US Adults at Full-Service and Fast-Food Restaurants, 2003–2016: Persistent Low Quality and Widening Disparities. The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 150, Issue 4, April 2020, pp. 873–883.
R. An. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption and daily energy and nutrient intakes in US adults. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Volume 70 (2016), pp. 97–103.
Sharon Kirkpatrick et al. Fast-food menu offerings vary in dietary quality, but are consistently poor. Public Health Nutrition. Volume 17, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 924–31.
Lisa Powell and Binh Nguyen. Fast-food and full-service restaurant consumption among children and adolescents: effect on energy, beverage, and nutrient intake. JAMA Pediatrics. Volume 167, Issue 1 (January 2013), pp. 14–20.
Arpita Tiwari et al. Cooking at Home: A Strategy to Comply With U.S. Dietary Guidelines at No Extra Cost. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Volume 52, Issue 5 (May 2017), pp.616–24.
Steve Downs. A Survey of Modern Life: Food; Delivery Apps, Meal Kits, Groceries and Cooking Dinner. Building H on Medium. January 20, 2022.
Emma Roth. DoorDash’s voice ordering service could have AI take your carryout order. The Verge, August 28, 2023.
Downs (2022).
DoorDash. The DoorDash Deep Dish: Best of the Neighborhood in 2021. DoorDash blog, December 14, 2021
DoorDash website, accessed September 27, 2023.
Independent contractors who deliver goods ordered through the DoorDash platform.
Nicola Chung et al. Does the Proximity of Meals to Bedtime Influence the Sleep of Young Adults? A Cross-Sectional Survey of University Students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Volume 17, Issue 8 (April 14, 2020), p. 2677.
Delivering the Goods. P. 29.
Roth (2023).
DoorDash. Get Started with DoorDash FAQ on DoorDash website. Accessed January 27, 2022.
Gifting FAQ. DoorDash website. Accessed September 27, 2023.
Delivering the Goods. P. 29.