With consumers becoming accustomed to enjoying restaurant-quality food without leaving their homes, online ordering and delivery have become more popular than ever. Now, restaurants with their own in-house drivers can reach new customers and grow sales by joining DoorDash through DoorDash Self-Delivery.
In this article, let's explore how DoorDash Self-Delivery can help you grow your business while using your in-house delivery service.
Self-Delivery Basics
Can you deliver your own DoorDash orders? After hearing from many restaurants who say, "I have my own delivery team," the DoorDash product suite has expanded and the answer is yes. It's possible to fulfill your own DoorDash orders with our self-delivery service.
With DoorDash Self-Delivery, you'll be able to reach DoorDash customers by listing your business on the DoorDash app, while managing deliveries in-house and paying a lower commission rate. Essentially, you can keep your fulfillment operations as they are today, but get access to a world-class logistics platform powered by DoorDash, and tap into a pool of hungry customers already on the DoorDash platform. Get started for 60 days at 0% commission.
Flexible Fulfillment
If you have your own delivery fleet, you can also set rules to auto-assign orders either to your own drivers or Dashers. The rules allow you to expand your reach, by assigning orders to DoorDash for fulfillment based on delivery distance or time of day. This is called Flexible Fulfillment. It's a great way to expand your restaurant's delivery capabilities and grow sales over time.
When you sign up for Self Delivery, Flexible Fulfillment is automatically enabled for you as well. You can then choose when and/or where you'd like Dashers to deliver, and adjust these settings at any time.
Benefits of DoorDash Self-Delivery
Ready to handle DoorDash order fulfillment with your own delivery fleet? Here are a few of the benefits of Self-Delivery:
Feature on DoorDash Marketplace - Your restaurant will be featured on DoorDash, both on the web and in-app.
Fulfill & Control Your Deliveries - Your delivery drivers fulfill the orders, so there's no need to partner with Dashers. You are in complete control of setting delivery fees and zones.
Pay Lower Commission - After your trial paying 0% commission, you will pay a lower commission than DoorDash Marketplace customers that use Dashers to fulfill deliveries.
Enjoy Incremental Sales - You receive the full order value plus all taxes, delivery fees, tips and small order fees (if applicable), less a small commission.
Self delivery service: The customer experience
The first part of the self delivery process is powered by DoorDash's world-class logistics platform. When hungry customers are ready to place a delivery order, they will be able to find your restaurant on doordash.com or the DoorDash app. They'll see a comment noting that courier tracking may be different for your store.
Once the customer chooses your restaurant, they place an order, pay for the order, and receive an estimated delivery time.
After you have prepared the order, you control when an "out for delivery" alert goes to the customer, and your self-delivery fleet handles fulfillment. DoorDash also provides the customer with your restaurant's phone number in case they need to contact you, making for a seamless experience on both sides.
Self delivery service: The merchant experience
Once you sign up for DoorDash Self-Delivery, you can accept orders via the Order Manager app. For a weekly fee, DoorDash will provide a tablet with the app pre-installed, or you can download it on your own Android tablet for free.
The Order Manager app will help you maximize efficiency and streamline receiving, organizing, and tracking your orders from pickup to completion. It will help you coordinate your delivery drivers to ensure they can deliver goods promptly. It also will allow you to contact both the customer and DoorDash support team if needed.
When an order comes in, the below screen will appear. Tap "View Order" to view the details of the order.
The Order Manager app will show you the customer's order. Once you see the order, click "Confirm and send to kitchen" to send the order to the kitchen to be prepared. Next, you'll confirm the order with an estimated prep time.
Once the order is ready, you can click "Order Out for Delivery." If you have a receipt printer, the customer's address and phone number will be printed on the receipt.
Once the order is Out for Delivery, it moves to Order History. Finally, your drivers deliver the order to the customer.
Flexible Fulfillment: The merchant experience
The Flexible Fulfillment experience is similar, with an updated flow to walk you through partnering with a Dasher for delivery. First, you'll see a message on screen saying that a Dasher will deliver the order. You'll be prompted to pick a time the order will be ready for delivery.
You'll get a notice when a Dasher is being assigned to your order.
Once a Dasher has been assigned, you'll get a notice when the Dasher is waiting to pick up the order.
Once you've confirmed the order is ready for pickup and the Dasher has received it, you'll get a confirmation once the order has been delivered to the customer, and you can give that Dasher feedback for next time.
How Westside Pizza Grew Sales with DoorDash Self-Delivery
DoorDash Self-Delivery provides you with the best of both worlds: gaining access to new customers on DoorDash and using your own couriers, allowing you to pay less commission on all DoorDash orders and control the customer experience from start to finish.
That's what Westside Pizza, a regional pizza chain, discovered when they signed up for Self-Delivery.
DoorDash helped us get in front of a new customer base — people who may be passing through town or aren't getting our advertisements. It exposed us to a new population that was hungry and ready to eat and used to ordering off their phone.
Tips for Success with DoorDash Self-Delivery
Ready to use your own fleet with DoorDash? Here are a few tips that can help you ensure success when delivering your own DoorDash orders, and manage DoorDash fulfillment.
Don't forget incremental sales
Offer customers an option to add toppings such as extra protein for salads, bowls, burgers, or suggested sides and drinks to their orders. Focus on best-sellers or high-margin dishes for your takeout menu.
Photos make a difference
Photos can make all the difference in how customers perceive the quality and tastiness of your food. Upload your professional photos or arrange a free photoshoot with DoorDash as part of the onboarding process.
Stay on top of new orders
It's important to remember to have your staff watch DoorDash orders come so they can make sure new orders get quickly sent to your kitchen. You may also need to schedule extra back-of-house staff during busy shifts if your incremental order volume is high.
Create a delivery-specific menu
To increase your takeout business's success, consider creating a delivery menu that features your most popular and profitable items.
Consider food arrival
Take steps to ensure your food arrives as you prepared it, such as packaging sauces separately, placing hot and cold items in separate bags, and piercing hot food containers for ventilation.
Need a white-label delivery service?
No drivers? No problem. For restaurants looking for more delivery support, we also offer DoorDash Drive, a DoorDash white label delivery service. It's a way for restaurants and businesses to get access to a professional delivery fleet, without dealing with the logistics. Simply accept orders through your own website or app and partner with Dashers for delivery.
Getting Started with Self-Delivery
DoorDash Self-Delivery provides restaurants that have invested in their own self delivery service but are looking to grow their sales beyond their customer base, and a whole new way to increase their food delivery sales.
With DoorDash Self-Delivery, you'll not only gain access to new customers but also get exposure on DoorDash along with hundreds of thousands of other restaurants while enjoying a low commission rate because you are using your own self delivery service.
