To help merchants achieve their business goals, we're unveiling a reimagined Merchant Suite to highlight the many ways restaurants can grow on our platform — and make it easier to choose the DoorDash products that best support your unique needs.
DoorDash offers a variety of ways to help restaurants increase their order volume and ticket sizes with products like in-app promotions that provide customers with discounts or free items only when they reach a specific minimum order size. You can also add alcohol to your DoorDash menu to boost profits (and rest assured, DoorDash holds the required permits for compliant alcohol delivery where applicable).
Keep reading to learn how Modern Market increased DoorDash sales 3X with promotions.
Modernizing healthy eating
Modern Market opened in 2009 in Boulder, Colorado, serving fresh food inspired by farmer's markets. Now with 26 stores in Texas, Arizona, and Colorado, Modern Market has expanded their reach with nutritious and wholesome salads, sandwiches, and bowls made from scratch.
Erinn McCully is the Director of Off-Premise Sales at Modern Market. She's seen Modern Market and DoorDash grow since she began working for the fast-casual chain in 2014. Even though Modern Market uses multiple third-party delivery platforms, DoorDash continues to be the most profitable. “DoorDash is our top third-party platform for Modern Market,” Erinn says.
Promotions seem to be more effective on DoorDash in particular. DoorDash has been doing marketing longer and has had it figured out for a longer time. You guys are ahead of the curve.
Growing together
DoorDash has been an important partner to Modern Market, who were some of DoorDash’s early adopters. “The DoorDash partnership is unique to Modern Market in particular because we’ve been working with you guys for so long, since 2016. There was a lot of collaboration with what was possible and what we could do,” Erinn says. “I have zero negative experiences working with DoorDash and it’s been over 6 years now.”
When Modern Market partnered with DoorDash, the goal was to increase sales and attract new customers. They were open to trying out new ideas, using DoorDash’s reach to widen their customer base. Modern Market has tested every DoorDash promotion available, like $0 delivery, discounts for large orders, and adding free items to orders. “We are a smaller, mid-level brand, and we don’t have the awareness that DoorDash has. Being able to partner with you and leverage your channels has been incredibly helpful,” Erinn says.
We weren’t on any other third-party platforms up until 2019. If you wanted delivery from Modern Market you had to go to DoorDash. That was such a great partnership for us because it grew that sales channel [on the DoorDash platform] 3x that amount for Modern Market compared to other partners.
Over the years, the relationship between Modern Market and DoorDash has evolved into a true team. “We don’t have the view of third-party marketplaces as adversaries. We’ve always looked at DoorDash as a marketing partner because you have a bigger reach than we do,” Erinn says.
Leveraging DoorDash promotions for success
Modern Market isn’t afraid to try new promotions and let campaign data guide their steps — and it’s paid off tremendously. “DoorDash helped grow my off-premise sales three times compared to other partners. We are on other platforms, but none do quite the amount of volume,” Erinn says. “I do think it’s because of the early adoption on the DoorDash platform coupled with the coverage you guys had with the markets we were in.”
Modern Market quickly adapts to customer behavior by using the Merchant Portal data on promotions and duplicating successful campaigns across locations. “I look in the portal pretty regularly to see what our ROI is, how many promotions are being redeemed, and whether they’re successful or not. If something is not performing quite as well, we will swap it out with something else that is performing well,” Erinn says.
Along with tripling their sales, DoorDash has also brought in new customers for Modern Market. “From March-April 2020, we doubled our new customer base on DoorDash. We continuously opt into marketing on your platform,” Erinn says.
Advice for other businesses
For Erinn, promotions are necessary for Modern Market and are a part of their overall marketing strategy. She knows that DoorDash promotions have a big impact on their bottom line, and encourages anyone who’s on the fence to try it out. “We think about promotions and our goal for off-premise sales as a marketing expense we build in our P&L,” Erinn says. “We know that we are going to continue to do these things because they have been so successful. We want to do it and have to do it.”
Our view on marketing on DoorDash is you have to do it — you want the visibility. You want people to order from you there and we know the DoorDash customer isn’t the same as the customer that is ordering from our website.
As Modern Market continues to grow with new franchises, Erinn is looking forward to working with DoorDash every step of the way. “I’m excited to see how our third-party marketplaces continue to evolve. DoorDash is continuously at the forefront of that and I love to see what you guys come up with.”
Learn how DoorDash can increase order volume & size
Looking to increase your sales? Sign up for DoorDash today to get started. If you’re already a DoorDash partner, log in to try Promotions with a $100 free marketing credit per store.*
*This is a limited-time offer for select merchants in the US, Canada, and Australia valid until terminated by DoorDash; DoorDash may end this offer at any time. Eligible merchants will see the offer available at the Marketing page in their account. Stores that have previously participated in Promos or Sponsored Listings are not eligible for the credit. After the $100 credit is consumed per store, merchants will be automatically charged for the remainder of the campaigns per store. No cash value. Non-transferable. Learn more about Promotion credits here.
