DoorDash partners closely with food trucks to help them reach new customers, manage orders more efficiently, and grow their business. Offering pickup and delivery is a great way to reach even more customers and bring in additional revenue, no matter your location. And thanks to DoorDash's seamless setup process, adding delivery to your food truck is easier than ever.
Keep reading to find out how DoorDash works for food trucks, and key features that will help set up food truck operators for success.
How DoorDash helps food trucks succeed
At DoorDash, we understand that food truck operations differ from brick-and-mortar restaurants. That's why we offer the following features that are designed to make your food truck delivery business successful.
1. Easily change your location
As a food truck operator, you may change locations every day, or even throughout the day. DoorDash makes it easy for business owners to change their location and continue receiving pickup and delivery orders wherever they are.
To change your location, log in to the DoorDash Merchant Portal or the Order Manager App on a DoorDash tablet, and you'll see three ways to update your address:
Manually type in your new address and pickup instructions for delivery drivers (known as Dashers) and customers.
Choose an address from your saved locations.
Enable GPS location sharing so your address automatically updates whenever you move.
Keeping your location up to date ensures that Dashers can easily find your food truck so your customers get their orders delivered as quickly as possible.
2. Make changes in real time
Moving your truck to a new location? Need to 86 an item? Closing early? No problem. DoorDash allows you to quickly make changes to your hours and menu at any time, from any device.
And if you're using a DoorDash tablet to receive orders, it comes equipped with cellular service — so if your truck doesn't have wifi, that's not a problem.
Operating hours: Once you're active on DoorDash, you can set which days and hours you want to receive delivery and pickup orders. You can also set specific hours for special events, holidays, and closures — or even temporarily pause orders when you're unable to fulfill them.
Menu item availability: Food trucks may run out of certain dishes throughout the day, and if you use DoorDash for food truck delivery, you can temporarily mark them out of stock. Simply log in to the Merchant Portal or Business Manager app to temporarily deactivate items or modifiers on your DoorDash menu. We recommend making this update as soon as an item is unavailable so your customers see an accurate menu.
Daypart menus: If you change your offerings throughout the day, you can assign different menus to specific hours or days of the week in DoorDash.
3. Attract customers with DoorDash marketing tools
Food trucks that partner with DoorDash get access to powerful marketing tools.
Promotions help you target new, existing, and/or lapsed customers with a discount or offer that fits your business goals — such as a discounted item or $0 delivery fee. Using promotions increases merchants' DoorDash sales by an average of 25%.
DoorDash also occasionally runs food truck promotions (e.g., Food Truck Fridays) to help food truck partners boost delivery sales.
Sponsored Listings help food trucks increase DoorDash sales and reach more customers with targeted in-app advertisements. They’ll help you stand out from the crowd, and unlike ads on other platforms, you’ll only be charged for orders placed through your ad — not for clicks or impressions.
4. Unlock valuable sales and customer insights
DoorDash provides food trucks with valuable customer and sales insights to help you optimize and grow your business. For example, you can view a breakdown of new, occasional, and frequent customers, plus a heatmap of locations and zip codes where customers are placing orders. You can also track net sales, average ticket size, most popular items, and more across any period of time.
5. Get 24/7 customer support
When you partner with DoorDash to facilitate food truck delivery, you get access to 24/7 customer support via chat, phone, or email to quickly resolve issues and keep customers happy. You can also communicate with customers and Dashers directly, as well as provide feedback on Dashers.
DoorDash also helps you view and act on customer feedback. You can log in to the Merchant Portal to view DoorDash customer ratings and reviews, as well as mitigate issues by quickly responding to customers directly using pre-written or custom templates.
6. Choose from a suite of DoorDash products
When you think of DoorDash, you think delivery — but the DoorDash Merchant Suite delivers so much more. Whether you want to grow online sales, attract customers, increase orders, or optimize your business, we deliver more ways to help food trucks grow.
In addition to delivery and pickup, food trucks can partner with DoorDash to get commission-free online ordering through Online Ordering, new ways to acquire customers, tools to get more orders, and flexible financing to take your business to the next level.
How DoorDash works for food trucks
Food trucks can receive and process DoorDash orders just like brick-and-mortar restaurants. Here's how food truck delivery and pickup work on DoorDash:
Your menu is featured on the DoorDash app and website so nearby customers can discover your food truck and place orders for delivery or pickup.
Once you receive an order, send it to your kitchen to be prepared.
Dashers deliver orders to customers, or customers come to your truck for pickup orders.
You can also choose to integrate DoorDash directly with your Point of Sale (POS) system to streamline operations and increase order accuracy. Learn more about how restaurants receive DoorDash orders.
Partner with DoorDash for food truck delivery
Join thousands of food trucks who have partnered with DoorDash to facilitate delivery and pickup to nearby customers. DoorDash's built-in features are designed to help food trucks reach more customers, increase sales, and improve operational efficiency.
Ready to get started with DoorDash? Sign up today.
