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DoorDash

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  • Industry Delivery Services

DoorDash, which is one of the largest food delivery services in the country, is designed to help you discover the best restaurants in your area without ever having to leave the comfort of your home.

But DoorDash does a lot more.

By hiring gig workers to serve as delivery drivers, DoorDash provides jobs to thousands of people looking to launch a career or just make a little extra pocket money.

And by putting local restaurants’ menu items in front of much larger audiences, they’re also helping local businesses grow. It’s a real win-win.

To help you get familiar with this food delivery service, here’s everything you need to know about the company.

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What is DoorDash?

Much like Uber Eats, GrubHub, and Postmates, DoorDash is part of a growing number of food delivery services that use a technology similar to that of Uber and Lyft to deliver food and goods to consumers.

DoorDash provides a delivery option for your favorite restaurants that don’t do delivery.

It functions through a mobile app, which can be downloaded on either the App Store for iPhone or Google Play for Android phones.

Once inside the app, you can search for dining options in your local area.

You can either type in a specific restaurant, or browse through the different options to find what you’re are in the mood for.

guide doordash

You can see full menus from each restaurant, along with delivery time estimates.

As you’d expect, deliveries take longer during peak hours, and they will depend on where you order from and how far away you are from the restaurant.

After choosing a restaurant, you can place your order and pay right in the app using a credit or debit card.

Then all you need to do is wait.

You can tip your driver either through the app or in cash once they come to your door.

It’s like ordering a pizza, but way easier.

How Did DoorDash Start?

DoorDash is the brainchild of four Stanford students who wanted to help small businesses deal with the logistics of delivery.

It all started when they were building a simple app to support a restaurateur.

Toward the end of the project, she told them what her most significant pain point was: having too many orders to deliver and not enough help.

They reframed the app to help her solve her most difficult challenge.

The DoorDash team – Andy Fang, Stanley Tang, Tony Xu, and Evan Moore – were used to the convenience of on-demand food delivery in the cities they grew up in, and they wanted to bring that to the Stanford community.

So, in 2013 they built a prototype and had their first order within hours of launching the app.

The app was a hit and has grown tremendously since.

The app is simple to use. Customers pay a flat fee for delivery plus the cost of the food via the app using a credit card.

DoorDash is primarily used for food delivery, but its founders say that it’s more about helping solve logistics challenges for small businesses.

Their vision is to expand on that idea.

DoorDash is also committed to ending hunger.

They are involved in a few programs – some self-initiated – that donate food or money to hunger based charities.

Everyone loves trying new food.

But even if you’ve lived in a city our whole lives, there’s bound to be places you’ve never tried.

Where Does DoorDash Operate?

DoorDash functions in almost all major cities across the United States.

Some of the major cities in which DoorDash operates are:

  • Los Angeles
  • San Diego
  • San Francisco Bay Area
  • San Jose
  • Chicago
  • New York
  • Seattle
  • Boston
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Phoenix
  • Atlanta
  • Austin

But this represents just a small sample of the cities in which DoorDash operates.

To find out if it exists in your city, check out the company’s website for more information.

What Are The Benefits of DoorDash?

The benefits of DoorDash are twofold.

First, it helps to expand the number of dining options available to people.

Instead of relying on businesses that offer dedicated delivery service, you can now get food brought to your home from a wide range of new and old restaurants in your area.

This makes it easier than ever to discover and try out new dining options.

guide doordash

Restaurants on doordash.com range from fast food joints like Taco Bell and Wendy’s to slightly more expensive places like California Pizza Kitchen and The Cheesecake Factory to your favorite local restaurants and high-end establishments.

DoorDash also provides a tremendous service to local businesses. Hiring full-time delivery drivers is costly and risky.

But by using DoorDash, restaurants can take advantage of the benefits of delivery service without having to assume any of the risks.

And it also gives smaller restaurants the chance to reach new customers and grow.

Which Restaurants Participate in DoorDash?

This really depends on the area in which you live.

To find out which restaurants you can order food from, download the app, make an account, and then begin searching for participating restaurants in your area.

Does DoorDash Cost Anything Extra?

DoorDash makes money in three ways.

First, it charges you a delivery fee, part of which goes to the driver and part of which goes to DoorDash.

This fee will vary depending on the restaurant you’re ordering from, as well as according to how much food you’re ordering.

But you can normally expect to pay between $5-8 for DoorDash deliveries.

DoorDash also charges a commission to participating restaurants.

Again, this varies, as DoorDash arranges unique partnerships with each restaurant.

guide doordash

But they will never charge more than 20 percent to a business.

Just like the pricing of Uber eats, some of this commission is passed onto you as a consumer, meaning that between this and the delivery fee, you do end up paying more than if you went to the restaurant yourself.

But this is the price most of us expect to pay when ordering food to be delivered to our homes.

In addition to delivery fees and commissions, DoorDash also charges for ad space in the app.

Participating restaurants can purchase premium placement to help increase their exposure and attract new customers.

What About Tips?

Although you are paying a delivery fee, DoorDash drivers, also known as Dashers, do work partly on tips.

You can tip them in the app using your credit card, or you can give them cash when they come to you. How much you tip is entirely up to you.

guide doordash

Dashers are guaranteed an hourly rate of $10 per hour, though, and they do receive part of the delivery fee, so this may factor into how much you decide to leave as a tip.

You are by no means obligated to give a tip, and if for some reason you receive less than stellar service, you can leave a review of the driver in the app by going back through your order history.

Becoming a DoorDash Partner

As a DoorDash partner, your restaurant will show up in the DoorDash app.

This means that when people log in to look for where to get their next meal, they will see your restaurant as an option.

These individuals will be able to order food from your restaurant right from the app, which will trigger a notification to Dashers in the area.

It’s then your job to complete the order in the given time.

And when the order is ready, a Dasher will show up at your restaurant to pay for the order using their RedCard, which is provided by DoorDash.

At this point, your job is pretty much done.

The Dasher will deliver the order to the customer and you get to keep on working.

For more information on becoming a DoorDash driver, check out the link to the driver job listing on our Marketplace at the top of this page.

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