Dive Brief:
- DoorDash’s new Drinks program has expanded its DoubleDash service, which lets customers add c-store and other retailers’ products onto restaurant orders without paying more fees, to include alcohol.
- With DoorDash Drinks, users can order a meal from a restaurant and then tack on alcohol from a nearby liquor store, c-store or grocery establishment.
- The ability to collect items from multiple stores and restaurants into one order is encouraging users to order from outlets they haven’t tried before, and Drinks highlights the growing number of alcohol-serving shops joining the conversation.
Dive Insight:
Not all restaurants serve alcohol, and even if they did, not everyone’s preferences of food and drink pairings will come from the same location. Thus, Drinks allows DoubleDash customers to customize their meals with even more specificity.
DoorDash launched DoubleDash last year as a way to encourage users to try new establishments and shop across the various channels it offers. 7-Eleven, QuickCheck and Wawa were among the first c-stores to integrate with the service, which also includes grocers like Albertsons.
The service’s expansion comes as DoorDash tries to solidify itself as the current king of food delivery. Its market share in restaurant delivery has grown from under 10% in 2017 to almost 60% of all orders in 2021 and counted around 25 million customers last year.
As of the first quarter of 2022, convenience store beer sales totaled $5.4 billion, or over 13% of total revenue, according to a report from IRI. And according to DoorDash, over 50% of its DoubleDash users added items from stores they had not previously used through the app between August 2021 and June 2022. DoorDash estimated when it added alcohol to the app last year that the move could push convenience store delivery orders up by more than 50%.
Alcohol sales in grocery and convenience stores are not allowed in all areas, however, though some states and municipalities have been adding the capability during the pandemic.
