DoorDash facilitated more than $25 billion in sales for its marketplace merchant partners in 2021, showcasing the continued growth of delivery during the pandemic. The company also found that it supported $68.9 million in U.S. GDP through its platform, which is a larger economic value than seven U.S. states.
The third-party delivery aggregator shared the data as part of its 2022 Economic Impact Report, which was conducted in partnership with Oxford Economics.
In a survey of 736 independent merchants, 61 percent prefer DoorDash to their own delivery fleet. The same number agree that third-party platforms are good for the restaurant industry. Fifty-one percent say revenue growth would be lower without DoorDash, and 58 percent say overall revenue wouldn’t be as high. Seventy-one percent would recommend the company’s services to someone that wanted to increase sales.
The platform fulfilled 1.39 billion consumers orders across the world last year. From a survey of roughly 2,800 customers, 25 percent have an annual household income of fewer than $50,000, and 43 percent are people of color. Globally, the average customer placed more than four orders in December 2021.
One of the biggest benefits of third parties is the attraction of new, incremental customers. Indeed, 52 percent of operators say customer growth would be lower without DoorDash. From the consumer side of things, 77 percent say they use DoorDash to try a new restaurant they wouldn’t have otherwise used. Another 77 percent placed subsequent orders from the same locations; roughly one-sixth visited stores in person after ordering delivery.
From a survey of 4,324 DoorDash drivers, 78 percent say the job helps “somewhat” or “a great deal” in paying bills. Eighty-eight percent agree that flexibility is what drew them to the company. In fact, 90 percent of drivers worked fewer than 10 hours per week in 2021.
“DoorDash’s overall impact goes beyond just the numbers—it provides Dashers the opportunity to earn on their own terms, offers merchants more ways to reach new customers, and connects consumers to the best of their neighborhoods,” the company said in its study. “Enabling and interconnecting these people cause economic impacts that start locally and ultimately ripple through communities across the country.”
Eighty-nine percent of customers say convenience and ease are important reasons for using DoorDash—two values that caused delivery to soar in the past two years. From February 2020 to 2022, delivery increased 116 percent, according to The NPD Group. In the same period, digital and nondigital carryout orders declined by 2 percent and drive-thru rose 20 percent.
DoorDash is by far the largest third-party aggregator in the U.S. The company owned 59 percent of meal delivery sales in May, according to Bloomberg Second Measure. That was followed by Uber Eats (24 percent), Grubhub (13 percent), Postmates (3 percent), and Waitr (fewer than 1 percent). The company recently unveiled a new merchant suite, customer insights, learning center, and in-person conferences to further assist small and medium restaurants.
