12+ Pros and Cons of Doordash (Expert Review)
Are you a Doordash user, driver, or restauranteur?
In this article, we explore the Pros and Cons of Doordash from every angle:
- The Business Owner (Restaurant)
- The Customer
- The Driver
At MoneyRyde, we share our experiences and focus on providing the best information on food delivery, ride-hailing, and ride-sharing.
Brief Company Background
Doordash is an American company that operates an online food ordering and delivery platform, founded by 3 Stanford University students, Doordash was incorporated in 2013 as Doordash Inc.
Since its inception, Doordash has grown by leaps and bounds, with the largest market share of 56 percent, making it the biggest food delivery company in America. This means that most Americans, whenever they are hungry, will think Doordash!
Pros and Cons of Doordash (Business Owner/Restauranteur)
Are you a business owner (restauranteur) seeking to know whether Doordash is what you need for your business growth or just a hungry fellow who wants food delivered? Then you would want to know what’s good about Doordash and what’s not.
Pros
Convenience
Whether a small business owner or already running a huge, established business, you want to maximize your efficiency and ROI.
Doordash provides you with the platform to post your menu, and it handles the sending of orders and dealing with the drivers.
You can see an immediate uptick in business volume if you sell popular items like burgers or pizza on Doordash.
Authority
Customers who buy your food products have the platform to leave their reviews.
Therefore when a new customer comes to check out your product, he will get to know whether it’s worth the price.
Growth
You will no longer be constrained by the physical seating capacity of your restaurant. If your kitchen is capable of outputting more, you can stretch it with delivery orders.
Further, over 20 million customers placed orders through Doordash.
That means that all these people can view your product and make a decision to buy your food product.
Labor-saving
By outsourcing the delivery to Doordash, you can save on hiring and managing staff and the overhead you would have paid for deliveries and insurance for your in-house team.
You need not worry about whether the drivers have the correct insurance, gas reimbursement, additional administrative costs, or dealing with tips from clients.
The focus can shift to developing your brand by improving your product, training staff, or working on giving your restaurant customers a memorable experience.
Meet customers demands
When your customers can access products at the tap of a button, that is a plus for your business. Since 2019, demand for online ordering has continued to grow.
This growth took another level at the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic, where folks were encouraged to stay home and be safe.
The US eCommerce platform confirms purchases grew by 14.2% in 2021, and in the first quarter of 2022, by 6.7%.
Cons
High commissions
The first con is the high commission charged on every order.
Doordash can charge up to 30% on every order.
Independent restaurants find this rate high and will try to offset it by raising their prices by the same 30%. However, you can only raise prices so high before customers bail at paying them.
Lack of control
If a customer has a dispute over an order from your restaurant, Doordash will handle the dispute without involving you.
The dispute might be over a missing side order; Doordash might decide to refund the entire check, which will be to your loss, and have no say over it. You will have to bear labor and any other cost it takes to prepare the food.
Weekly payments
Doordash will first process payments on its platform and deduct its commission; then, it deposits credit card payments once a week instead of 1-2 business days. Your credit card processor will deposit cash in your account within 1 to 2 business days.
If yours is a small upcoming business, this can cause issues with cash flow because of the longer turnaround time.
Unreliable drivers
As a business owner, you can be handled in training your staff but will not have control over the drivers of Doordash.
Customers have reported that it has taken a long time for them to access Doordash drivers and when the driver finally arrives, he speaks to the customer rudely. In addition, dissatisfied customers reported that these drivers have mixed up orders and take the least direct route to deliver orders.
No customer data
As a business owner, you know the value of a customer database, but Doordash, like other third-party platforms, does not share customer data. So you can’t contact customers directly to drive marketing or loyalty campaigns which can be huge for your business. In addition, in case of a customer’s disappointment, you can’t reach them to smooth issues out.
Pros and Cons of Doordash (Customer’s Perspective)
Pros
Convenience
Food delivered at the tap of a button is one of the century’s great achievements.
Doordash has contributed to this great convenience and growth of the economy. For example, a board of directors meeting can easily continue with their meeting and have their lunch or dinner delivered at the tap of a button.
As a user of Doordash, it’s easy to use and navigate through. It is straightforward to place an order through this application and easy to check.
Cons
Doordash users have found it to be quite costly to place an order.
For example, you could order food that costs $15, taxes and fees cost $6, and delivery charges $4. The additional charges at checkout are $10 as opposed to the cost of food which is $15 making the extra charges relatively high.
If you need a refund for an order gone wrong, the refund can only be done through dash cash instead of a cash refund. Most clients would rather have their refunds in cash form.
Doordash customer service has, therefore, some of their customers dissatisfied.
If you place a complaint to customer service, they potentially take a long time to respond and sometimes do not respond at all. In addition, some of them lack empathy when handling the issues of their customers.
The other con to Doordash is its customers’ lack of tipping options. You might want to tip the organization you ordered from, but Doordash does not allow it.
Doordash does not want to deal with administrative issues that come with tips.
Pros and Cons of Doordash for Drivers
Is being a Doordash driver worth it?
As of 31 December 2021, 1.2 million deliverers had used Doordash.
Looking at these statistics, you might think that one million people cannot go wrong, but is being a Doordash driver worth it?
A wise person once said that if you want to control the masses, control food.
Food delivery services are very high in demand, and drivers’ need keeps increasing.
Doordash delivery jobs will come in handy as a side source of income but are unlikely to be most people’s primary source of income.
Doordash offers flexible hours of working. However, deliveries are unpredictable, and there is a cap on your earnings.
You, as a driver, will consider the job worth it if it’s a reliable full-time job. Unfortunately, Doordash fluctuates quite a bit to be reliable. Some drivers have, however, made reasonable money from it with an average pay higher than minimum wage. Your earnings range from $20 to $30 per hour.
Pros
Doordash has a smooth signing-up process.
All you need to do is download the app, fill in your personal information, upload your license and insurance card and stay put as your background check clears. Once cleared, sign your partner’s agreement, and enter your bank info.
This app is touted as a clean and easy app to use. The layout is clear and fun to use if you are visual as I am. Everything you need is in front of you, including your ratings and earnings.
One fantastic thing with Doordash is that you can zoom in on an approximate customer location before accepting orders. You can also know if it’s a double order and if it’s from the same restaurant or not. So Doordash allows you to make an economical choice. That also includes knowing the amount each order will earn you and an option to accept or reject it.
One plus to Doordash is that it gives its drivers decent timing of orders. The timing option will help you not waste time on long restaurant lines. Doordash does that by providing you with estimated restaurant waiting times. This feature does not feature in most food delivery apps. Dropping an order is easy but does count against your completion rate.
Doordash makes it easy for you as a driver to drop an order. When the waiting time is too long, let’s say 15 to 20 minutes, that piece of information on waiting time helps you make an economic decision. The wait is worthwhile if the order costs more than $20.
Doordash is well known for good intro promos. For example, at one point, It offered its drivers an extra $75 for completing 35 orders. Isn’t that a good offer to motivate you as a driver? In the case of this promo, the earnings will show up on your weekly earnings depending on the offer’s terms and conditions.
In a bid to get more drivers, Doordash offers good referral bonuses. Now, this will depend on the terms and conditions of the referral offer.
Cons
Doordash does not offer new drivers any form of orientation. You’ll have to navigate around the app on your own.
The company will mostly offer you many small orders in the hope of making it to Top Dasher. Therefore, you will need to be careful to accept good orders, i.e., orders with good tipping, which will earn you good cash.
Zones can be very annoying. For example, when your delivery takes you out of your bordered zone, you will not receive dashes from the new zone until you return to your zone or end the current dash. Doordash added a feature, “Doordash on arrival”, but that’s not an improvement.
The customer you deliver to could not adjust tips after delivery if they wanted to.
The more you accept the orders, the more you get a top dasher award which means that Doordash expects you to accept many orders, including many small orders.
Doordash doesn’t give any other pro-level options to get higher-paying orders. However, on weekends Doordash will add about $1-$3 to an order, which you will appreciate, especially during peak times.
When you start as a Doordash driver, you must get an insulated bag to keep your orders hot. After completing about 20 deliveries, Doordash will send you a welcoming package that comprises a small flimsy bag that is not enough for your orders.
In the initial signing-up stages, you will be charged $1.99. This fee is for the registration process, which involves; adding two accounts where you add your complete banking information for weekly cash out and a debit card for when you need to cash out daily. This charge is the highest among delivery apps.
It can take up to 2 weeks to receive your first payment after signing up to do your deliveries, which is a drawback if you need cash immediately.
How do you make 500 dollars a week on Doordash?
Doordash has something they call guaranteed earnings. So what are guaranteed earnings? It’s just that, an assured amount you will earn. You will get the guaranteed amount when you complete a certain number of deliveries in a specified time frame.
That is the only way one can be assured of earning 500 bucks a week. Guaranteed earnings work as a top-off if you don’t meet the minimum earning threshold while dashing. For example, if $500 is the guaranteed earning for that week and you make $400, Doordash will add you the remaining $100, making your total earning $500.
How much can you make a week on Doordash?
Doordash offers you driver flexibility because you can work whenever you feel convenient. However, this flexibility can greatly vary your earnings compared to other drivers.
Your amount will depend on the number of deliveries, where you deliver, and the day you’re working. It would be best to pick orders at peak hours like lunch, dinner, and weekends.
Your hourly earnings could range from $10- $25. For example, a friend earned $183.51 weekly by working an average of 9 1/4 hours. This amount translates to $19.84 an hour. That is not bad for a gig economy, don’t you agree?
Summary
Doordash can be a good source of income or a side hustle.
The app layout is clean and receives many orders. The app is not only easy to use (as opposed to other delivery apps that you’ll mostly play a guessing game) but has fun graphics.
Compared to other delivery apps, Doordash has timed its orders better, making it easy for its drivers to plan when they have orders with long delivery distances and many stop-offs.
Regarding making money fast, Doordash rates top even when the orders are small.
In addition, Doordash offers its clients a better strategy since you can zoom into the client’s location and the location of nearby restaurants.
