• Food delivery app DoorDash wants to expand further into grocery delivery and small business locally, according to its new Australian general manager.
• Rebecca Burrows, who previously ran Australia Post’s small business operations, says DoorDash wants to “bring the best of your city to your door” across multiple verticals.
• The pandemic has presented “an awakening for the Australian consumer” on what they can do online, she said.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

DoorDash’s recently appointed Australian general manager says the food delivery platform isn’t necessarily looking to go head-to-head with other competitors in an increasingly packed market, but instead to expand beyond restaurants into new verticals and service offerings.

“Restaurant delivery is a busy, crowded market here in Australia, so that’s a big challenge, and it’s quite exciting,” said Rebecca Burrows, who stepped into the top local job at the end of last year.

“But what actually makes me jump out of bed in the morning is thinking about the whitespace.”

For Burrows, that means competing outside of food. As with other platforms like Uber, DoorDash harbours ambitions of being the go-to for more than just pizza and pad thai.

“My vision for what DoorDash can be in Australia is bringing the best of your city to your door,” Burrows told Business Insider Australia.

To that end, DoorDash offers grocery delivery, and has partnered with merchants like The Reject Shop and Hairhouse Warehouse to deliver other in-demand goods.

Burrows says that Australia’s grocery delivery is still nascent compared to other markets, even with the surge in online ordering through the COVID-19 pandemic, and she sees growth opportunity for DoorDash outside of the big supermarkets, both of which have their own online delivery infrastructure.

“If I look at [Australia’s] ability to order groceries online now compared to other highly sophisticated ecommerce markets – markets which cater for small shops – we kind of sit in the middle,” she said.

According to Burrows, DoorDash has an opportunity to be “more embedded into society” by offering delivery from local businesses and grocery providers.

“It’s about bringing, you know, the local bakery, the local butcher, the local fruit shop, to your door,” she said.

The timing is obviously ripe. As recently as 2019, market research firm Roy Morgan described Australia’s grocery delivery sector as “small but lucrative” with only 4% of grocery shoppers buying their groceries online in an average month.

Woolworths recorded 42% growth in online sales in 2019-20, driven in large part by COVID-19 restrictions, while research from PayPal in 2020 found that one in three Australians who started shopping for groceries online during the pandemic would continue to do so.

Burrows, who previously worked in a range of roles at Australia Post including General Manager, Small Business, says the pandemic has presented “an awakening for the Australian consumer” on what they can do online – an opportunity DoorDash wants to take advantage of.

“Australian consumers have had a shift in their expectations and what they’ll accept,” Burrows said.

More features and products

Like many of its competitors including Uber Eats and Deliveroo, DoorDash offers a delivery subscription product.

DashPass, which costs $15.99 a month and is currently only available in Melbourne, gives members unlimited delivery on eligible orders over $20, saving “an average of $4-5” per order.

These subscription offerings usually appeal to those who regularly order food delivery and are looking for cost savings on delivery, but Burrows wants DashPass to attract more than just that market.

“The target consumer for me is somebody who’s looking to tap into the convenience of life,” she said.

“As we build out the breadth of services, I think anybody has a set of tasks that need to interact with the physical world and order things will benefit from having a subscription to do that, because it takes away the barrier to actually have the things delivered to you.”

DoorDash also offers a range of white labelled services, allowing businesses to use its delivery infrastructure without the customer using the DoorDash app, or run their own online delivery storefront using the DoorDash platform.

“The merchant continues to 100% own the relationship with the consumer, they drive the traffic to their own channel – whether that’s a website or an app – and then we fulfil your white labelled delivery for them,” Burrows said.

“That really resonated with me, because that’s not about us building DoorDash. It’s a very non-egotistical approach to the market.”

DoorDash in Australia

DoorDash launched in Melbourne in September 2019 before expanding to Sydney and beyond, with Australia being the company’s first international market outside of North America.

Targeting growth in suburban areas that the company said was neglected by bigger players, DoorDash encountered controversy straight out of the gate for its strategy of delivering food for restaurants that hadn’t actually signed up for the service. The strategy allowed the platform to grow rapidly at the expense of some aggrieved restauranteurs and cafe owners.

Globally, the company commenced public trading in December last year, opening 78% above its IPO price and establishing it as the highest-valued food-delivery company in the US.

In February, amid strong fourth-quarter earnings, the company acknowledged the possibility of weaker demand in 2021 as COVID-19 vaccinations accelerate.

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