Tag: DoorDash

If you bought DoorDash at $180…

SirGasleak, 10 December 2020

No moat at all. Sure they have 50% market share but there are competitors. They’re a delivery service – anyone can do what they do. Not only does this pose a risk to market share, but it poses a huge risk to the already thin profit margins. At some point (because of 2-4 below) they will have to lower their fees and take rate, which will hurt margins even more.

No brand value or brand loyalty. People couldn’t care less who delivers their food, as long as it shows up on time and hot. Early in COVID I was using Skipthedishes until I got frustrated with poor service so I left. There is nothing to keep customers loyal to DoorDash if someone else offers better service, or the same service at a better price.
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DoorDash takes a hefty cut from restaurants, and risks losing them to cheaper options

Ari Levy, 08 December 2020

Salvatore Reina owns three Francesca pizzerias in New Jersey that have been closed for indoor dining during the pandemic. While much of his industry turned to DoorDash, Reina resisted.

“Third parties take a big cut,” said Reina, who opened his first pizzeria 12 years ago, about 20 miles outside of New York City. “I’d rather spend those marketing dollars to get people directly.”

As DoorDash prepares for its public market debut, an offering that could value the delivery app service at over $30 billion, the San Francisco-based company has to show that it can make enough money on every order to turn into a profitable business. Meanwhile, investors have to consider how many restaurant owners will eventually turn away from apps like DoorDash because the costs are too high for their low-margin operations.
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DoorDash: great unit economics, but many unanswered questions

Daniel McCarthy, 01 December 2020

A lot of people have a lot of different opinions about DoorDash in light of their pre-IPO S-1 filing. Many reporters and pundits are concerned about profitability in the restaurant meal delivery category as a whole, wondering whether any of these firms could ever sustainably turn a profit. Many others are more optimistic, pointing to some of the (many) customer-related disclosures that DASH scattered throughout its S-1. And of course, all of this uncertainty is only further compounded by COVID, which was and has continued to be a big shot in the arm for everyone in the category, but introduces yet more uncertainty about how the world will look post-pandemic.

Given my own academic research with Elliot Oblander and Kivan Polimis into the industry, which I will hopefully be able to link to over the next couple of months (if you’re interested, shoot me an email and I’ll make sure send it to you as soon as it breaks!), and given the volume of disclosures that DoorDash provided in the S-1, I took a closer look at the company to uncover what its underlying unit economic condition currently looks like, how COVID has impacted it, and what their “normalized” economics may be after stripping out pandemic-driven behavioral changes.
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