Following in the footsteps of Amazon, Walmart and Shopify, DoorDash has launched its own fulfillment service. The fittingly named DashMart Fulfillment Services will rely on DoorDash’s growing network of DashMart first-party warehouses and fulfillment centers. The company debuted the DashMart concept in 2020 and now boasts a network of more than 100 locations that hold fresh groceries, retail items, household essentials and local favorites, all available for speedy delivery.
DoorDash presented the move as a natural evolution of its mission to “grow and empower local economies. We want to connect every local business — small, medium and large — to every local consumer, and we want to do this globally,” said DoorDash CEO Tony Xu at the DashForward product showcase on Sept. 29.
“Because these local businesses represent a significant portion of the economy, if we can achieve our goals, then we believe that we can help cities grow in the best possible way, by organically growing their GDP and job index and in turn producing more vibrant and safer neighborhoods,” Xu added.
End-to-End Logistics for Instant Delivery
The new fulfillment service uses the DashMart network to offer retailers end-to-end ecommerce logistics, including inventory management, picking, packing and delivery by DoorDash Dashers. According to DoorDash, handling the entire logistics process will allow its retail partners to not only deliver speed, but also “near perfect accuracy.”
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“The hardest challenge in delivering non-restaurant items is knowing where everything sits — where is every item on the shelf, on the aisle, across every store inside the city?” said Xu. “That’s not only the hardest problem for retailers, but it’s also the biggest pain point for consumers. After all, what’s the point of ordering delivery if not everything shows up or if you don’t get exactly what you ordered? But what if we could create an operation from the ground up where we managed, end to end, the inventory system? That’s exactly what we did when we launched DashMarts, where we store items like household goods and grocery perishables, to test whether or not we could create a more accurate ordering experience to enable perfect deliveries.”
Party City, CVS, Kroger Tap DoorDash for Fulfillment Services
Among the retailers already trialing the service are CVS Pharmacy and Party City. Party City is an interesting use case given the company’s 2024 bankruptcy and subsequent shuttering of all its stores. The company’s IP was sold to an affiliate of the consumer product conglomerate Ad Populum, and now one of the places where Party City lives on is on DoorDash.
The company appears in the app as “Party City Powered by DashMart,” and via the partnership, a full selection of party essentials is available for online ordering and same-day delivery on both the DoorDash app and PartyCity.com. All the SKUs listed in both places are stored at DashMarts across the country and DoorDash handles all fulfillment tasks, even filling balloons with helium when required.
CVS Pharmacy also is already leveraging DashMart Fulfillment Services, and Kroger (which recently expanded its partnership with DoorDash to include its full assortment, including fresh food) will begin using DoorDash Fulfillment Services soon as well.
Both CVS and Kroger will start with a select set of products that customers often need quickly, and as with Party City, these offerings expand beyond DoorDash to CVS’ and Kroger’s own digital channels. Additionally, since DashMarts are open 24/7, 365 days a year, the offering also allows retailers to expand their ability to deliver the products customers need whenever they need them — whether it’s a missing ingredient on Thanksgiving Day or medicine in the middle of the night.
Will Fulfillment Give DoorDash an Edge in the Instant Delivery Race?
Like its counterparts Uber Eats and Grubhub, DoorDash got its start with food delivery. But all of these platforms quickly recognized the consumer demand for speedy delivery of things beyond just meals, and the race to expand into general retail continues to heat up.
This new fulfillment offering may be a watershed moment in that contest, turning DoorDash (as it did for Amazon nearly 20 years ago) into the de facto partner for retailers looking to offer instant delivery, but not equipped or willing to build out the capabilities for the service in-house.
It’s worth noting as well that DoorDash already has a foot in the door of fulfillment in international markets through its 2022 acquisition of Wolt Enterprises, which also offers a similar service, Wolt Fulfillment, through its own Wolt Market stores.
