What you need to know:

• DoorDash is the dominant player in the US but a bit part player in Australia's on-demand delivery market. Local GM Rebecca Burrows is hoping to change that.
• The company has partnered with the NBL, adding to its role as an official partner of the NRL. The two codes dovetail, Burrows says, with different seasons, audiences, and strong grassroots bases.
• DoorDash is a two-sided business: One side focuses on fast deliveries to customers, like takeaway food and groceries; The other side is a white-label delivery service for businesses venturing into e-commerce.
• The on-demand delivery industry is “the most competitive industry in the country at the moment”, reckons Wavemaker Chief Content Officer Shivani Maharaj says. The agency is tasked with helping deliver DoorDash's masterplan.

In the US, DoorDash is a force to be reckoned with. It holds about 60 per cent of the market for food delivery – more than twice its nearest rival. In Australia, it's a minnow: But the company plans to eat rivals' share and get big, fast.

In the two years since DoorDash launched locally, it has invested heavily in partnerships and products. It is the NRL’s “official on-demand delivery partner”, has started rolling out Coles grocery deliveries through its network of Dashers, it delivers products from Chemist Warehouse and The Reject Shop (among other retailers), and has a white-label delivery service for just about any business that wants to enter the e-commerce world.

Meanwhile, the company has just launched a new partnership with the NBL, Australia’s top basketball league.

It is locked in a fierce battle with the likes of Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Menulog which are also pushing harder into grocery, and recently launched its first brand campaign, by Cummins&Partners, to roll out its wider delivery ambitions.

“We didn’t come here just to be competitive with people who’ve been here a long time in one area. I don’t know who would be crazy enough to think that’s a whole lot of fun or a great way to spend your time,” Rebecca Burrows, DoorDash Australia’s General Manager, says.

“We definitely felt that part of the business was ripe for some disruption in terms of the merchant experience and being a merchant first business. We came here and can really see the opportunities generally for Australians.”

The company is eyeing the top spot as a major delivery provider and marketplace, offering takeaway food and alcohol, fast and individual grocery shopping, general personal care products, and maybe, one day, other verticals like apparel.

In late 2020, DoorDash appointed GroupM media agency Wavemaker Melbourne to its media account. The on-demand delivery sector has boomed through Covid.

“I think this genuinely is the most competitive category in the country at the moment,” Wavemaker’s Chief Content Officer Shivani Maharaj says.

“It used to be the war with the QSRs (quick service restaurants), but this is the place you have to get in early and you have to place long-term bets because those opportunities don’t come up that often. We look at Kia and the tennis – 10 years plus. KFC and cricket? 10 years plus. Optus and the Olympics? 10 years plus. Those opportunities don’t come out that often.”

NBL and NRL

DoorDash has signed a multi-year deal with the NBL that includes on-court signage, supporting the Next Stars program, and adding former NBA championship winning Cleveland Cavaliers player Matthew Dellavedova as a brand ambassador.

It is a natural fit alongside the ongoing NRL partnership, Burrows says, as it reaches a vastly different audience and is a sport that reaches down to an very active grassroots level.

“We learned a lot through our NRL partnership. That’s been very, very successful for us. It’s been really good in terms of driving new consumers (and) brand recognition on what will be a long journey in Australia,” she says.

“I see this sponsorship or this partnership as part of building our brand generally… it gives us a year-round sporting presence, so we’re not competing with ourself for share of voice, and we’ll push into grassroots as we can.”

Local – and sustainable – deliveries

Changing the way deliveries are made in Australia is no easy task. Burrows says Australia is, in some areas, a decade behind similar markets like the UK.

“The average parcel in Australia travels like 200km or 180km or something like that. But 80 per cent of what we buy could be found within 10km of home,” she says.

“So how do we actually empower all those businesses that are around where we live to provide services to consumers where they can get things straight away, cheaper, better for the environment, and we don’t have to wait for days for things to come to us?”

The company has 28,000 merchants on their platform and covers 82 per cent of the Australian population – any town with a population of more than 25,000 people. “There’s probably none of our competitors that’s everywhere that we are, but there’s also no markets in which we’re the only one.”

Two or three will emerge

The battle between the on-demand delivery companies is unlikely to end in a stalemate, Maharaj believes.

“My belief is that there’s not enough population in this country to have four, five or six providers,” she says.

“It’s going to be the top two or three that will survive. And for us, it is about being the number one, or for the moment, getting into the top two.”

In the end, it will come down to scale and product. Like Amazon, DoorDash has a dominant position in the US and imports those learnings into the Australian market, albeit slowly. Locally, Uber Eats has recently launched a similar positioning – selling more than just takeaway food – through a ‘This Calls For’ platform from Special Group, who also created its now international ‘Tonight I’ll be Eating’ campaign.

“I do believe the best product will win. I think that we’ve proven that out in the largest market, and that’s kind of what we’re very focused on here,” Burrows says.

“Not to say it’ll be the same product as the US, but making sure that we’re very close to each of our audiences and that we focus very much on our product. We might all play in similar verticals – I don’t think we’re all doing it in exactly the same way, but I’m very focused on making sure as we go into each of those verticals that the products we’re developing for them meet the needs of those audiences better than anybody else.”