DoorDash facilitates beer, wine and spirits delivery

DoorDash is opening the bar across 20 states, Washington, D.C., Canada and Australia.

The on-demand delivery platform is enabling customers in these markets, where legally permissible, to toggle to the alcohol tab of the DoorDash app to browse and safely order from an assortment of alcoholic beverage products from restaurants, grocery stores, local retailers, and convenience stores. Previously, the company had been fulfilling alcohol on-demand delivery for national and local retailers via their own channels with its DoorDash Drive white-label fulfillment service. 

[Read more: E-commerce platforms enable direct-to-consumer alcohol sales]

As part of this effort, DoorDash has built an alcohol catalog including 30,000 SKUs available for purchase across thousands of retailers and restaurants nationally. Additionally, with the recent rollout of the DoubleDash feature, which enables customers to add items from nearby stores to an existing order, consumers in select markets can now bundle alcohol with their restaurant meal on certain orders.

Online liquor delivery is becoming a big business. Retailers including Target and Macy’s have launched or relaunched alcohol delivery programs in the past year; while platforms including Uber and Gopuff have initiated acquisitions or partnerships in the space. More recently, convenience giant 7-Eleven teamed up with on-demand alcohol delivery service Minibar Delivery to make liquor delivery available at about 600 stores in select markets. 7-Eleven plans to expand the service to additional markets later in 2021.

According to DoorDash, adding alcohol may increase participating grocery and quick service retailers’ average order values by up to 30%, and convenience stores by over 50%. The company says liquor delivery will now be available to over 100 million customers worldwide.   

Safeguards to ensure only customers of legal drinking age place and receive liquor include ID verification prior to checkout and multiple ID checkpoints along the delivery to ensure customers are of legal age. Delivery drivers 21 years of age and older have a compliance course available to ensure they are aware of the laws around the delivery of alcohol, and DoorDash engages in regular communication with drivers across the timespan of a liquor delivery to remind them of the proper protocols for lawful delivery.

In addition, DoorDash enables customers to voluntarily exclude themselves from receiving alcohol orders. An exclusion from alcohol delivery will also exclude persons from direct marketing communication surrounding alcohol-related promos.

"Over the past year, many cities where we operate evolved their legislation in order to permit the delivery of alcohol to residents' homes. Over that time, we worked tirelessly to build a trusted alcohol ordering and delivery experience for merchants, customers and delivery drivers," said Caitlin Macnamara, director, alcohol strategy & operations at DoorDash. "We're committed to providing new earning opportunities for merchants and delivery drivers, a safe, high-quality experience for customers, and being a responsible leader in compliant alcohol delivery."  

DoorDash operates in more than 4,000 cities and all 50 states across the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Japan.