How the DoorDash-Instacart merger will impact online delivery

DoorDash has agreed to acquire Instacart, and the online delivery space will never be the same.

DoorDash will acquire Instacart for roughly $17 billion, following a week of media speculation. The combination of the two leading online delivery platforms in the U.S. will dramatically affect the state of third-party delivery, especially for grocery and food service (which remain the two largest verticals utilizing online delivery). 

[READ MORE: DoorDash acquires Instacart for $17 billion]

Here are some initial thoughts on results retailers will likely see following the completion of the DoorDash purchase of Instacart:

Mega-consolidation

According to data from consumer transaction and market intelligence data provider Consumer Edge, DoorDash’s share of spending across major restaurant and grocery delivery platforms rose from roughly 44% in the second quarter of 2021 to nearly 59% in the third quarter of 2026.

During the same time period, Instacart’s share fell from roughly 26% to approximately 18%, and Uber Eats also holds a share of about 18%. This means that DoorDash and Instacart combine for a little more than three-quarters of the on-demand delivery market. 

Although DoorDash has assured that the brands will continue to operate separately as they always have, with some synergies like a combined fee for both of their paid membership programs (similar to the recently launched Walmart-Sam’s Club joint paid subscription), this merger will create even more consolidation in the space due to a network of partnerships involving both companies.

In September, DoorDash entered a strategic partnership with Wonder, the delivery-focused restaurant company founded by former Walmart executive Marc Lore. Under the agreement, DoorDash will acquire Wonder's Grubhub Campus Dining subsidiary for $300 million (Wonder acquired Grubhub in 2024) and make a long-term $125 million investment in Wonder as part of its Series D round.

This brings Wonder and Grubhub into the extended ecosystem of the deal. On the Instacart side, since 2024, the grocery technology company has partnered with Uber Eats to bring Uber Eats restaurant delivery to its customers.

Instacart also recently teamed with Philadephia-based Gopuff, which operates its own micro-fulfillment centers and offers more than 5,000 products delivered in as fast as 15 minutes, to give its customers will have access to Gopuff's inventory of thousands of everyday essentials with fast delivery. 

This expands an existing partnership Instacart has operated with Gopuff subsidiary BevMo! to jointly provide on-demand delivery of wine, spirits and beer since 2019. 

All told, more than 95% of the on-demand delivery market have some connection to the merger of DoorDash and Instacart, creating a serious consolidation in a space already dominated by a few key players and containing other industry giants like Amazon, Walmart and Target.

A new order and delivery management tech giant

DoorDash and Instacart have both made significant investments in recent years into moving beyond simply offering hosted shopping and delivery services into providing solutions that streamline order and delivery management for food service and grocery retailers.

DoorDash’s tools for retailers include the DoorDash Commerce Platform, a set of solutions it released in fall 2024 that is designed to help retailers manage their businesses on their own channels, and has also been developing proprietary delivery robots and drones. The company has focused most of its technology development efforts on building solutions to help food service retailers.

Meanwhile, Instacart refers to itself as a “grocery technology company” and released numerous in-store solutions including Storefront Pro, its end-to-end customizable e-commerce solution built specifically for supermarket retailers, the FoodStorm order management system for catering and prepared foods, and Instacart Carrot Ads electronic shelf label (ESL) software. The company is winding down its Caper Carts smart cart business.

The combination of the solutions suites of these two companies will create a formidable tech giant that could prove dominant in the order management and delivery space across food service and grocery. Many retailers simultaneously operate in both verticals and would benefit from easy integration and interchangeability, and top features and best practices from each set of solutions could be adapted and shared.

In addition, while Instacart has partnered with Fabric for some robotic picking and packing, the company does not use robots or drones for consumer delivery. DoorDash partners with third-party automated technology providers as well as develops its own solutions, and as a separate brand Instacart can still integrate DoorDash’s robotic and drone-based delivery capabilities.