DoorDash Introduces 'Brand Center' Platform

DoorDash has introduced a new platform built for marketing, supply chain and ecommerce teams. 

Brand Center is designed to give brands new ways to improve how their products show up for consumers – from spotting in-store availability gaps to updating product content. 

“Brand Center is part of DoorDash's broader investment in local commerce, providing brands with insights that help strengthen performance for their business and retail partners,” says Fuad Hannon, VP of New Verticals at DoorDash. 

“As the next evolution of Ads Manager, we built on the advertising portal brands already use and expanded the platform with a shared view of what is shaping growth beyond media investment. 

“That means clearer visibility into everything from on-shelf product availability and shopper substitution behaviour to catalogue content and campaign performance.”

A unique view into customer experience

According to DoorDash, inventory distortion from out-of-stocks and overstocks costs the global retail industry an estimated US$1.7tn each year. 

Working with more than 200,000 retail and grocery stores and nine million-plus Dashers (DoorDash’s name for its independent delivery contractors) DoorDash has a self-described “unique” view into commerce – with its delivery platforms giving insights into what shoppers are searching for and buying, what Dashers see on shelves and the friction points when a purchase can’t be completed. 

With Brand Center, the company says it is bringing together purchase-based signals from consumer orders and audit-based signals from shelf scans into a single platform – giving brands the opportunity to take action by connecting with Dashers who can offer in-store support, such as shelf audits, item counts and promotional displays. 

The platform also offers insights into substitutions, showing what customers chose when an item is unavailable, including the brands and products which capture that demand. According to internal data from DoorDash, when a shopper’s intended product is unavailable, nearly 12% choose a competing brand or product.

Assortment insights, meanwhile, give brands visibility into how their products are listed and presented across retailers on DoorDash. With this, brands can identify assortment and content gaps, including missing listings and incomplete product details to streamline the process for consumers. Eligible brands will also have direct control over product descriptions, images and categories in DoorDash, to help them keep information accurate and complete across retailers. 

DoorDash’s retail push

Brand Center sits as part of DoorDash’s broader retail push – with a growing number of retail partners, including Kohl’s, Gap and SKIMS. 

Today, there are more than half a million retail products eligible for delivery with DoorDash in under an hour, with 10s of thousands of stores now available across apparel, beauty, toys and games, books, auto parts, sporting goods, and more.

DoorDash’s partnership with SKIMS, for instance, allows US consumers to shop more than 23,000 styles across shapewear, underwear, loungewear and other products from SKIMS stores directly on DoorDash.

“DoorDash was built on one idea: you should be able to get everything you need in your neighborhood, right now. And increasingly, that's not just dinner, it's what you're wearing to dinner too,” said Shanna Prevé, Chief Revenue Officer at DoorDash. 

“SKIMS has built an iconic brand that’s become part of so many people’s everyday wardrobes, and that’s exactly what we want to your doorstep. We're proud to be SKIMS' first-ever on-demand delivery partner, giving people a completely new way to shop a brand they already love.”

Who are DoorDash’s key partners?

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): DoorDash partners with AWS to scale customer-centric generative AI across 19,000 support agents.
• Lyft: The DoorDash and Lyft partnership allows active DashPass members and Lyft riders to unlock combined rideshare and food delivery discounts by linking their accounts.
• JP Morgan Chase: JPMorgan Chase partners with DoorDash primarily through its consumer banking arm, Chase, offering cardholders complimentary DashPass memberships and recurring monthly or quarterly grocery and convenience credits.
• SKIMS: SKIMS partners with DoorDash to offer rapid, on-demand delivery of over 23,000 clothing and shapewear styles directly from its retail locations.