Source
r/restaurateur•
Interdimension

DoorDash Promos? Effective?

I have a restaurant doing well (typical burgers & wings chain), but DoorDash's promotion on their Merchant Portal caught my eye. Basically what is summed up here on their FAQ. I know things can be too good to be true, so has anyone actually had much luck with doing this?

Whether it's the promo to attract new customers or entice lapsed customers to return, I figure it may be worth a try. (That is, unless someone else has already done this & strongly objects.)

DoorDash pickups & deliveries give us steady revenue (in addition to in-store orders, which make up the vast majority of sales). We do make money off DoorDash, so I wouldn't mind taking a loss initially in order to hopefully bring in more sales long-term.

Posted May 19, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

67
esh513•

Simply answer is yes. Just gotta make it work for you. I make the specials only at specific times or days when we’re not super slammed and it helps.

3
Pointyspoon•

DD is already taking 15% commission, hard for me to justify doubling the commission just to get orders from customers that may or may not order again without the presence of a coupon offer.

3
n0rbit•

In my experience, what many restauranteurs struggle to realize is that although these platforms take a hefty commission, they provide you with so much for so little effort.

By signing up with these platforms, you’re instantly listed on a massive marketplace full of hungry customers, many of whom have never heard of or tried your food, nor would they have had they not seen you listed in their app.

Even if they aren’t ordering, your brand is now literally right in front of their face, in the palm of their hand.

You don’t have to worry about maintaining and paying for your own online ordering platform. You get tons of built in features like promos/campaigns/ads/loyalty. You get super insightful analytics on your menu and customers. Your brand gets placed on the front page, in multiple carousels, depending on your offerings.

For those concerned with commissions, know that you can (and 100% should) inflate your pricing on these platforms to offset the commission and maintain profit margins. If your brand gets charged 25% commission, increase your pricing on the platform by 15%, then justify the remaining 10% to instantly having access to an extremely robust, well developed, user-centric ordering and marketing platform.

IMO, if you can’t beat them (and by them I mean the multi-million dollar food delivery tech companies with thousands of employees who want to increase your restaurant’s sales to boost the company’s stock price), join them.

4
turnasquare1Restaurateur •

I agree for the most part! One thing I'll note is that when we "maxed out" our benefits with Doordash, ie, used all of their promotional tools and signed up for their highest tier (read: highest commission) of merchant placement, our commissions were crazy high. Like 40-50% all in. We pulled back and had to find a good middle ground. We do about $100-$200/night at their 15% commission rate with no promos and that's fine for us. It doesn't put too much stress on the kitchen, and we still are in front of hungry eyes and able to leverage their delivery platform. YMMV!

2
Gold-Ad-7014•

Not true about inflating the price

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
n0rbit•

Worth experimenting that’s for sure. I’ve seen great success on some Doordash campaigns I’ve set up. Totally customizable and you pick the duration, so why not just try it?

In my experience the ROI is almost always at least 6x, although I’m sure their calculation is slightly biased.

2
Comfortable-Mine3904•

I've had much better results with the UberEats promos than DoorDash, but that could vary area by area.

2
Far_Wheel_2855•

Yes I’ve had very good results. I can tell you that I really hated them at first for all of the obvious reasons. I did a lot of marketing calls with them for about 1yr and half to fully understand it all. You can also negotiate your commission rates

1