DoorDash’s transformation from a Silicon Valley start-up to a dominant force in the gig economy has reshaped the food and retail delivery landscape. Once a niche service, it has expanded its reach and secured dominance across QSR, grocery, and retail sectors. For QSRs and retailers, this evolution presents unparalleled opportunities and new challenges.
Here's what we cover:
DoorDash’s Market Leadership: Maintaining Its Edge
As of late 2024, DoorDash maintains a 67% market share in food delivery, yet competitors—notably Uber Eats—have gradually gained ground. Over the past two years, Uber Eats has expanded its footprint, capturing a larger share of the delivery market, while DoorDash’s overall percentage has slightly declined.
This shifting market share underscores an evolving delivery landscape where QSRs and retailers must take a strategic approach. While DoorDash remains dominant, businesses should consider a multi-platform strategy, leveraging Uber Eats’ growing presence to optimize reach. Additionally, Grubhub continues to hold a smaller but steady market share, highlighting the importance of diversified partnerships.
Understanding these shifts is crucial for QSRs to negotiate fees, optimize promotional spending, and ensure platform visibility. For retailers, the growing competition in third-party logistics presents new opportunities to engage customers increasingly using these apps for more than just food delivery.
DoorDash’s Expanding Market Share in Food, Grocery, and Retail
New data highlights how food-focused delivery services, including DoorDash, increasingly diversify into grocery and retail deliveries.
As of 2024, food delivery remains the dominant segment for services like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub, but grocery and retail have gained significant ground. For example, while DoorDash and Uber Eats handled 86% of food deliveries in 2023, that share has declined to 82% in 2024 as more grocery and retail deliveries enter the mix. Instacart remains almost entirely grocery-focused, while Spark’s deliveries are overwhelmingly retail.
This trend signals a growing consumer appetite for multi-category delivery services for QSRs, increasing competitive pressures to offer a seamless, omnichannel experience.
The Retail Explosion: Macy’s and the DoorDash Surge
One of the most striking delivery trends of 2024 has been the meteoric rise of retail deliveries through DoorDash. From January to December 2024, Macy’s delivery volume via DoorDash skyrocketed by 4,525%, signaling an aggressive expansion of DoorDash’s retail footprint.
The surge in retail deliveries marks a pivotal shift in how consumers use third-party platforms, expanding beyond food into lifestyle and retail purchases. For retailers, this presents an opportunity to capitalize on DoorDash’s vast logistics network and customer reach. However, for QSRs, it introduces new competitive dynamics, as increased retail volume could impact fulfillment speed and prioritization for restaurant partners.
At the same time, retailers face a more complex operating environment within DoorDash’s app ecosystem. To remain competitive, they must optimize visibility, leverage in-app promotional tools, and ensure their fulfillment capabilities align with platform expectations.
Driver Loyalty and the Multi-Apping Challenge
One of the defining factors of DoorDash’s continued dominance is its ability to retain gig drivers. DoorDash has the lowest percentage of multi-apping drivers, meaning more of its workforce remains exclusive to its platform compared to Uber Eats, Grubhub, and Instacart.
This is an essential operational consideration for QSRs. Drivers who stick to a single platform tend to provide consistent service levels, reducing order delays and improving fulfillment reliability. A stable driver base for retailers translates to improved logistics efficiency and predictable last-mile fulfillment.
Comparing Driver Compensation and Pay Breakdown
An analysis of pay structure and earnings highlights key differences across major delivery and rideshare platforms. For DoorDash, the data reflects a moderate balance between base pay, tips, and minimal bonus incentives—positioning it between gig categories like rideshare and parcel delivery, which are far more reliant on fixed base pay.
DoorDash Drivers Earned More in 2024 While Working More Hours
DoorDash drivers earned an average of $240 per week in 2024, up 4.8% year-over-year. This growth came alongside a 5.2% increase in average weekly work hours—from 17.2 to 18.1 hours. Pay per hour fell slightly to $12.23, while pay per mile dropped to $0.92, down from $1.01. These shifts reflect higher total engagement on the platform, possibly driven by increased demand or improved driver activation.
DoorDash Relies Heavily on Tips to Drive Earnings
Tips accounted for 53.4% of total driver compensation on food delivery platforms—by far the highest of any gig category. Food delivery drivers on average received only 44.3% of their earnings from base pay, and 2.2% from bonuses. This compensation model emphasizes variability and highlights the importance of customer tipping behavior in sustaining earnings.
These compensation trends underscore key operational considerations for platforms. Tip-reliant models like DoorDash’s introduce variability in driver earnings, which may influence retention and engagement. Meanwhile, base-heavy models in parcel and rideshare offer greater earning predictability, albeit with less customer-facing variability.
Site Selection Insights Powered by Delivery Demand Data
ZIP-level delivery trip volume data offers valuable signals for delivery platforms to refine network operations, prioritize partnerships, and deepen geographic penetration. By analyzing neighborhood-level demand patterns, stakeholders can make smarter and more strategic decisions.
High Coffee Delivery Volumes Signal Platform Opportunity in Residential Zones
O’Hare/Dunning (60634) leads Starbucks delivery trip share at 5.3%, followed by Irving Park/Avondale (60618) at 4.7% and Uptown/Andersonville (60640) at 3.9%. These residential areas represent strong, sustained coffee demand—ideal for optimizing driver coverage, prioritizing peak-hour incentives, and identifying areas with under-onboarded café partners.
Healthy Food Demand Clusters Around Affluent Urban Hubs
River North/West Town (60654) accounts for 6.9% of healthy food delivery volume, with Lincoln Park/Old Town (60614) at 6.8% and Magnificent Mile/Streeterville (60611) at 6.1%. Delivery platforms can use this concentration to inform merchant recruitment, cross-promotions with health-focused brands, and hyperlocal marketing strategies targeting wellness-conscious consumers.
Fast Food Thrives in Youth-Dense, Social Neighborhoods
Lake View/Northalsted (60657) leads fast food delivery trip volume at 4.5%, with Wrigleyville/Buena Park (60613) at 3.9% and Uptown/Andersonville (60640) at 3.6%. These data points can guide platforms in load-balancing driver dispatch during evening hours, surfacing high-velocity fast food partners, and calibrating pricing algorithms in high-demand zones.
Delivery trip volume isn’t just a reflection of consumer behavior—it’s a strategic asset for platform operations and growth. As geographic preferences become clearer, platforms that use this intelligence effectively can deliver faster, increase order frequency, and deepen local engagement.
For QSR partners, these insights can help guide where to scale delivery operations or test new store formats.
For retail brands, trip density data can inform which neighborhoods are primed for rapid fulfillment infrastructure or exclusive promotions.
The Road Ahead: Adapting to an Evolving On-Demand Landscape
DoorDash’s expansion into grocery and retail reflects a broader industry shift toward multi-category convenience. For delivery platforms, this evolution creates new opportunities to deepen market penetration, optimize fulfillment networks, and refine geographic strategy using trip-level data.
Driver compensation trends—such as DoorDash’s high reliance on tips and modest base pay—underscore the need for platforms to balance engagement incentives with reliability. As more hours are worked and driver supply increases, platforms must continue optimizing earnings structures that sustain service levels without eroding margin.
At the same time, ZIP-level delivery volume data is becoming a critical strategic asset. Platforms can use these insights to guide driver coverage, surface merchant gaps, and enable QSR and retail partners to scale more effectively in the neighborhoods where demand is highest.
Ultimately, as consumers expect faster, more flexible service across food, retail, and beyond, delivery platforms must continue evolving from transaction enablers to localized infrastructure engines—powering the next chapter of on-demand commerce.
