Dive Brief:

• DoorDash announced on Monday it has added on-demand alcohol delivery and pickup to its online marketplace in 20 states and Washington, D.C., as well as in Canada and Australia.
• The delivery company also announced that Albertsons has begun piloting its DoubleDash service, which lets shoppers add a meal from a local restaurant or merchant when completing their grocery order.
• DoorDash is moving deeper into grocery delivery by focusing on peripheral purchases and building bigger baskets.

Dive Insight:

DoorDash is expanding in the red-hot alcohol category with an on-demand offering from grocery stores, restaurants, c-stores and other local merchants reaching an estimated 100 million consumers worldwide. The service, available through the “Alcohol” tab on its digital marketplace, includes 30,000 alcohol SKUs from to-go cocktails to bottles of wine and covering thousands of retailers and restaurants nationally.

DoorDash, which has facilitated alcohol purchases for retailers and restaurants through its white-label e-commerce service, will go up against numerous on-demand alcohol purveyors, including Uber-owned Drizly. But the size of the prize is substantial: Alcohol e-commerce sales grew an estimated 80% between 2019 and 2020 in the U.S., with the country poised to overtake China as the world’s leading online alcohol market this year, according to consulting firm IWSR. 

Experts have noted shoppers have bought larger packs and more premium selections during the pandemic. States and cities are also amending laws to boost the flow of alcohol delivery and pickup.  

“Over the past year, many cities where we operate evolved their legislation in order to permit the delivery of alcohol to residents’ homes,” said Caitlin Macnamara, DoorDash’s director of alcohol strategy and operations, in a statement.

With its launch of DoubleDash at Albertsons, DoorDash is expanding a tool it launched this summer that lets consumers bundle orders from multiple stores, including restaurants and c-stores like 7-Eleven and Wawa. Albertsons is the first grocer to trial the service and in doing so, extends a delivery partnership with DoorDash it kicked off this summer from nearly 2,000 stores.

The service could help DoorDash build its nascent grocery business by utilizing its much larger restaurant delivery footprint. Albertsons’ shoppers that use DoubleDash will be able to add restaurant meals to their orders with no additional delivery fee or order minimum, offering an adjacent ordering option that is fulfilled by the same shopper that gathers their groceries. Albertsons is also offering meals from its Deli Marketplace banner on the service.

DoorDash is growing its number of grocery partners and recently saw several regional grocers sign on, including Weis Markets and Cardenas Markets. 

Meanwhile, the DoubleDash pilot further incentivizes customers to turn to Albertsons to meet multiple meal needs with fewer deliveries and fees. The grocer has embraced third-party technology and services of late, from its increasing reliance on e-commerce companies like DoorDash and Instacart to utilizing Google's digital tools.