DoorDash Hands Brands Live Shelf Data and Retail Insights

Local commerce platform DoorDash introduced a platform that provides brands with purchase-based signals from consumer orders and audit-based signals from shelf scans, the company said in a Wednesday (Sept. 23) press release.

With this information, the new Brand Center delivers insights into on-shelf availability and out-of-stock trends, the choices shoppers make when an item is unavailable, and how products are listed and presented across retailers on DoorDash, according to the release.

Brand Center also gives eligible brands direct control over product images, descriptions and categories to help these brands keep information accurate and complete across retailers on DoorDash, the release said.

Brand Center is now available to all advertisers in the United States, although some features are available only to eligible advertisers, per the release.

Fuad Hannon, vice president of new verticals at DoorDash, said in the release that Brand Center is part of the company’s broader investment in local commerce and is designed to provide brands with insights that help strengthen performance for their business and retail partners.

“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,” Hannon said.

DoorDash reported in August that grocery, retail and other new verticals outside restaurants are growing faster than the company’s core restaurant business and remain on track to turn gross profit positive by the end of the year.

Basket sizes are increasing as customers who join the platform through restaurant orders adopt grocery and retail categories over time, DoorDash Chief Financial Officer Ravi Inukonda said during an earnings call.

DoorDash announced in May that it introduced several new artificial intelligence-powered tools for merchants. The tools help merchants onboard faster, manage their video content, enhance their photos, launch branded websites and automate marketing campaigns.

Brian Tolkin, head of merchant product at DoorDash, said at the time that “the right technology should remove friction.”

PYMNTS reported in February that DoorDash is evolving from a food delivery app into a broader commerce platform that blends software, advertising, fulfillment and autonomy in an effort to give local businesses the tools to compete with larger digital rivals.