Difference between revisions of "DoorDash"
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DoorDash is a food delivery application founded in 2013 by Tony Xu in Palo Alto. DoorDash allows users to order food and grocery products from local businesses on iPhone, Android and web platforms. As the largest and fastest growing 3rd party delivery service, DoorDash has surpassed its competitors, such as GrubHub and Uber eats. Individuals can sign up to be delivery drivers, or "Dashers", for DoorDash. Users are able to order food from partner restaurants in their area, which is then delivered to the user by Dashers.
History
Tony Xu founded DoorDash in 2013 as Palo Alto Delivery. Xu and a team of his classmates at Stanford had been working with a local store manager on a separate startup project which had ultimately failed. The store manager had reached out to them at the end of their partnership with the problem they were facing, an inability to handle the logistics of their delivery service. Xu took on this new challenge with his student team and began building an application to streamline the delivery process for local businesses which would eventually become DoorDash. Initial employees of DoorDash played roles on the business side, but were also required to deliver for the company for their initial week of employment. After growing in popularity in Palo Alto, the name was switched from Palo Alto Delivery to DoorDash to reflect the companies expansion.
DoorDash stood out from its initial competition through the hiring of its own Dashers rather than relying on individual restaurants to utilize their employees. This allowed users of DoorDash to order from restaurants that did not have their own delivery system set up, offering more food options to users. This advantage allowed DoorDash to take a lead in the market. DoorDash has received many rounds of venture-capital funding reaching more than $1 Billion, allowing them to expand beyond just food delivery and enter into autonomous vehicle development. DoorDash plans to utilize, Drones, autonomous vehicles, and other technologies in the future alongside Dashers to optimize the delivery process.
Usage
The primary method of usage for DoorDash is through the company's mobile app. Users are able to input their delivery address and order food from available restaurants. After, food is ordered, users are shown a timeline of their order process and can see what stage the Dasher assigned to their order is at. Once an order is delivered, DoorDash users can give tips and a ranking to their Dasher. Dashers are ranked on a 5-star scale, if a Dasher receives an overall ranking below 4.2 stars, they are not allowed to deliver for DoorDash. It is also possible to order through DoorDash's web page in addition to their app.
Controversies
Data Breach DoorDash was the victim of a cyber attack in late 2019, exposing the data of 4.9 million of its users. Included within this data breach were user's and partner's hashed passwords, addresses, phone numbers, and limited forms of payment information. The breach occurred in May 2019, but was not detected for about 5 months. Stolen account information is frequently used to make orders from users accounts and delivered to a 3rd party.
Tipped Wage DoorDash Dashers are contract employees who aren't protected by the US minimum wage or receive benefits like health care. Many dashers rely primarily on tips to support themselves. However, DoorDash's earlier business practices involved taking a portion of Dasher's tips as revenue, leading many Dashers to ask to be tipped in cash rather than through the app In early 2019, numerous publications reported on the fact that DoorDash was taking a percentage of Dasher tips. This caused much outrage, and DoorDash has since announced a change in their policy.
