Today, Chowly, whose technology integrates third-party delivery orders with restaurant POS systems, announced a partnership with DoorDash to bring DoorDash Drive to restaurants, allowing them to utilize third-party delivery drivers while still taking orders in house.
DoorDash Drive lets a restaurant directly request a driver from DoorDash, allowing them to accept delivery orders via their own digital properties while still taking advantage of the delivery service’s actual couriers. Most Drive orders right now are for catering; the DoorDash-Chowly partnership will make the service available to all of Chowly’s restaurant clients.
With the new integration, when a restaurant accepts a delivery order via its own website, app, or even phone call, Chowly’s system will automatically dispatch a DoorDash driver (called “Dashers”). Previously, employees had to manually re-enter an in-house delivery order into a separate tablet to call a Dasher. The Chowly integration funnels all orders into restaurant’s main POS system and removes the manual input step from the process entirely.
The partnership is also a nod to the rising importance of restaurants being able to use third-party delivery services for their drivers but still accept orders via their own digital channels. According to a recent survey, 51 percent of restaurant guests said they had placed an order via a restaurant website in the past month compared to 38 percent who ordered via a third-party service. At the same time, a growing number of companies are starting to employ this hybrid approach to delivery. Some, like Panera, are even doing the inverse, where orders originate via third-party services and are then dispatched by Panera’s own drivers.
Other technologies, such as Ordermark, which just raised a Series B round, and Checkmate, which integrates with Toast’s POS system, also work to streamline and standardize third-party delivery orders into the restaurant’s main POS system. It wouldn’t be surprising to see these companies embarking on partnerships in the near future to test out their own versions of a hybrid delivery model.
Leave a Reply