Shopify merchants can now go live on DoorDash

DoorDash is getting into retail delivery from local mom-and-pop stores with Shopify.

Shopify merchants with a physical store in the US can now add their products to the DoorDash marketplace directly from the Shopify app store. Inventory stays synced automatically, so what’s on DoorDash matches what’s actually on the shelf. And the setup takes days, not weeks.

The announcement comes as DoorDash pulled in more US customers for grocery and retail delivery in Q1, helped by a wider selection in newer categories like apparel and auto parts, and new tools that made it easier for merchants to get up and running, the company said.

Earlier this year, DoorDash struck deals with Steve Madden, Rally House, Urban Outfitters, and a string of other fashion retailers to expand apparel delivery on the platform. The delivery giant first started to move beyond restaurant and pharmacy deliveries in 2022, partnering with retailers like Sephora and Dick’s Sporting Goods to deliver non-food items on demand.

“In Q4, we talked about the fact that about 30% of our monthly active users order from categories outside of restaurants,” CFO Ravi Inukonda said during the company’s Q1 earnings call. “We truly think that could be 100% over time, and that is going to come with a lot of improvements in selection, quality, and the underlying product.”

“Local, independent retailers are the heart of local commerce, and they deserve tools that work as hard as they do,” Mike Goldblatt, VP of enterprise partnerships at DoorDash, said in a statement. “As the first on-demand marketplace that Shopify merchants can activate directly from their existing portal, we’re opening the door to retail merchants who can now reach their communities faster than ever.”

The new deal is “another expansion” of what DoorDash can offer to its customers, Sky Canaves, eMarketer analyst for retail and e-commerce, told Retail Brew, adding the partnership will lend support to small businesses that run on Shopify with more convenient and cost effective delivery options.

Zoom out: Goldblatt told Retail Brew the Shopify partnership is a “major step” toward connecting customers to their local neighborhoods. “If you look at our selection on the platform—in retail specifically, over the last couple of years—it’s been your larger enterprise players, your Home Depots, your Sephoras, and so on,” he said. “And with this, we’re really starting to unlock local commerce.”

The way Shopify’s VP of Partnerships Atlee Clark put it, merchants want to be wherever their customers are with speed and convenience. “This integration puts local retailers in front of millions of DoorDash shoppers and turns same-day demand into sales, all managed inside Shopify,” Clark said.

However, Shopify merchants tend to live in more discretionary categories, like the kind of brands that thrive on Instagram, Canaves pointed out. “Consumers tend to come to DoorDash with a much more transactional or immediate need,” she said. Whether those two worlds can really meet in the middle remains to be seen.

Goldblatt, for his part, said that once a shopper discovers they can buy more than food on DoorDash, the mindset shifts from “needed now” to “cross category” consideration.

DoorDash is already seeing this shift on Ask DoorDash, its agentic shopping tool, Goldblatt added, with customers engaging not just around grocery and recipes, but retail too.

Ultimately, the question is whether there will be enough consumer demand for local commerce to make such delivery partnerships sustainable, Canaves said: “Other big retailers with strong fulfillment have stepped into this arena as well. Amazon has a similar business where it can deliver orders from local merchants, local businesses. Walmart has trialed this as well.”