Square has been offering on-demand delivery in the U.S. market since 2020, and today, the company announced that this service is now available in Canada for Square Online orders through DoorDash Drive.
Using DoorDash’s white-label fulfillment platform, restaurants, bars, breweries, bottle shops, convenience stores, and other sellers that use Square Online can tap into the DoorDash’s logistics network and dispatch a courier to deliver orders placed on their website. This includes both food and alcoholic beverages, the latter only where applicable and permissible by law.
The service, says Square, provides Canadian businesses with a new revenue stream without having to worry about the costly overhead associated with building out a delivery fleet or hiring and training additional delivery staff.
Wilson Shin, Owner of Katsupan Japanese Sandwich in Toronto, was one of the early adopters of on-demand delivery through Square Online in Canada. “I think it’s great that Square can now offer a delivery option for customers who buy online, right alongside pickups, as the choice is right in front of them,” says Shin. “The service has been easy to use, which is always important. Overall, it’s a good option for recurring customers and it helps me save on fees as well.”
With on-demand delivery for Square Online, Canadian businesses can offer delivery to their loyal customer base directly from their own websites, commission-free. For some businesses, this may be a more cost-efficient alternative than other delivery solutions currently on the market and also encourages sellers to fully own the relationship with their customers.
When an order is placed on the business’s online store, a DoorDash courier is dispatched to the business’s location, picks up the order, and delivers it to the customer. The customer receives text updates with links to a live map to track delivery progress. Sellers pay a flat fee of $1.50 per order to Square and a flat delivery fee to DoorDash — without the marketplace commissions. Sellers can pass the delivery fee entirely to the buyer or offer custom delivery promotions. When applied across hundreds of delivery orders each month, sellers can save a significant amount on per-order costs, says Square.
Additionally, when customers place an order through Square Online, businesses receive their contact information in the Square Customer Directory and can maintain sales history to better market to those customers and develop relationships. By integrating Square Online with Square POS, sellers can automatically import their item catalogue so orders, items and inventory stay in sync for easy and streamlined inventory management.
“We’re excited to offer a new solution for Canada’s food and beverage industry to get the most out of its businesses in 2022,” says David Rusenko, Head of eCommerce at Square. “Whether that’s a bakery delivering food to customers, a restaurant monetizing its wine cellar, a grocery store supplementing their on-premise sales, or a local brewery introducing old favourites to a new crowd, we’re proud to provide our sellers with more ways to make money.”
Sellers can get started with on-demand delivery powered by DoorDash now.