Jimmy John’s, building on Inspire Brands’ longstanding preferred third-party provider relationship with DoorDash, is adding more than 2,400 Jimmy John’s locations within DoorDash service areas to the DoorDash platform while continuing to fulfill all delivery orders with Jimmy John’s drivers. Jimmy John’s will use DoorDash Self-Delivery, a new offering for restaurants to generate demand and reach new customers through the DoorDash platform, while using their own drivers to fulfill deliveries. This is the first time Jimmy John’s has entered into a relationship with a third-party marketplace, enhancing the visibility and scale of its delivery operations.
As part of a broader brand evolution, Jimmy John’s has been focused on continuing to reach new guests and refining its channels and operations to meet customers where they are while maintaining the unique Jimmy John’s delivery experience. After a successful six-month pilot with 100 restaurants, Jimmy John’s chose to expand its relationship with DoorDash chain-wide, due to its customer base, the strength of DoorDash’s existing relationships with other brands within Inspire’s family of brands, and its willingness to build a Self-Delivery model that could seamlessly integrate incremental DoorDash volume with Jimmy John’s existing delivery network.
“As a brand, we are relentlessly focused on reaching our guests on their terms,” says Darin Dugan, Chief Marketing Officer at Jimmy John’s. “In DoorDash we found a third-party partner that shares this commitment and offers us the ability to further reach our consumers where they increasingly are – digitally. We are so thrilled about this relationship and the visibility to consumers it provides for our brand, both now and in the future”
The two companies, who share a strong commitment to providing a top-tier delivery experience, worked closely together to build an integration where Jimmy John’s can tap into DoorDash’s marketplace to reach new customers while driving operational efficiencies within its existing delivery platform. This includes building a direct POS integration with Jimmy John’s provider Signature Systems, to minimize changes to in-store operations and ensure Jimmy John’s existing menus and store hours are synced with the DoorDash platform. Pickup at Jimmy John’s will also be available through the DoorDash platform, further enabling visibility to new customers across occasions. Jimmy John’s will also be available to subscribers of DashPass, DoorDash’s subscription program which offers members unlimited free delivery fees and reduced service fees on orders over $12.
“With Self-Delivery, we set out to build a product that would enable Jimmy John’s, and other restaurants, to reach DoorDash’s customer base while complementing their own existing delivery operations,” says Sanjay Kotte, Head of Strategic Partnerships at DoorDash. “We’re excited that Jimmy John’s has selected us as the preferred marketplace to enhance its delivery growth and increase its scale through our leading consumer platform.”
Self-Delivery is DoorDash’s newest merchant service that enables restaurants to list their stores on the DoorDash marketplace — increasing off-premise sales and reaching new customers in their areas — while using their own in-house fleet to fulfill the deliveries. Restaurants simply choose a delivery radius and set a delivery fee to continue using their in-house fulfillment with the new product. According to DoorDash data, an estimated 120,000 restaurants today offer in-house delivery, and with Self-Delivery, restaurants can continue to use their own fleets, create new opportunities for their employees, and benefit from the added visibility of the DoorDash platform.
“From the beginning, we’ve been focused on building a full suite of services to help merchants come online and thrive. During this unprecedented time, we’ve accelerated our efforts to innovate on behalf of our merchant partners, developing new ways to partner with restaurants to provide them with choice and control over how to grow their businesses, reach new customers, and adapt to rapidly evolving consumption habits,” says Tom Pickett, Chief Revenue Officer at DoorDash.