DoorDash: TikTok Influence, Dining Affordability Among Latest Trends

Roughly 30 percent of Gen Z DoorDash users who also use social media, indicate that they use TikTok as a restaurant discovery tool, followed by 29 percent who use Instagram for the same purpose, according to a recent report from DoorDash. The fourth annual Restaurant Online Ordering Trends Report examines the evolution of consumer dining expectations, and generational dining routines over the past year.

“To grow in the current environment, we have to continuously evolve to meet today’s consumer needs. We must listen to our customers, run each shift with a positive attitude, and do what we can to make our businesses a little bit better every day,” said Michael Solomonov, chef and co-owner of CookNSolo Restaurants and chief restaurant advisor at DoorDash, in a statement. “We hope that the insights and business takeaways gathered in this report will help operators increase profitability, run their businesses more efficiently, and connect with more folks in the community.”

In the first quarter of this year, 620 million total orders were placed on DoorDash, a 21 percent increase versus the previous year, according to DoorDash. Seventy percent of consumers surveyed in March 2024 indicated that they'd ordered food delivery in the past month and nearly half placed repeat orders at least once a week.

Some trends in the report include:

• Selection and affordability: When choosing a new restaurant for delivery or pickup, menu selection is the top motivator for 55 percent of consumers, with menu pricing following closely at 50 percent.

• Creatures of habit: Customers tend to order food most often on Fridays and Saturdays; orders spike around dinnertime, with 6 p.m. as the most common time.

• Hungry for variety: Approximately 67 percent of users ordered from a new store in the first quarter of this year compared to the stores they ordered from in the last quarter of 2023.

• Ordering at the eleventh hour: Nearly three-quarters of consumers report using delivery for last-minute situations in the past month. Last-minute delivery needs are more common among men—nearly 80 percent of men reported a recent urgent order, compared to 64 percent of women.

• No need to run the dishwasher: Sixty-three percent of consumers across generations prefer using the original takeout container; however, more than half of Baby Boomers use their own dishes and utensils for food delivery.

• Breakfast (or lunch, or dinner) in bed: Although 52 percent of consumers most often eat their takeout or delivery food at home on the couch, 21 percent of Gen Z say they most often eat delivery from their bed.