Small businesses leverage delivery services

If you build it, they will come — or so the saying goes. These days, many customers prefer that you come to them. Delivery services surged during the COVID-19 pandemic as social distancing shut down brick-and-mortar stores. Yet even before the pandemic, delivery services from local businesses were growing at a fast clip.

Food is the most obvious example. Once upon a time, if you wanted hot food delivered, that meant ordering pizza. Now, you can order just about any cuisine you’d like. Hibachi steak, steamed snow crab, chicken parmigiana — if a restaurant is cooking what you crave nearby, there’s a good chance you can get it delivered.

McKinsey reports that the global food delivery market has tripled since 2017 and is now worth more than $150 billion. While big companies like Domino’s Pizza once dominated delivery, food delivery partners like DoorDash and Grubhub make it easier for small restaurants to get their food delivered, according to emarketer.com.

Across the United States, many malls have become ghost towns, with regional mall vacancy rates hitting a historical high of 11.4 percent, according to the Washington Post. Research has found that there are still over 130,000 small specialty stores in the U.S., but the number of such retailers contracts by .8 percent each year.

Ask folks why and many will point to the Internet. Amazon, eBay, Etsy — some of the biggest companies today simply skip brick and mortar. Yet there’s an important but sometimes overlooked component: delivery services.

Small businesses can now ship products (candles, electronics, lotions, whatever) through Postmates, DoorDash, and other delivery services. Or you can sell products through Amazon and similar sites, relying on established shipping services to get products to customers’ front doors.

Skip delivery at your own peril. Insider Intelligence estimates that restaurant delivery intermediary sales (i.e. DoorDash) will top $57 billion in 2021.