The news: DoorDash is giving brands a view into local store shelves to show product availability and help them shift marketing accordingly.

Inventory Insights offers a real-time, location-based picture of shelf stock across DoorDash’s growing retail business. The data is available to brands using Brand Center, DoorDash’s new intelligence platform.

Insights into inventory are generated through Dashers, who capture a daily average of more than 1 million shelf signals through store visits on behalf of consumers, and AI, which analyzes these signals to articulate what’s happening on the shelf.

What it means: Brands can make localized marketing decisions based on how their products are selling in stores and assess their performance against competitors’. That data can then be used to power larger customer acquisition strategies.

The insights are useful to marketers because they show where ad spend can shift to support sales in places where availability is high. For instance, if a brand sees that grocery stores in Kansas aren’t selling its products as consistently as grocery stores in New York, it can divert marketing resources to Kansas to promote more buying.

Recommendations for brands: Treat shelf-level insights as a deeper view into local consumer buying behaviors.

• Analyze Inventory Insights to develop a region-by-region view of sales in DoorDash’s partner network. Consolidate this information into a map to identify wider patterns that could help inform marketing allocation.
• Synthesize shelf-level insights with regional data on consumer cost pressures to determine if affordability is a factor. If it is, running more ads won’t be an effective response. Consider offering discounts under these circumstances.

Keep in mind that DoorDash’s view into shelves isn’t an exhaustive understanding of storewide inventory. Communicate with stores directly to confirm whether items are selling before shifting marketing spend.

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