“It wasn’t that they didn’t have demand. It was that they probably couldn’t fast enough get the business model to work because they were operating in a niche,” she said.

“We’ve already got a lot of the infrastructure that you need to make a marketplace work ... We won’t have the same challenges [where] they’re trying to build the whole piece from the beginning – we’re layering this into a business that’s already highly successful.”

Unlike Voly, Send and Milkrun, DoorDash does not employ its riders. Instead it engages them as independent contractors who are not entitled to a minimum wage, penalty rates, traditional workers’ compensation or other employee benefits. But that model is also efficient, allowing riders flexibility and the chance to work for several services at the same time. DoorDash’s riders will be able to collect orders from restaurants and its DashMarts on the same trip.

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In Sydney and Melbourne, DashMart will be competing with Milkrun as well as supermarket giant Woolworths’ Metro60, which it rolled out four months ago promising deliveries in under 60 minutes, and uses couriers from Uber.

Burrows said DashMart would compete with major grocery chains by sourcing products from local businesses outside their range as well as through its extended operating hours of 7am to 3am.

While it was the last of the major food delivery players to enter the Australian market in September 2019, DoorDash has swiftly captured market share. Its more established competitor, Deliveroo, pulled out altogether last week. DoorDash reaches about 80 per cent of Australian consumers and has 70,000 couriers and 30,000 merchants.

DashMart’s delivery fees will be calculated according to distance. Site managers, operators and store packers will be employed or contracted by DoorDash, which will purchase products from suppliers.

Burrows said DoorDash would not head in the same trajectory of Deliveroo and the business was “confident about runway here in Australia”.

“We’re here in Australia to stay, you know, we’ve made a very deliberate decision to enter Australia to continue to expand and innovate in Australia,” she said.

Michael Kaine, the national secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union and a critic of the gig economy, said DoorDash had been part of industry calls for the federal government to set minimum standards in the transport sector. Until then, Kaine argued, expanding gig operators would continue to put downward pressure on wages.

The industry disputes that claim, and one gig economy industry insider, who was not authorised to speak on the record, said DoorDash’s new business could work because it leveraged their existing base of customers who ordered from restaurants.

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