DoorDash Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 4, 2023

Key Takeaways

  • In Q1, DoorDash’s grocery and convenience verticals delivered stronger cohort retention and frequency thanks to selection improvements (including new partnerships like Aldi), better substitution accuracy, and more delivery time options.
  • The core restaurant business grew at a double-digit pace with all-time-high order frequency and retention, while new verticals and international operations also accelerated, leading to sequential and annual expansion in contribution margins and EBITDA outperformance.
  • The newly launched advertising platform is seeing rapid adoption across SMBs and major brands, driving efficient merchant acquisition and contributing to higher net revenue margins.
  • DashPass achieved another strong quarter of sign-ups and subscriber growth, reinforcing member engagement and supporting higher lifetime value with its $10-per-month subscription model.
  • DoorDash maintained flat operating expenses for three consecutive quarters, demonstrating disciplined investment in growth areas and underpinning a positive free cash flow outlook for the year.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
DoorDash Q1 2023
00:00 / 00:00

There are 16 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello. My name is Jean Louis. Welcome to the DoorDash Q1 2023 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

I will now turn the conference over to Andy Hargraves. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jean Louis. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our Q1 2023 earnings call. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Co Founder, Chair and CEO, Tony Hsu and CFO, Ravi Anokonda. We'll be making forward looking statements during today's call, including our expectations for our business, financial position, operating performance, market, guidance, strategies, our investment approach, alignment with merchants and dashers and the consumer spending environment. Forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described.

Speaker 1

Many of these uncertainties are described in our SEC filings, including our Form 10 ks and 10 Qs. You should not rely on our forward looking statements as predictions of future events. We disclaim any obligation to update any forward looking statements except as required by law. During this call, we will discuss certain non GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our non GAAP financial measures, including a reconciliation of the non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures may be found in our letters to shareholders, which is available on our Investor Relations website.

Speaker 1

These non GAAP measures should be considered in addition to our GAAP results and are not intended Finally, this call is being audio webcasted on our IR website. A replay of the call will be available on our website shortly after The call ends. Jean Louis, I'll pass it back to you and we can take our first question.

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, guys. Thanks for all the color. I guess I had two questions. The cohort data for new verticals looks great. Just a clarification, so that shows subsequent purchase frequency just in grocery and convenience and these folks are also purchasing For restaurant as well, is that correct?

Speaker 2

And are we at a point where we can maybe put a flag in the ground and talk about how much GOV or how many users are in things like grocery and convenience? And then the second question is, Some of your peers have talked about linearity in the quarter getting a little stronger, exiting the quarter compared to January because of Pandemic effects, is that also what you guys saw? Just trying to reconcile that with the 2Q GOV guide. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Ross. I'll it's Tony. I'll start with the first question, and then I'll let Ravi chime in on the second So I think your first question really was around the performance and the strength of the cohorts in our new categories. I mean, the answer to your question is yes.

Speaker 3

I mean, the retained the new cohorts are Certainly stronger than previous cohorts. A lot of this has to do with improvements in product quality. So adding selection players like Aldi, we now We now serve 20 plus of the top grocers in the U. S. Number 2, we're also improving the quality of the experience itself, making sure that we are more accurate both in the Filling of the carts, the ability to perfect the substitution experience when the items that we shop for are not inside the store.

Speaker 3

And we're also doing this with greater convenience by allowing you more choices of whether you want this delivered in 30 minutes, whether you want it delivered a bit later in the day. And so for all of those reasons, that's why you're seeing the cohort performance improve in new categories.

Speaker 4

Hey, Ross, on the second question, consumer engagement and spending on the platform continues to be very strong. You can see that In our strong Q1 results as well as the double digit growth rate that we've driven consistently for the last 2 years in a row. I'm not going to comment on the month to month, but It continues order frequency continues to be very good. In fact, it's an all time high. Retention continues to be very strong in the business.

Speaker 4

Retention this past quarter is higher than the prior quarter. We feel very confident about the input metrics we are seeing in the business and I feel very good about the guidance for Q2.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Deepak Mathivanan from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Tony, I wanted to ask about your efforts on groceries Verticals, it's still in all these stages for you, but do you feel like you have the operating model sort of nailed down at this point? And perhaps maybe talk about strategically what are the And then second one maybe for Ravi, it was nice to see the outperformance on EBITDA, but Praveer has always talked about profitability being the Being the output metric based on the level of investments that you could make, were there any sort of like a strategic changes in your approach Investment areas in 1Q or for thinking for 2023, maybe touch on areas where you're seeing nice returns on investment areas currently as well. Thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Yes. I'll start with the first question, which really was around grocery and the performance there. I mean, you're exactly right. I think both in terms of the numbers that we saw as a business collectively, the top and the bottom line, I mean, you're seeing continued growth certainly in the core restaurants business, even faster growth in businesses like grocery, And you're seeing improvements in the unit economics of all of our business lines, altogether, including things happening overseas as well. And so I think that's really what's reflected in the performance of the quarter.

Speaker 3

And specifically on grocery, while I think that we've made tremendous strides, we continue to Grow faster than others and continue to gain share. I think there's still a long ways to go from the perspective of building the product. I mean, if you look compared Grocery penetration, in terms of online delivery in the U. S. Relative to, say, online delivery of restaurant food, I mean, it's substantially lower by multiples.

Speaker 3

And I think that's because the offline experience is still superior to the online experience, which means We have a long way to go to making sure that we can make the quality of the experience perfect, meaning you get exactly what you ordered that you can get it from all the places that you want delivery from and that the prices are affordable or what you would expect to pay in store. And I think there's a long ways Go between where we are today and where we will be in the future, but I'm very, very proud of

Speaker 6

the progress that the team has made.

Speaker 4

And Deepak, to your second question, nothing has changed in terms of how we think about our investment philosophy. What you're seeing in Q1 It's a combination of a few factors. Obviously, as you commented, we had GOV upside in the business, which drove some of the EBITDA upside in the business. When I look at the various lines of business, our core restaurants business is growing even at its scale, it's continuing to grow quite nicely, strong and stable growth for the last several quarters in a row. The profitability of that line of business is continuing to improve.

Speaker 4

Our investment areas, both new verticals and international had a very strong first Quarter growth has been strong. We continue to gain share in both areas as well as margins have improved both sequentially as well as annually. Now if you combine that with the discipline we've had on our operating expenses where OpEx was flat for the last 3 quarters in a row, that's giving rise to some of the EBITDA upside that you're seeing in the business. That said, we are constantly looking to reinvest back in the business, but there's going to be times when there's not going to be any efficient investment, then it's okay for us to Have that dropped to the bottom line. In general, our philosophy is to continue to drive efficient growth while being disciplined with our investments.

Speaker 4

And one of the discipline parameters that we use is the EBITDA guidance that we've given.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Bernie MacTiernan of Needham and Company. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Great. Thank you. I guess a general question how you guys are thinking about the opportunity for generative AI for DoorDash. No, AI has probably been integrated in the marketplace for quite some time, but any new opportunities that are being opened up? And then second, restaurant Specific partnerships like the recently announcement with Starbucks, how important are those for driving both GOV and contribution profit per order and just Any way to frame the benefit there?

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure. Bernie, maybe I can take both. It's Tony. On the first piece Around generative AI, I mean, certainly, this is it's coming out moment, right? And I think it's super exciting, both as a technologist as well as A user of the product, but also in terms of just seeing how fast developers are candidly making changes every day.

Speaker 3

And I think for us, it's important to remind ourselves, our purpose is really to build the defining local commerce company, which means that When you have 2 battles going on, the Battle for Bits and digital attention and the Battle for Adams, we very much are in the camp of the 2nd category of making sure that we can win that battle. So very much the focus still remains to make sure that we are The highest quality last mile logistics network and making sure that that asset is the most useful and most attractive as we think about how it interfaces with digital assistants in the future. But that said, we are absolutely already running different experiments internally With some of the latest models that have been published when it comes to generative AI, I mean, I think it has great promise for Achieving productivity gains and doing especially a lot of the manual work that we have to do when we try to digitize the physical world and build the catalog for every city. I think it has a lot of promise for making the consumer experience shopping experience a lot easier as well by reducing friction.

Speaker 3

So I think, you should expect a lot of fun things to come in the future and, we'll be a big part of that. I think your second question really was around, Adding restaurant selection and especially with companies like Starbucks joining the platform, I mean, certainly this has always been a big part of building our products, Right. I mean for us, it's always about improving selection and adding to what customers want. It's about Certainly increasing the quality of the delivery experience, improving the affordability of our service as well as the customer support. And so Selection has always been key to making sure that we can give customers what they want.

Speaker 3

Bringing on Starbucks is something that we're super excited to do and We look forward to even more partnerships.

Operator

Thank you. Your next

Speaker 8

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I had 2. First was about, I've noticed in the application a lot of types of advertising and promotion of the new service where you will pick up UPS and FedEx packages and deliver them for customers. So I was just wondering what the high level strategy is around that service because it seems to be Not really differentiated from what your other services are, so a cool new feature.

Speaker 8

Then secondly, I noticed that there's a bit of a recent Redesign in the layout of the interface on the application. And I really like it because it seems to It's much more seamless in reordering things that you've ordered in the past. So I was wondering if that was kind of a focus with this recent redesign? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. Hey, Michael, it's Tony. I'll take both of those questions. So on the first, around package pickup and delivery, Yes, it's certainly something that we're very excited about. But I think at DoorDash, it's really important to again recognize what we're trying to do.

Speaker 3

What we're trying to do is to make sure that We can help any physical business grow and connect as many possible physical businesses with as many possible consumers. And it doesn't matter necessarily which direction, in which travel is occurring in terms of those connections. And so for us by Having achieved, for instance, in the United States, the greatest order density, we just have a lot more flexibility in terms of The choice of problems that we can solve for a lot of these customers. And one of those problems that we had heard about was this notion of solving returns and some of these Package orders that you're just kind of alluding to. And so it's really something that's very early stage, like we run Many new things at DoorDash all the time in the hope of solving increasingly higher customer expectations.

Speaker 3

This is one of them. And we're excited about Where things are right now, but there's a lot of these things happening, always at DoorDash. On the second question On some of the improvements with respect to reordering, we're always trying to reduce friction when it comes to the ordering experience. Certainly, reorders are very popular amongst in particular our most engaged consumers. But there's a lot of things that we're trying to do to the app.

Speaker 3

We're trying to make it faster. We're trying to reduce the number of bugs. We're trying to make sure that You can find exactly what it is that you want, that you can discover new things that might be enticing. So there's a lot of things that we're trying to do to always improve the experience and it's always with the mission of reducing friction.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Michael Morton of Mohsen Niehansen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thank you. I had a quick question on advertising. I was wondering if you could speak to the adoption rate you're seeing. It sounds to us like SMBs are the early adopters And would love to hear some details about the larger QSRs and their interest in the advertising platform. And then just a last question, if you would be interested, any additional details maybe around bookings growth in new verticals Just to help us think about how that business is progressing.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. I'll start on the first A question around ads and I'll let Ravi take the second question. So with respect to advertising, I mean, you're right. We're off to a pretty great start and it's a fast clip, especially given the high standards that we're trying to put out for ourselves, which is On the one hand, we certainly have to meet the goals and create best in class return on ad spend for advertisers and merchants. And on the other hand, we also have to achieve The best possible consumer experience where there is little to no degradation in terms of what consumers expect to see.

Speaker 3

And this is hard to do because I think it's really important to remember that with any marketplace business, and certainly any desire to build an ads business, The most important thing is the engagement of the marketplace. And so this is something that I'm really proud that our teams have balanced extraordinarily well even though they've Kept pace with, I think, the demands of what we see from advertisers, which is they want to run more ads. But we have to do that again In a very pro consumer way, we and so we're seeing the demand on the advertising side From candidly every segment of merchants whether and this goes for CPG companies in addition to the restaurants as well. So We're very excited that SMBs have found this to be a very capital efficient way to grow and effectively serve as their marketing department in some cases, all the way to the largest brands in the world that you've heard of that have the biggest budgets in the world, that are finding A very, very large incremental use case when they work with the largest local commerce platform.

Speaker 4

And Michael, just to add to what Tony talked about it, your specific On the second one, our ad business is growing. It's growing quite nicely. It's actually having an impact on our net revenue margin as well. And our view for what that business is going to be is included in our EBITDA guidance for the rest of the year.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney of Evercore. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. This is Ian Peterson on for Mark.

Operator

It would be great if you could just provide us an update on DashPass and any engagement trends you can share there, both in the U. S. And also the subscription business in international as well with WALT. Thanks.

Speaker 4

Hey, thanks for the question. DashPass came off of another great quarter, both in terms of sign ups as well as subscribers. For us, the way we think about DashPass is anything that you want in your city, you could get it for $10 a month, whether it's pet food, whether it's retail, whether it's grocery, whether it's convenience. And that's a very compelling value proposition for us. And what we're seeing is, as we're continuing to drive the overall product quality up, As we're making the product more affordable, as we are driving the selection of, that's driving to more and more consumers graduate to DashPass and that's driving the strength in the business, both domestically as well as internationally.

Speaker 4

We're very comfortable with the progress we've made and Q1 was a very strong quarter for DashPass for us.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Boone of JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about Europe. It feels like you guys took share internationally. Can you talk about what you're seeing competitively And what's leading to greater traction?

Speaker 9

And then Ravi, I wanted to follow-up on an earlier answer that you gave about contribution margins improving. It sounds like you're now willing to drop more to the bottom line. Can you just talk about the pace of investments as it relates to new verticals? Is it just the new verticals maturing? Or are you guys slowing down on any initial growth initiatives that may be more loss making?

Speaker 9

Thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Yes. I'll turn to the first question, which was around Europe and the competitive position. I think This is a great place to remind ourselves of a lot of the investment thesis we had behind teaming up with Voltz, who runs the majority of the markets outside of the U. S. For DoorDash.

Speaker 3

And really the first thesis was that when you have the highest Retention and frequency of engagement that is what will really allow the most capital efficient growth, especially in a category that has very, very long runways left. And that's really what we've seen In terms of the execution of the Volt business, I mean, even against difficult comps with Omicron of Q1 of last year, you see Volt Growing tremendously quickly year on year and certainly outpacing the rest of the class. And so I think that a lot of that Again, happens to do with the strength of the engagement of the consumer that Voalte has been able to build and it's a reflection of the product quality. And so especially as Volt now, introduces some of their newer products with Volt Plus, which is its DashPass equivalent as well as Some other products that it's borrowed from learning from the DoorDash U. S.

Speaker 3

Business, I think we're only going to see more growth in years to come.

Speaker 4

And Andrew, to your second question, when I think about the contribution margin improving, I think of it in terms of 2 dimensions. One is The core restaurant business that's growing, it's growing quite nicely as well as improving in terms of profitability. And when I look at the investment areas, when I think about the Allocation, I look at it across 2 vectors. 1 is, does the product and investment have strong product market fit in terms of consumer demand? As well as the second one is, are they progressing in terms of unit economics?

Speaker 4

What you're seeing in Q1 is both new verticals as well as international, They're growing quite nicely. They're gaining share in both of the areas as well as the margins are improving both sequentially as well as annually. Now if you combine that with the fact, especially on the new vertical side, we have a structural advantage where we have a network of consumers and dashers already built out. That's giving rise to some of the efficiency gains that you're seeing in the business, which is naturally translating into margin improvement. When you put both of those businesses together, you have these businesses that are growing, they're growing nicely, the margins are improving, as well as the core underlying fundamentals are improving.

Speaker 4

It has all the similarities of what we saw in the restaurants business very early on. And we have strong conviction that if we continue to execute well, These two areas are going to be drivers of strong free cash flow generation for

Speaker 3

us. And put it in a different way, we're not slowing down any investments. It's The businesses are just growing top and bottom line, and that's what you're seeing in terms of the flow through towards the results.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Brian Nowak of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I have 2. The first one, I wanted to ask about how you think about the runway for new user growth In the U. S, and sort of what type of user growth are you thinking about in the full year guide To grow new people to come into platform in the U.

Speaker 10

S. And how do you do that at this point, kind of where we are in penetration? Then the second one on Voalte. You've had the asset now for quite a while. It's been executing at pretty high clip.

Speaker 10

Tony, what have been 1 or 2 of the biggest Surprises to you about Voalte that maybe you didn't even appreciate when you acquired the asset.

Speaker 3

Sure. Hey, Brian. Yes, I'll take both questions. On the first question about user adoption, I think sometimes It's just important to remember that it's no different in acquiring users versus getting users who may have tried the product to use the product more often, We just have to improve the product. And so whether that means we didn't have the right selection to attract a customer In that moment or that occasion, the right pricing, the right speed and or quality of delivery Or we messed up on customer support.

Speaker 3

I mean, those are the building blocks of how we win any customer. And I think the fact that people eat 20 to 25 times A week is really frankly why I think there's such a large runway left for growth. It's not necessarily about can you serve all of the users and where are we on that journey. That's One part of it, but then you have to multiply that by 20 to 25 times per week and that potential. And so that's at least how it works in my brain.

Speaker 3

And to me, it's Same of whether we want to go attract a new user or just win a new use case or an incremental use case of the 20 to 25 occasions Per week that a customer is eating and we know that that happens all the time. So that's, the first question. On Volt, which I believe is your second question, I mean, I would say a few things that I've come to appreciate even further. I think first is really Their ability to compete in a very capital efficient way has been, I think just really, really interesting and unique. I mean, I think sometimes, especially now as DoorDash is generating More and more positive free cash flow.

Speaker 3

It's almost easy to forget when some of the constraints were even tighter and the budgets were a lot Smaller. And I think it's been really impressive to watch what Wolk can do, I think, in that regard. And that's really a testament to the team and the ability to Always focused on the product to make sure that we can keep increasing the retention and the frequency of the experience such that that's how we will actually outcompete and both and make good investments, not just this year, but for years to come. I think the second is more a comment around maybe the market, which is In a lot of these European markets, I think we maybe sometimes because we live in the U. S.

Speaker 3

Or maybe we live in other Countries where e commerce has been a bit more at the forefront or just has had longer to adopt For users that a lot of these countries are just kind of having a lot of the physical stores come online for the first Time and that's true certainly for restaurants, but also outside of restaurants. And I think a lot of the fast growth that you're seeing By Volt is their ability to serve all of the categories and then very much the same goals that DoorDash has to become The local commerce company wants to do the same thing in all of its geographies. And so I think that shared mission is really what allows us to work really well together.

Speaker 4

And Brian, just to the specific question on the guidance point itself, we do expect to grow both users as well as order frequency, and that's baked into our guidance that we have given.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Youssef Squali of Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Great. Thank you. I have two questions as well. So just on the guidance, Ravi. So again, if I look at the GOV, the total market GOV, it looks like At the midpoint, the growth is in the low 20s.

Speaker 7

If I look at the last 9 months, last three quarters, it was really more like 29% or 30%. Is there anything related to maybe Walt's annualizing now that's kind of causing that number To decline or is that just out of kind of lack of visibility potentially considering the macro, etcetera? Anything there could be Would be really helpful. And then I guess as you look at the free cash flow, so certainly your execution has been Pretty impressive. How should we be thinking about timing to hit positive free cash flow for the non restaurant business On the back of just the stronger top line, has that timing kind of shortened?

Speaker 7

Thank you. Yes, Youssef, let me start with the first one.

Speaker 4

On the GOV itself, a couple of points here. I mentioned earlier that consumer engagement continues to be strong. When I look at both retention as well as order frequency, I feel very optimistic about the signals that we are seeing in the business. That's what's giving us confidence to bump up the GOV guide for the rest of the year. To your specific point on the growth rate comp itself, we do lap the Voalte acquisition in June.

Speaker 4

You're seeing an impact of that in the second half of the year. In terms of second question on free cash flow, In terms of when I look at the new verticals business in Q1, it had a very strong Q1, both in terms of growth as well as improvements in margin. And underlying what we're seeing in the business is as we're continuing to improve the quality, as we're continuing to make the product more affordable, that's driving not just top But also we are seeing efficiency in the business and that efficiency is contributing to the improvement in margin. On the absolute dollar basis, we're not going to comment Got it. But I feel good about the investment levels and that's included in our EBITDA guidance for the rest of the year.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ron Josey of Citi. Please go

Speaker 11

ahead. Great. Thanks for taking the question. I have 2. Tony, in the letter you talked about double digit improvements in grocery quality and efficiency metrics.

Speaker 11

Can you just help us understand what these improvements were to drive the improvements in overall quality and efficiency? Any insights would be helpful. And then Ravi, just a quick clarification on contribution margins. Last year, I think we saw convenience as a vertical become variable contribution positive. So I'm wondering if other newer verticals are contributing here given the structural advantage that you talked about or do you expect perhaps grocery or alcohol or others To start delivering at least variable contribution margins by the end of this year.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Ron. On the first question around the improvement in the product quality and grocery, a big part of this It stems from the fact that today physical stores, grocery stores that is, don't always know exactly what's on their shelf. And that's quite a hard problem to solve for a variety of reasons. We can literally go on for hours to talk about all of the different reasons.

Speaker 3

But that's the problem that we've gotten better at in terms of making sure that we can get you exactly what you ordered. I'm not saying we're perfect. And I mentioned, I think, to an earlier question that we're still a long ways to go in terms of where I want to see this product experience. But I think we've made tremendous strides in the 2 years that we've been doing this. And I think as a result of that, you're seeing Increases in the cohort engagement that we talked about in the letter and that's showing therefore both Basically a capital efficient way to grow, because to me the most the best way to achieve capital efficiency Is through improvements in product quality.

Speaker 3

And I think that was a very nice one to one correlation that we saw. And that really stemmed from Many quarters of work that showed up in some of the results in this quarter.

Speaker 4

And Ron, to your second point, right, like just to add on to what Tony said, Some of the quality improvements that we're driving in the business is also resulting in the efficiency gains. Your 3rd party convenience that you talked about is variable profit Positive and it's continuing to improve. All categories within our new vertical umbrella, whether it's grocery, our Dash Smart business, 3rd party convenience are improving. We feel good about the progress. And we talked about in the letter, overall on a margin basis, our new verticals is improving both sequentially as well as annually.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Rohit Kulkarni of ROTH MKM. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. One on AI, I know generative AI is on top of Everything left is mine, but I guess just internally speaking, maybe talk about longer term, how are you thinking about using AI to Improve productivity of engineers, marketing, sales people, I mean structurally do you feel kind of DoorDash and All Silicon Valley companies are going to be much more profitable as they start to figure out applying AI to all the internal processes, maybe they become the first and a wave of adopters of these productivity tools. And then second question is on just new vertical margins. It's been a couple of years since you have had these new verticals and it feels that you're starting to pull ahead the overall margin profile. So maybe just structurally, can you talk about the various puts and takes between the core restaurant most profitable business versus All the new verticals as you start kind of layering on the incremental profits from them, how we should think about The overall profitability study state as such?

Speaker 3

Yes. I'll take the first question and maybe Robert can take With respect to AI and its ability to change the trajectory of some of these functions that you asked about in the question, Look, I mean, I think it certainly represents the promise for a lot of productivity gains. In terms of how those productivity gains will be expressed in terms of financial results for Company, I think that's very hard to estimate because on the one hand, you're going to have the same number of people who can hopefully do More with what they have with now more advanced tooling. But then on the other hand, you have to not forget the customer. The customers' expectations are always going to go higher and higher and higher.

Speaker 3

Take coating for instance, the number of Engineers, almost never seems to be enough in terms of what the demand for Engineering talent is as well just frankly like the number of things to build. And so I think that you're going to have kind of 2 forces competing for this. 1 is the productivity gains, which I certainly would expect to see, but then on the other hand, I also believe that customer expectations always go in one direction, which is higher and higher and higher. And so I think the balance of the 2 will be what all of us will be going through.

Speaker 4

Hey, Roy, on your second question on margins, The way at least I think about it is, our core restaurant business is growing as well as improving in terms of overall profitability. But we still are a small portion of the overall sales for the restaurant industry. So we continue to invest behind that business because it's important that we continue to invest behind quality, invest behind making the product More affordable because that's going to drive long term growth in that business. Secondly, on new verticals, what we're seeing is some of the quality improvements that Tony touched on earlier in the previous question, That's driving efficiency in the business. That business as a whole is improving in terms of margin, both sequentially as well as annually.

Speaker 4

But the market there is very large. We are still under penetrated. And I think if we continue to improve the overall product, That's going to drive long term free cash flow generation for us. It's a business that we're going to continue to invest in and continue to improve the product experience for our consumers, merchants as well as dashers. Thank

Operator

you. Your next question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 13

Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe 2 quick ones, if I can squeeze in. First, when you look out over the landscape in 2023 and beyond, What do you continue to see as some of the key investments you need to make on the merchant side of your platform that will continue to drive more merchant growth, So more merchant adoption and where you can gain deeper relationships and market share of the merchant side. That'd be number 1. And then number 2, when you look further out, how should we be thinking about you making the app more shoppable for lack of a better Sure.

Speaker 13

We talked on the last call about increasing velocity and order volume among your user base. And I'm Curious given all the direct traffic you have to app, how you think about overlaying all the SKU diversification you've built on possibly driving Greater levels of frequency in app across all those SKUs. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Eric. I'll take both of those questions. On the first question with Back to merchants. I mean, basically, the short answer is that we're going to have to solve more and more of their problems In order to work more and more deeply with them with the goal of helping them improve same store sales and profitability.

Speaker 3

And sometimes these things take swings, right? I mean, Take for example, we can span out a little bit. In the years of 2021 2022, particularly when Consumers were roaring back inside stores. There was a big focus for merchants to make sure that they can staff up to meet that in store Demand and they needed to take maybe the gas pedal off of digital for a bit. You're starting to see some of this now swing back for instance as these merchants are lapping those years of in store growth and they're now returning back into investing into their digital Channels.

Speaker 3

So I think you're going to see these kinds of ebbs and flows, but I think all of this is really in the name of how do we build enough tools and products for merchants to better understand their customers, better engage with those customers, build long term relationships with those customers, Do it through the 1st party channel, whether that's been powered with products like DoorDash Drive and Storefront Or the 3rd party DoorDash platform in the marketplace. And so I think there's a lot there that we're going to have to continue to do to just solve more and more problems because just like consumer expectations grow, merchant expectations grow too. And I think they're always going to be on this when you're a business owner, particularly If you're like my mom or a single store owner, you're going to have 50 things you're thinking about. But at the end of the day, you're always thinking between growth and profitability and that dynamic. Your second question is, I think how do you make the app more shoppable?

Speaker 3

I think it's a phenomenal question. I mean, I think it's going to be it's certainly the endeavor that We're marching on where we are becoming more and more of a multi category destination. I mean, you see this early in the numbers. And you see this, I think, even in the fact that we're now acquiring more new customers into The grocery and convenience sectors more than anyone else and for the first time. And so I think That is telling us that customers expect DoorDash to be able to deliver upon those experiences, whether they're coming in and Trying to buy a baseball bat from Dick's Sporting Goods or trying to buy, a pound of lettuce from a grocery store.

Speaker 3

And so We're doing lots of things right now. We're improving the catalog. We're making sure that there's improvements to search. We're making sure that we can Create an item based shopping experience. There's lots of things that we have to do in order to catalog digitally the physical world And then present that catalog in concert with our merchants, so that it makes sense to the consumers and that they can achieve the merchants' Goals too.

Speaker 3

I mean this is the delicate and very important responsibility that we have to make sure that DoorDash can work for everyone. And if it can work for everyone, then we believe

Speaker 6

the results will be something that we're proud of.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Lloyd Walmsley of UBS. Please go ahead.

Speaker 14

Thanks. Two questions on just some of the numbers, if I can. First, just if we look at sales and marketing, it looks like growth there Stepped up a bit from 4Q to 1Q, wondering if that's kind of a newish normal. And then similarly, we saw a nice step up in gross Profit margins. So wondering if that if we should be thinking about that as a new level or just continuing to expand?

Speaker 14

Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes. Hey, Lloyd. I'll take the gross margin one first. In the last call, I mentioned that 2023 gross margin was going to be higher than Q4 levels. That's exactly what you're seeing in the business.

Speaker 4

A few factors that play here over the last year and a half, we've driven a number of improvements on the product side, which has made our logistics engine more efficient and you're seeing that leverage come through in terms of Dasher cost per order. Quality has been a key priority for us. And what we've noticed is that we continue to work on quality that's driving retention higher. We are seeing the benefit in terms of growth as well as lower credits and refunds costs. That combined with our ads business, which I mentioned earlier, that's growing.

Speaker 4

That's also having an impact on our margin. That said, we don't operate or run the business To a specific margin target, our goal is to invest flexibly across the P and L in order to be able to drive efficient growth. To your second question on sales and marketing, Q1 was a strong quarter in terms of top line volume for us. And in order to support that volume, we had to acquire more dashers. That's the result of your dasher acquisition costs going up, which is driving sales and marketing higher.

Speaker 4

That said, I would not read too much into the volatility. If you take a look at over the course of the last year, we've driven a ton of leverage on sales and marketing, all from product improvements I do expect there to be more leverage on the sales and marketing side and that view is included in our EBITDA guidance that we've given.

Operator

Thank you. Your last question comes from the line of John Colantoni of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 15

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Curious to dig a little bit into DashPass Member adoption of new verticals like grocery, retail and convenience and how that compares to non members. And related to that, we know DashPass members order more once they become members and order more than non members. But I'm curious to hear if you're able to provide any color on how these upticks and frequency vary across verticals.

Speaker 15

Do grocery or retail orders increase even more than restaurant orders after a user becomes a member? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Hey, John. It's Tony. I'll try to answer your questions. I don't think we run the business That way, in the sense that we're trying to necessarily steer into one category or the other. Instead, what we are trying to do is we're trying to build the best in class experience within each category And then allow the customer to choose, which one of those experiences make the most sense for them for that particular shopping occasion.

Speaker 3

And then DashPass to your point is something that we can stitch across to provide the greatest possible value because we're going to give you everything inside your city Within that DashPass membership. So I don't think that we're trying to necessarily steer people one way or the other. I think it's Probably intuitive that prepared meals, something like restaurant food is going to have the highest frequency. But that makes sense because we eat 20 to 25 times a week, which is the highest possible shopping category that we have relative to other categories. But that said, I mentioned earlier or to an earlier question that we now are attracting more new customers into the industry outside of restaurant food than anyone else.

Speaker 3

And so people are now coming to DoorDash for the first time, not shopping for restaurant food, but also shopping for Their grocery items, their liquor needs, their retail items, etcetera and etcetera. So I think this is just one of those things where As long as we continue to build the best possible shopping experience within each category and then stitched

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.

Powered by Quartr