Food delivery companies offer option to leave orders at your door because of coronavirus

You’re hunkered down, maintaining your social distance, but damnit, now you have to interact with the delivery person dropping off your groceries. So much for all your coronavirus prevention tactics.

But some delivery companies — after seeing an uptick in orders amid panic over COVID-19, the official name for coronavirus — are helping you avoid contact with a fellow human. 

Grocery app Instacart added an official “Leave at My Door Delivery” option for all customers. Last week the company said it saw a surge in usage for the opt-in feature. Starting Monday everyone will see the option during checkout and can select it. It’s not the default…yet.

“We’re continuing to see a surge in demand across the Instacart platform as consumers increasingly turn to our service to get the fresh groceries and household essentials they need… Over the last week, we’ve observed increased consumer adoption for a new “Leave at My Door Delivery” feature,” Instacart said in an email statement.

Door drop-off was developed as a beta previously for customers simply not at home. But as the coronavirus spreads throughout the U.S. with more than 200 recorded cases and 11 deaths, there’s a new demand for the feature. So now everyone can get groceries without potentially brushing hands with another person.

Postmates, a restaurant delivery app, also added a non-contact drop-off option. A blog post at the end of last week explained, “Customers can choose to meet their Postmate at the door, as they have before, meet curbside, or go non-contact and have deliveries left at the door.” You select what you prefer through the app after ordering.

The coronavirus was conspicuously absent in the explanation for the new option, although the post did explain: “We know there are always people who, for health and other reasons, might prefer a non-contact delivery experience and we believe this will provide customers with that option.”

Grubhub’s CEO is aware of coronavirus concerns, but the app hasn’t modified delivery options yet. We reached out to hear more about possible new or modified features.

Uber Eats also doesn’t have an official contactless option in its app yet, but it has a delivery notes section for users to let delivery people know to just leave food at the door or at a building reception area. The app is trying to direct more people to that feature that’s existed for years so delivery expectations are clear. 

We also reached out to DoorDash about new plans to add a contactless delivery option for customers and a spokesperson explained, “DoorDash’s task force is actively working to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to protect the health and safety of our community in response to the spread of COVID-19, including exploring options with our peer companies to compensate Dashers affected by the novel coronavirus.” DoorDash now owns Caviar, so that food delivery app follows the same policies.

For customers, so far it’s a similar in-app process in the apps as Uber Eats. DoorDash said, “To reduce the risk of transmission, we are reminding our community in affected areas of the delivery instruction feature, enabling requests for food to be left at the door along with a photo of where the food should be left through the app.” 

Instead of the workaround using features already in the app, DoorDash is working on adding a contactless delivery feature “to be rolled out shortly.” 

And just like that, we’re all that much closer to never having to interact with anyone ever again.