Customer driven activation of merchant delivery service areas

A merchant delivery service, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a memory coupled to the one or more processors and storing program instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to at least:
• determine at least one eligible merchant within an area to be recruited to participate with the merchant delivery service;
• determine at least one customer to incent to recruit the at least one eligible merchant;
• determine an incentive for the at least one customer to incent the at least one customer to recruit the at least one eligible merchant to participate with the merchant delivery service and allow the merchant delivery service to cause delivery of products on behalf of the at least one eligible merchant;
• notify the at least one customer of the incentive and the at least one eligible merchant;
• receive, from a mobile device while the mobile device is at a location of the eligible merchant, identifying information usable by the merchant delivery service to verify that the at least one customer contacted the eligible merchant, wherein the identifying information includes one or more of a position information of the mobile device or a Wi-Fi identifier;
• determine, subsequent to notification of the at least one customer of the incentive, that the at least one eligible merchant has converted to a participating merchant with the merchant delivery service;
• determine, based at least in part on the identifying information received from the mobile device, that the customer contacted the eligible merchant to recruit the eligible merchant;
• and
• providing, in response to receipt of the identifying information and determination that the eligible merchant has converted to the participating merchant, the incentive to the customer.

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• determining, by a merchant delivery service executing on one or more computing resources, an area to activate the merchant delivery service in which the merchant delivery service causes delivery of products to customers on behalf of participating merchants;
• determining, by the merchant delivery service, a plurality of eligible merchants in the area;
• determining, by the merchant delivery service and for an eligible merchant of the plurality of eligible merchants, an incentive to provide to a customer to incent the customer to recruit the eligible merchant to participate with the merchant delivery service and allow the merchant delivery service to cause delivery of products on behalf of the eligible merchant;
• sending, by the merchant delivery service, to the customer a notification indicating the eligible merchant and the incentive;
• receiving, by the merchant delivery service and from a mobile device while the mobile device is at a location of the eligible merchant, identifying information usable by the merchant delivery service to verify that the customer contacted the eligible merchant, wherein the identifying information includes one or more of a position information of the mobile device or a Wi-Fi identifier;
• determining, by the merchant delivery service and subsequent to sending the notification, that the eligible merchant has converted to a participating merchant with the merchant delivery service;
• determining, by the merchant delivery service and based at least in part on the identifying information received from the mobile device, that the customer contacted the eligible merchant to recruit the eligible merchant;
• and
• providing, by the merchant delivery service and in response to receiving the identifying information and determining that the eligible merchant has converted to the participating merchant, the incentive to the customer as a reward for contacting the eligible merchant and for the eligible merchant converting to the participating merchant with the merchant delivery service.