Case study: How to conduct competitive analysis on the current mainstream food delivery apps?
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In order to gain a deeper understanding of the features of mainstream O2O food delivery mobile clients in terms of functional modules, content operations and interactive interfaces, a comparative analysis was conducted on four apps: Baidu Takeout, Meituan Takeout , Koubei Takeout and Ele.me. The reason for choosing these four models is largely because the recent increase in takeout orders has indeed triggered demand. Secondly, although many Internet companies have discovered business opportunities in this mobile catering platform as early as two years ago, now is the time for major platforms to start seeking profits or reaping rewards. We can clearly feel that the major platforms have begun to think about maximizing profits, or they can no longer do so. Of course, after all, I have no experience in writing a systematic competitive product analysis . I usually just record some bits and pieces of product-related information I see. 1. Demand Analysis The popularity of the Internet has brought many conveniences to life. With the rapid development of mobile APP applications, food ordering APPs have successfully occupied the entire catering takeaway industry market. The food ordering APP provides people with a convenient food ordering service. Users can use the mobile software to check nearby stores, learn about store promotions and specific dish prices, and then the merchants can arrange delivery, so that users can solve the problem of eating without leaving home. The online restaurant ordering APP provides restaurants for customers and is strictly speaking an O2O third-party platform. From the customer's perspective, in addition to satisfying basic meal ordering needs such as "I want to eat, but I don't want to cook or go out to eat. How can I eat delicious meals without cooking or going out?", customers have also derived other social needs such as sharing food. From the merchant's perspective, on the one hand, through mobile food ordering apps, users can share food on social networks, thereby increasing customer base and popularity; on the other hand, merchants can conduct comprehensive mobile management of all stores and reduce the operating costs of catering companies. In terms of usage scenarios, customers often use it in offices, dormitories, homes, at fixed-point and timed scenarios such as meal time, supper time, and afternoon tea time; and merchants mainly join such APPs during the new construction, promotion, and operation stages. How to meet the above needs of users in a short period of time has become a problem that food ordering applications need to consider. 2. Market Conditions China's Internet food delivery market entered its start-up phase in 2014, with BAT giants making great efforts and investing actively. Starting from 2016, we entered a period of adjustment and development. According to Appannie data as of July 2, 2016, the rankings are as shown below. On June 14, 2016, iiMedia Research, the world's leading third-party data mining and analysis organization for mobile Internet , exclusively released the "2016 China Online Catering Delivery Market Research Report". Statistics show that Ele.me, Meituan Waimai and Baidu Waimai led the mobile online food ordering market in May 2016 with proportions of 37.8%, 30.5% and 15.0% respectively; in addition, the user scale of China's online food ordering market is expected to reach 253 million in 2016. From the perspective of the overall market environment, China's online food ordering market size and user scale continue to grow. Analysts from iMedia Research Consulting believe that with the continued heavy investments by Meituan Waimai and Baidu Waimai in the food delivery market, food delivery giant Ele.me is no longer the only dominant player and the current market structure presents a three-way competition. After the subsidy-grabbing era in 2014 and 2015, China’s food delivery market is now gradually moving towards a healthy operation stage, and operational capabilities will become the key to competition. Among the top 10, we do not see the "Word of Mouth Takeaway" to be analyzed. It ranked 15th in the takeaway market on that day. Considering that Koubei Takeout is the earliest takeout product launched online and its background is special, this article also includes it in the analysis object. 3. Competitive product information Experience competing products: Based on the current market share and influence, this analysis selected four relatively high-ranking products: Baidu Takeout, Meituan Takeout, Ele.me, and Koubei Takeout. Among them, since the entrance of Kuaishou is mainly Alibaba’s Kuaishou as the earliest food delivery product launched online, as well as its mobile Taobao and Alipay, the above market status data cannot be monitored. Based on the particularity of its background, this article also includes it in the analysis object. Experience environment: Android version 4.2, Nubia z7mini mobile phone Analysis time: July 2016 4. Comparison of Competitive Products 4.1 Main Success Scenario Process The main success scenarios of the four major food delivery platforms are exactly the same, and the process interaction can be roughly divided into the following four steps: 4.2 Comparison of User Experience Elements4.2.1 Strategic Level: Product Positioning and Advantage Comparison 4.2.2 Scope layer 4.2.2.1 Functional comparison 4.2.2.2 Feature comparison Baidu Takeout is a life service platform created by Baidu, providing online food ordering services, focusing on the mid- to high-end white-collar market. It currently supports first- and second-tier cities across the country, covering white-collar workers, students, families, and group meals. Food ordering can be done through the PC website, independent mobile client, and the sub-page based on the "Nearby" function of Baidu Maps. Baidu Takeout operates its own food delivery platform and integrates third-party food delivery platforms, relies on Baidu Maps for LBS positioning and recommendations, and uses third-party logistics to complete delivery. It can be said that Baidu Takeout is still an O2O service that relies on the Baidu search platform and Baidu Maps, trying to grab a certain market share in the large category of food delivery, which is in urgent need. Baidu Takeout promoted the use of Baidu Wallet, and the discounts for using Baidu Wallet as a payment method were greater, generating huge capital flows. The takeout industry belongs to the service industry, so service quality must be the first priority, and "full-time + dispatching orders" is the best way to ensure service quality. When it comes to the user's logistics experience, efficiency alone is not enough. The deliveryman's personal image and quality are related to the quality of the platform. Today, Baidu Takeout has more than 40,000 full-time riders. Each rider holds a health certificate and a certificate of no criminal record, and is equipped with a unique identity tag, which can trace every meal delivered by the rider to ensure that the meals are safer. Users can not only rate knights, but also give them gifts. Now Baidu Takeout has won a certain market and popularity based on its preferential policies, but it is still in the stage of spending a lot of money. Meituan Waimai Meituan Waimai is a food delivery platform independent of Meituan.com and supported by Tencent Holdings. It does not have its own logistics system, but mainly leverages the user stickiness accumulated from original group purchases. The mainstream consumer group is white-collar workers, who use group purchases for gatherings, and food delivery just meets the needs of this group of people to choose three meals in the office without leaving home. Compared with other food delivery products, Meituan’s food delivery products are relatively simple in style, the user ordering process is smooth and fast, with less interruptions, and support for historical ordering stores to be placed at the top of the brand list page; another feature is that Meituan’s food delivery stores are brand stores (such as: Pizza Hut, Jambo Pizza, etc.). Although its market in colleges and universities is not large, as the college market is becoming saturated, focusing on white-collar workers has become Meituan Takeout's own advantage. However, Meituan Takeout does not have a delivery team. Ele.me has a clear positioning. It started from the campus market and initially focused on the market around the campus, and gradually expanded to commercial areas such as office buildings, adjusting the ranking of restaurants based on users' historical records. Currently, the users are mainly students. The company promotes the popularity of Kobe Bryant , Wong Cho Lam and Running Man to cater to college students. The company cooperates with businesses in different industries to launch advertising columns on the homepage. It has cooperated with Inke and some game platforms, and launched different theme games at different stages and embedded themed in the food delivery platform. The playability of the games is quite high. It also launched column activities such as Photo Circle, which is in line with the social habits of young people nowadays and also serves as a good promotion for the platform. As the leader in the "Internet + takeaway" trend, Ele.me's biggest advantage has long been its ability to seize the market. However, as one of the first groups to try new things, the large number of merchants has greatly increased the user's choices, but the shops are a mixed bag and difficult to manage. Moreover, most of them are individual businesses, and hygiene is difficult to guarantee. The existence of even illegal workshops has greatly affected their reputation. Poor after-sales service and the hassle of returning meals are also areas that need attention and improvement. In terms of logistics, we have our own short-distance logistics team and cooperate with third-party companies, mainly focusing on delivery speed and food freshness. Word of Mouth Takeout has a clear positioning. It started from the campus market, initially focusing on the market around the campus, and gradually expanded to commercial areas such as office buildings, adjusting the ranking of restaurants based on users' historical records. Currently, the users are mainly students, and the promotion is based on the popularity of Kobe Bryant, Wang Zulan and Running Man to cater to college students. We have our own short-distance logistics team. 4.2.3 Structural layer: Client architecture comparison Baidu Takeout: It uses four bottom tabs: Home, What to Eat, Orders and Me. It is clear at a glance, easy to switch, does not require any operational threshold, and is ready to use. The home page store has two tabs: merchant classification and smart sorting, and a Baidu special delivery button switch. Meituan Takeout: Drawer-style navigation, which hides the order function in the sidebar and calls it out using gestures; although it is a popular product architecture nowadays, this hidden method is difficult for novice users to adapt to. Ele.me: It uses four bottom tabs: takeout, orders, discover, and me, but the content is not clearly layered. Word of Mouth Takeout: It uses three bottom tabs: Takeout, Order, and My, with relatively little content. 4.2.4 Framework layer: interface and navigation display comparison Baidu Takeout: Interface design tools (such as check boxes and buttons) are widely used and are more in line with user needs. Local navigation, the homepage design is hierarchical, with prominent focus and clear classification. The scroll bar design saves display space and attracts users' attention. The page navigation is well designed, the jumps between pages are smooth, and the information orientation is clear. The page buffer is designed with a delivery truck as the logo, which is cute and caters to the student population. Meituan Takeout: The homepage design is hierarchical, with highlighted key points and clear categories. Local navigation, few page navigation designs, unsmooth page transitions, and page buffering with icon designs. Ele.me: Cool game pop-up windows, food bounce design on the page buffer, cute and caters to the student group. Local navigation, the homepage design is hierarchical, with prominent focus and clear classification. The scroll bar design saves display space and attracts users' attention. The page navigation is well designed, the jumps between pages are smooth, and the information orientation is clear. The page display changes according to the theme. Word of Mouth Takeaway: Interface design tools (such as check boxes and buttons) are rarely used, local navigation, and the homepage design has poor hierarchy and the key points are not highlighted. The page navigation is well designed, the jumps between pages are smooth, and the information orientation is clear. There is no special design for page buffering. 4.2.5 Presentation layer: typography design comparison Baidu Takeout: The main color is red. Small fresh style, refreshing literary style. Meituan Takeout: Red minimalist style, removing the bar at the bottom of the page to leave more space for content presentation, simple and elegant. Ele.me: The main color is blue, with a cool and sporty style. Word of Mouth Takeout: The main color is red, and the style is similar to Baidu Takeout, with a header bar to return to the Alipay interface. 5. Profit Model Baidu Takeaway Takeaway commission: Use the platform to bring online orders to merchants and take a commission from them. Membership fees: Membership cards are divided into three types: annual cards, quarterly cards, and monthly cards. They earn a certain fee by providing users with more complete logistics services. Delivery fee: Baidu self-operated. Cash flow: Unlike other platforms that settle accounts within seven days or on the same day, Baidu Takeout does not settle payments with merchants immediately, but instead pays them after a month or a period of time. The deposited funds can be used for separate financial value-added projects. At the same time, Baidu has already developed Baidu Wallet, and food delivery is also used as an entry point to increase user stickiness. Advertising fees: Baidu Takeout recently added a quality life section and cooperated with merchants from other industries to earn advertising fees. Baidu Takeaway Quality Lifestyle Section Bidding ranking: Baidu belongs to the information flow , and the merchants ranked high will definitely have relatively more orders. In-city logistics: Baidu Waimai General Manager Gong Zhenbing said at the 2015 MIIC Conference, "Do you think Baidu Waimai is interested in making money from food delivery? We don't care!" Although the food delivery market is large enough, what Baidu Waimai ultimately wants to do is in-city logistics. "3 kilometers, 30 minutes of heat-preserving and fresh delivery, including all your requirements on time and temperature, this is what we want to do." Gong Zhenbing said that because same-city logistics requires large-scale business support, and food delivery is the largest business in the entire market, if the time problem of food delivery can be solved, then problems with supermarkets, convenience stores, and fresh food will be easily solved. This is a potential profit point. Meituan Waimai takes commissions from food delivery, merchant ranking fees, and advertising fees. Ele.me’s annual service fee: Ele.me’s profit does not rely on commission from food delivery, but mainly relies on annual service fees. Generally, a restaurant needs to pay about 5,000 yuan per year. Membership fee: There are three types of membership cards: annual card, quarterly card and monthly card, which are 180 yuan, 50 yuan and 20 yuan respectively. Cash flow: The payment is settled within seven days, and the payment between Ele.me and the merchants is not settled in real time. Similarly, the deposited funds can be used for separate financial value-added projects. Advertising Fees: The Points Mall includes various promotional items. Delivery fee: In the self-delivery business, Ele.me earns a delivery fee of 5 yuan, which is more like a short-distance logistics company that earns delivery fees; for delivery by a third party or restaurant, the two parties share the revenue according to a certain ratio. Management fees: If the monthly online ordering turnover exceeds a certain amount, a certain management fee will be charged to the merchants; platform merchants will be ranked in the bidding process; and promotional activities will be charged a value-added fee; Word of mouth takeout takes a commission from takeout, merchant ranking fees, and delivery fees. 6. Promotion Methods Almost every college student remembers the scene in early 2014 when "four takeout restaurants in the school were fighting each other". During that period, eating takeout was incredibly cheap. All major food delivery apps have launched considerable discounts - Koubei Takeout (then named "Taodiandian") offers 3 yuan off for orders over 10 yuan; Ele.me offers a full meal for 7 yuan; Meituan Takeout comes with Jiaduobao and canned Coke with every order, and Baidu Takeout offers 8 yuan off with every order. Just as consumers were secretly laughing, businesses began to take more drastic promotional measures, offering discounts on purchases over a certain amount and free drinks and fruits. In the subsidy war, major platforms are "burning" a lot of money, but if you think about it carefully, spending 10 yuan to buy a long-term user is very cost-effective. During that golden period of user growth, if you don’t follow up, you will miss out on the market. In addition to simply spending money, major platforms have also adopted publicity and promotion methods that are in line with their own development. Baidu Takeout allows payment without payment by face scanning: "Eat by face scanning" O2O interactive marketing, payment without payment by face scanning has become a model for Internet marketing . It not only satisfies users' entertainment needs in the mobile era and prolongs users' stay time on Baidu Mobile, but also deepens the public's impression of Baidu Mobile as a more technological and futuristic brand. Feelings: To provide "interesting takeaway", Baidu Mobile's takeaway will be differentiated and combined with offline services. Baidu Mobile's luxury takeaway food trucks are also roaming around major office buildings and business districts in Beijing. Any user who orders takeaway on Baidu Mobile may be taken to a luxury takeaway food truck and have the opportunity to experience super takeaway, which will be cooked by Michelin chefs themselves. At the same time, various popular takeaway products are launched, such as the "An Ran Xiao Hun Fried Rice", etc., showing the diversity and uniqueness of the dishes of Baidu Takeaway Mobile. Advertisement: Liu Shishi was invited to be the spokesperson, which fits the fresh style that urban white-collar workers like. Member privileges: Become a member and enjoy Baidu exclusive delivery, free delivery. More privileges will be introduced in the future. Share to get gifts: Share the discount page with friends, and successfully register and place an order, both parties can get coupons. You can get a voucher worth up to 1,000 yuan. Increased downloads. Red envelopes: You can get red envelopes after placing an order and paying online. Share them through social applications to develop potential users into actual users. It should be emphasized that the characteristic of the red envelope is that the amount is very high, but the basic amount of discount is also very high. This encourages users to group together and increase their spending. Baidu Wallet: New users of Baidu Wallet can enjoy a huge instant discount. Baidu Takeout is promoted step by step. After users form the habit of ordering food online, it is the right time to promote Baidu Wallet. Meituan Takeaway Offline promotion: At the beginning, Meituan Waimai took the initiative to promote on campus and found that the cost of acquiring users was very low and the order volume increased quickly. Later, a city manager of Meituan developed a campus ambassador system, which consisted of three levels: campus manager, campus ambassador, and building manager. Each dormitory building had a building manager in charge, and it evolved into someone on each floor being responsible for the Meituan takeout results. This practice has reaped the rewards of the campus market. Because Meituan’s original market was mostly white-collar workers. Therefore, Meituan Waimai’s initial strategy was to stabilize the existing white-collar market, focus most of its energy on campuses, and first become a benchmark undergraduate institution in each city. High-scoring stores with reviews: Cooperate with Dianping to launch a high-scoring stores section, which is equivalent to attracting existing Dianping users. Develop potential users into actual users. Are you hungry? Offline promotion: Ele.me started with a telephone line in Zhang Xuhao’s university dormitory. With a phone and a dozen students working part-time as deliverymen, food delivery on campus began. One of Ele.me's marketing rules is to give full authority to marketing personnel and make everyone responsible for the effectiveness of their own promotions. In the initial stage, Ele.me's offline marketing team accounted for about half of the company's total number of employees. They used the most traditional method of distributing flyers to promote products to users, and at the same time reached cooperation intentions with merchants offline. It is worth mentioning that Ele.me’s offline expansion method is not based on cities, but on “regions”. Each region will have 1-2 people to carry out promotion, and will be equipped with several short-term part-time employees. Theme advertising: It invited celebrities such as Kobe Bryant and Running Man member Wang Zulan to shoot a series of commercials as endorsements, using sports as the theme to create pain points for its main users - college students. Ele.me advertising picture Member privileges: become a member and enjoy free delivery through Hummingbird delivery. Activate the red envelope function and more privileges will be introduced in the future. Points system: After paying for an order online and completing an evaluation, you will receive order points as a reward. Points available = order amount * 10, and points are valid for 1 year. Points can be exchanged for corresponding gifts in the points mall, in the form of lottery, reduction or exemption, or free collection. Play games to win red envelopes: The page launches a number of small games such as "Basketball Shooting" and "Fishing" in a pop-up form, giving users certain red envelope rewards to offset meal expenses, increasing user browsing time and user stickiness. Share to get red envelopes and food photo albums: Social elements are used to share orders through social applications to develop potential users into actual users. Word of mouth takeaway Offline promotion: Starting from 2011, Alibaba directly suspended the promotion of word-of-mouth, resulting in word-of-mouth being shelved in the following years until no one cared about it. It was not until the rise of platforms such as Ele.me that the mobile catering industry was promoted. Word of Mouth Takeout initially relied on a large number of promotional activities in school convenience stores and fruit stores, supporting not only discounts for purchases over a certain amount, but also discounts for purchases less than full. At the same time, the promotion of downloading software by scanning QR codes attracted a large number of users through quick download and installation. Food coupons: Different from other platforms that give out vouchers, Kuaishou mainly gives out food coupons every day. Every day when you log into the system, a certain amount of food coupons will be issued for use in discounts, but they can only be used on that day. This marketing method cleverly cultivates users' habits of daily consumption and regular logging in every day, thereby increasing user stickiness. Baidu takeaway food coupons map VII. Conclusion Today's mobile food delivery products are more or less the same in form. Since the end of 2013, there are very few platforms that have truly made mobile catering a success. Baidu Takeout, Meituan Takeout, Ele.me, and Koubei Takeout are undoubtedly the four major platforms that can continue to operate and are likely to generate relatively large profits. Through analysis, it is found that the positioning and advantages of these four major platforms are different, and their future development will inevitably be different. The four major platforms now have the strong support of BAT. Although there is a big difference in the time of their launch, they all have their core competitiveness. Baidu Takeaway has a unique positioning advantage and powerful search function; Ele.me's complete functions, good user experience and a series of subsequent marketing plans are deeply loved by college students; and Meituan Takeaway has a strong background, channel dominance, and traffic entrance that are unmatched by general mobile catering platform products; Word of Mouth Takeaway also relies on the operations of Taobao and Alipay to occupy a place in the market. On the other hand, the four major platforms have very different purposes and strategies for dividing the market. It can be seen from this that if aggregated information products want to gain a foothold in the market, they must accurately position themselves and create product features. Want to promote products and get accurate users, click: ASO optimization service Cucumber Advertising Alliance The author of this article @林小yi那口虫 is compiled and published by (APP top promotion). 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