Analysis of fresh food e-commerce operation strategy

Due to the epidemic, the fresh food e-commerce market entered a period of rapid development last year. With the booming development of fresh food e-commerce, there is a strong demand for merchandise operation talents. The author summarizes some of his own views on how to effectively operate products in the fresh food e-commerce industry.

Due to the epidemic, the fresh food e-commerce track has been particularly popular since last year.

Among them are:

MissFresh, Dingdong Maicai and Meituan Maicai focus on 30-minute delivery .

Meituan Youxuan, Chengxin Youxuan and Xingsheng Youxuan focus on next-day delivery .

They are all recruiting in large numbers, among which product operations positions are particularly popular and talent is in short supply.

Today we will analyze the product operation strategies of the fresh food e-commerce industry. My feeling is that these operational strategies can not only be applied to the fresh food e-commerce industry, but are also equally applicable to live streaming and physical operations.

There are actually two types of operational roles in the fresh food e-commerce industry related to commodities. One is category operation and the other is commodity operation.

Category operation is more inclined to product selection, and the product selection categories include vegetables and fruits, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, aquatic products and seafood, grains and oils and seasonings, wine and dairy products, etc. Product operation is the marketing planning for different products based on categories.

Therefore, the product operation strategy involves two aspects: one is the product positioning, and the other is the marketing method.

1. Product positioning

The positioning of products can be divided into four types according to their different functions, namely, traffic-generating products, hot-selling products, profit products and basic products.

1. Drainage products

As the name suggests, traffic-generating products are used to attract traffic. Therefore, we will choose some products that are low-cost and appear frequently in daily life. Then they offer an extremely low price, such as 0.99 yuan a box of eggs and 0.99 yuan a pound of cherry tomatoes. Traffic-generating products are bound to lose money, as they take advantage of users' desire to get a bargain.

As long as users are attracted to the site, the platform has the opportunity to recommend more products to users. Fresh food e-commerce serves users’ life scenarios. If you need to buy eggs, will you also buy some vegetables at the same time? More meat? Buy some more snacks?

The worst result is that you only bought eggs for 0.99, and the platform paid a certain amount of product and fulfillment costs for this. However, once you complete your first purchase, the platform has established a connection with you and can continuously convert you to repeat purchases. As long as the cost is justified, traffic-generating products can continue to be sold.

2. Hot Products

Hot-selling products require seasonality and cost-effectiveness. We strive to have what others do not, and have products at a lower price than others. For example, hot-selling products such as cherries in winter and crayfish in summer.

Fresh food e-commerce platforms will try their best to find first-hand sources of goods exclusively for themselves. Do you want to eat a certain brand of Chilean cherries? Do you want to eat golden pillow durian? Want to eat delicious crayfish? I’m selling it exclusively, will you come? There are also various promotional activities. Will you come?

The core logic of the hot product strategy is to leverage the popularity of existing categories for marketing. Hot products must have already formed a presence in the user's mind and do not require the platform to educate users again. Just promote it as much as possible while ensuring profits. It’s like you are selling magic water to female users. You don’t need to explain to her what magic water is. You just need to ensure that what you sell is authentic and cheap.

3. Profitable goods

As mentioned earlier, the platform attracts users through traffic-generating products and hot-selling products. The purpose of doing business is definitely to make money, so it’s time to exit the market with profit products.

Product operations will select a number of main products based on multiple indicators such as order placement rate (the probability of a certain product appearing in all orders), gross profit, fulfillment cost, and loss. These main products are profit products.

Then, we will repeatedly recommend these products to you on the browsing links of traffic-generating products and hot-selling products to ensure that you can see these products frequently on the homepage, category page, and activity page. The more profitable products are purchased, the higher the ROI of the traffic-generating products. Many platforms use traffic-generating products as channel costs, so they use the logic of input-output ratio to measure value.

4. Basic products

Basic products may seem ordinary, but the demand is huge. Because basic products cover the widest range of life scenarios.

Theoretically, the richer the variety of products on a platform, the higher the user stickiness. Since users can buy everything from you, there is no need to look elsewhere. This is the role that basic products play.

With the support of basic products, merchandise operations can freely use traffic-generating products, hot-selling products and profit-making products. From the perspective of product development, traffic-generating products and hot-selling products satisfy users' pleasure points, but basic products solve users' pain points.

2. Marketing methods

Commonly used product marketing methods can be divided into several categories: discount coupons, flash sales, limited edition, group buying, and holiday promotions.

1. Discount coupons

The most commonly used and most effective marketing method is to offer discounts on purchases over a certain amount. When doing product operations, you must understand one thing: users are very smart, and no matter how fancy the operation methods are, they are not as practical as cheapness. But since we have already reduced the costs to the maximum, we must maximize the value. So don’t just send the coupons to users foolishly, but let the users take the initiative to claim them.

Where can I get it? Go to the event. Every powerful coupon should be accompanied by a special event, and the discount rules should be designed around the category. On the premise of ensuring that users are willing to use this coupon, put as many products as possible into the user's shopping cart. This is the embodiment of operational value.

2. Flash sales and limited quantities

The logic behind flash sales and limited edition products is the same, using low-priced or rare products as hooks, one is limited in time and the other is limited in quantity. For example, a box of apples is 10 yuan, and there is a flash sale for 10 minutes, or 1,000 bottles of Feitian Moutai are sold at the original price, and you have to be quick to grab them. Both flash sales and limited-time sales concentrate users' visits to a single point in time, and then promote their own profitable products at this point in time, relying on the sales of profitable products to cover the marketing costs.

3. Group buying

Nowadays, the group buying method is not very commonly used. The earliest group buying model was that multiple users joined together to buy a certain product, and the platform could give certain price discounts. Gradually, it evolved into a situation where one person could successfully form a group. Group buying makes users feel that they are getting a good deal psychologically. But in fact, it is not, because the group price may be the normal selling price.

4. Holiday promotions

Anyone who knows a little about the e-commerce industry should know that the sales volume of e-commerce platforms on holidays is definitely higher than on weekdays. This phenomenon is even more obvious in the fresh food e-commerce industry, where sales on weekends are at least 30% higher than on weekdays. Because the demand for eating and cooking at home on weekends is much higher than on weekdays. So there should be some small promotions every weekend.

When it comes to statutory holidays, or e-commerce festivals like 618 and Double 11, big promotions are required, and sales can easily double by taking advantage of the situation.

In short, no matter what the future trend of the fresh food e-commerce industry will be, these product operation strategies are still worth learning and can be copied to all walks of life. The industry trend will change, but the underlying logic of products and operations will not change.

Author: Shi Guipeng

Source: Shi Guipeng's Notes