Dianping Product Analysis Report

Before eating, shopping, or traveling, many people will make a travel guide in advance and see what others think of the place. Dianping is one of the most commonly used software.

1. Experience the environment

2. Product Positioning

Dianping.com is China's leading local life information and transaction platform, and also the world's earliest independent third-party consumer review website. Dianping not only provides users with information services such as merchant information, consumer reviews and consumer discounts, but also provides O2O (Online To Offline) transaction services such as group buying, restaurant reservations, take-out and electronic membership cards.

Slogan: Discover quality life

3. User Demand Analysis

3.1 User Profile

3.1.1 Geographical distribution

From the geographical distribution data of Dianping users provided by Baidu Index, it can be seen that Dianping users are mainly distributed in Beijing, Sichuan and other southeastern coastal areas, concentrated in first-tier and new first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Nanjing. These areas are developing rapidly and have dense populations, making them more likely to attract new businesses, which also reflects that the consumption level of Dianping users is upper-middle.

3.1.2 Age distribution

From the age distribution data of Dianping users provided by Baidu Index, it can be seen that its main user age range is 20-39 years old. This young group is mostly students and white-collar workers. They have a strong ability to accept new things, accept them quickly, have trendy consumption concepts, and have higher requirements for quality of life.

3.1.3 Gender distribution

From the age distribution data of Dianping users provided by Baidu Index, we can see that Dianping has more male users. Such data presentation is largely affected by the gender ratio in my country. Regardless of gender, the common pursuit of quality of life has not changed.

3.2 User Requirements

3.2.1 User needs and pain point analysis

Dianping.com can be divided into B-side business users and C-side individual users. There are different needs for both:

For B-side merchants:

• Use Dianping.com to promote stores and products online to increase exposure and attention;
• Encourage users to generate high-quality reviews and promote the conversion rate from online browsing to offline consumption.

For C-end users:

This type of users mostly use Dianping as a platform for browsing food and group purchase information, analyzing reviews, and exploring event benefits. They hope to find discount information, food recommendations, etc. on Dianping. They regard Dianping as a lifestyle and adhere to the principle of living a good life.

3.2.2 Main User Groups and Usage Scenarios

B-side merchants:

• Merchants open offline stores and want to promote their stores, so they add store information on Dianping.com and attract the first batch of core users to write reviews;
• Merchants use Dianping as a place to collect review information and make improvements to existing offline stores based on user reviews.

C-end users:

According to the purpose and frequency of users using Dianping, C-end users can be divided into the following categories:

• KOL users: These users are very sensitive to new stores and are willing to try new things. They often post their experiences on Dianping to share with other users, and also make new attempts based on other users' reviews. Their comments will become a barometer of other people’s choices, and they are also influenced by other KOL groups.
• Lifestyle experts: The difference between this type of users and KOLs is that they pay more attention to the discount information provided on Dianping.com. Living benefits, etc. Purchasing and experiencing the discounts and quality services provided by Dianping is a channel for them to enjoy a quality life.
• General users: These users mostly browse information about life, group purchases, food, etc. on Dianping.com so as not to be bothered by questions like “what to eat today” or “where to go on the weekend”. At the same time, you will inadvertently click on certain benefits and become an experiencer. For them, Dianping is more of a convenient channel, which saves users’ decision-making time and improves decision-making efficiency.

4. Market Status

4.1 Industry Analysis

In the first half of 2019, the market transaction volume of my country's in-store life service industry was 466 billion yuan, and in the second half of 2019 it was 499 billion yuan. In the first quarter of 2020, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, both supply and demand in the in-store life service industry remained at a low level. In the second quarter of 2020, with the resumption of work and production in the whole society, both the supply and demand sides of the in-store life service industry gradually recovered. In general, in the first half of 2020, the market transaction volume of my country's in-store life service industry was 396 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15%.

From September 2019 to January 2020, the penetration rate of China's local life service industry showed a downward trend. As the epidemic situation gradually stabilized, the penetration rate of China's local life service industry gradually recovered. By September 2020, the penetration rate of China's local life service industry reached 21.5%. With the development of the Internet and the improvement of people's living standards, the penetration rate of my country's local life service industry will further increase.

According to the data released by iMedia Research in October 2019, China's online food delivery, Internet community services, and fresh food e-commerce markets maintained steady growth from 2016 to 2018. Among them, online food delivery still has a relatively high market size, which is expected to reach 284.55 billion yuan in 2019.

4.2 Product Market Performance

In 2016, data released by iResearch showed that in the first half of 2015, Meituan continued to maintain its leading position with a 51.9% share of group buying transactions, while Dianping ranked second with a 29.5% share of group buying transactions. In 2016, Dianping and Meituan jointly issued a statement announcing a strategic partnership and the establishment of a new company. Data shows that the merger of the two companies will occupy 80% of the domestic group buying market.

According to the "China Life Service O2O Model Closed-Loop Strategy and Application Case Analysis Report" released by the Forward-looking Industry Research Institute in 2020, from the perspective of the industry structure, the life service store industry is divided into three echelons. In the first echelon, Meituan Dianping has a solid leading position. According to Aurora Big Data, its installation penetration rate, number of new users, number of active users, awareness, usage rate, preferred preference, overall evaluation and other indicators are better than other apps; the second echelon's reputation is developing rapidly with the support of the Alibaba ecosystem, and Baidu Nuomi is developing slowly; the third echelon's app user penetration rate is low, and its influence is gradually weakening, or it may be acquired by the first and second echelons.

It can be seen that in my country's life service O2O market, Meituan and Dianping have become leading products, and their services have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

5. Product Analysis

5.1 Product Structure Diagram

According to the basic structure diagram of Dianping, it can be found that the review content permeates into every aspect of users' lives, aiming to recommend quality life to users.

5.2 Analysis of product core functions

5.2.1 Group purchase and life service functions focusing on food

Functional experience:

Dianping mainly provides food group buying services, and under the food category, there are a variety of catering categories for users to choose from. The recommended businesses in a category are sorted by distance by default, and users can customize the sorting method. The merchant's brief information is displayed in the list, mainly showing ratings, popular products and popular reviews, to attract users to the merchant's homepage. The merchant homepage displays merchant information and specific reviews, and provides a purchase entry for popular products. For each product, consumer reviews are also displayed. Users can choose whether to purchase after browsing the information.

In addition, Dianping also provides other quick life services. Taking the purchase of movie tickets as an example, the entire purchase process includes: select a movie → select a theater → select a show → select seats → confirm information and pay. The steps are simple and easy to operate. , Under the categories of leisure and entertainment and attractions/nearby tours, Dianping provides detailed classifications and various lists for users to choose from. Attractions/nearby tours are not part of daily life services, but Dianping has put this category in a more prominent position. The author believes that it intends to use this category to promote hotel accommodation transactions, and is trying to cooperate with Meituan to gradually expand its business into the tourism market. In the category of life services, the service categories have been detailed to the point of penetrating every corner of life. You can view merchant information and place an online order by clicking on the corresponding category.

Improvement suggestions:

The author believes that Dianping has undergone many revisions and iterations, and has become relatively complete in terms of group buying and life services. Whether it is function provision or interactive design, there is no complicated learning process and operation process. Users can easily get started and accurately locate information.

However, during my use, I encountered a situation where the store was closed, but there was still business information on Dianping.com. Because I did not contact the merchant in advance, the store was closed. To solve this problem, I believe efforts can be made in two directions: (1) Dianping's backend staff regularly manages merchant information and checks with offline stores to ensure that store information is changed in a timely manner and notified to customers; if it is not possible to change the information of each store in a timely manner, a mechanism can be set up to check the latest review time. If the latest review time is more than half a year ago, users can be reminded to verify the store information. (2) Encourage users to post merchant status information, give users rewards, and activate the review community.

5.2.2 Review browsing function

Functional experience:

As a UGC community, Dianping relies on the content produced by some users to provide advice and guidance to other users, creating a good interactive community atmosphere. The Dianping homepage provides recommended reviews and presents various categories. In addition, users can search for merchants of interest based on category keywords, enter the details page to browse the merchant address, per capita consumption, various ratings, group purchase discounts and user reviews, understand the merchant situation and make consumption decisions, realizing online and offline linkage.

Improvement suggestions:

When I use Dianping, I often post review information, but because my Orange V level is not high, my reviews are rarely displayed first and the interactions I receive are very limited. What is displayed more is the content posted by higher-level users. Although the content they post has beautiful pictures and detailed text descriptions, most of them are recommending a certain store or product, and lack very real and objective evaluations. This may cause users to find that the quality of the products is not satisfactory after blindly experiencing them, thus affecting the offline development of the store.

Although word of mouth is important when promoting a store, as an O2O platform for life services, ensuring the authenticity of the content is more convincing to users. For this problem, I think there are several ways to improve it:

• Accelerating the switching frequency of recommended reviews can encourage users to post high-quality reviews, increase the frequency of ordinary users' reviews, and reduce users' sense of being "recommended".
• Urge merchants to check reviews regularly and improve high-frequency issues to ensure the quality of merchants.
• Encourage users to become "store explorers" and use activities to encourage ordinary users to make offline purchases and provide comments and feedback. After publishing real comments, give users certain rewards. It not only promotes offline transactions, but also increases the number of real reviews, killing two birds with one stone.

5.2.3 Posting reviews

Functional experience:

Users can enter the review page through the plus button on the homepage or the information page of a specific merchant. On the review page, users can post photos and specific text descriptions, and can also insert product tags, related merchants, topics, etc., in order to create an atmosphere for group discussion. On the specific merchant review page, in addition to giving scores, posting pictures, and entering the average amount per person, users can also automatically add subheadings such as environment, service, dishes, etc. to make detailed evaluations, and can also select the recommended product labels automatically provided below.

I have to say that the review function design of Dianping is really thoughtful. It fully takes into account the needs and possible problems of users when making reviews, and fully encourages users to participate in reviews.

Improvement suggestions:

The main purpose of this section is to encourage users to output more content. In the process of product improvement, the quality and quantity of content are equally important. The author believes that a user-selectable submission button "I want to be on the hot review" can be set up to encourage users to publish higher-quality content and display it first. This will not only satisfy users' sense of display and accomplishment, but also improve the overall quality of reviews.

5.2.4 Participation in welfare activities

Functional experience:

Daily Benefits

Heart-warming lunch, review list, and points mall

Try it for free

Dianping’s event operation is one of its highlights, which is mainly reflected in four modules on the homepage: daily benefits, heartwarming lunch, review list, free trial and points mall.

In the first two modules, users only need to complete the corresponding tasks to earn points or get cash, and can also check the daily discount group purchase information. The predecessor of the free trial was called the free meal. Users only need to fill in their personal information to have a chance to be drawn to enjoy free food or services. Merchants also use this method to increase the popularity of their stores. The free trial module is very attractive to users, and the threshold for users to participate in the free trial is gradually getting higher. I first used Dianping in 2017. Ordinary users can sign up for almost all free trial projects, but now most projects are "Orange V exclusive", and it is also very simple to become an Orange V. Users only need to write more reviews to obtain Orange V status. To increase the probability of winning, you need to provide more high-quality reviews and continue to provide reviews after winning the prize, thus completing the cycle of review → enjoy free trial rewards → review. It is through such operational strategies that Dianping ensures that user activity remains at a relatively stable level. Points are a common operating method used by many products and are also reflected in Dianping.com.

Dianping also presents various lists based on user reviews and the actual quality of the stores, such as the must-eat list, the must-stay list, and the must-visit list, providing users with popular trends and reliable suggestions. The author believes that the significance of establishing a list lies in that it captures the herd mentality of consumers, especially in terms of food, leisure and entertainment, the public's word of mouth can reflect certain facts.

Improvement suggestions:

In terms of operations, the author believes that it is possible to fully build a consumption and review scenario for users, giving them room for imagination, and creating ideal life scenarios for them based on their consumption habits and review categories, thereby stimulating user consumption. At the same time, users should be encouraged to produce more high-quality reviews, which requires giving ordinary users the same opportunities. In addition to upgrading and becoming Orange V, a hot review list can be set up to encourage users to be on the list and get rewards. On the one hand, this stimulates users to produce reviews and increase the number of reviews, and on the other hand, it also improves the quality of reviews.

5.3 Analysis of Product Core Operation Strategies

Since the second half of 2020, Dianping has begun to revise rules such as the "star rating system", "LV membership system", and "free meals", covering merchants, users, and operations, and these sections are all important components of Dianping's operating system.

5.3.1 UGC content operation

On February 1 this year, Dianping announced the adjustment of the star calculation rules: first, the star rating will be calculated after 10 selected reviews are reached; second, more attention will be paid to the authenticity of the reviews posted by users and their help to other users; only selected reviews that have passed the review of 10 or more will be calculated and displayed.

Although this rule seems to raise the requirements for merchants, it is of great significance for the governance of the entire platform and the management of high-quality content. For users, only by submitting real and personally experienced reviews can they have an impact on the store and better recommend the business to other users of the platform, thus maintaining a good and real review community atmosphere.

For a UGC platform, authenticity and referenceability are its focus and are also the principles that the content platform adheres to when operating. Dianping’s governance of this issue also shows the platform’s next focus on operational direction and its determination to change.

5.3.2 Membership Level System

The membership level system is mainly aimed at C-end users. As one of Dianping's main profit-making methods, the membership system has also been adjusted.

In August 2020, Dianping revised the LV level rules, which will use big data to comprehensively calculate the rankings and update the LV level every week; the LV level is no longer fixed, but will change dynamically with increases and decreases.

This improvement places higher demands on users. Users will not be able to upgrade themselves and remain at a high level simply by frequently posting reviews over a period of time. Instead, they will need to continuously produce high-quality reviews to maintain their level. The reason why users maintain their levels is that this membership level system is directly linked to the benefits they can enjoy. Therefore, in such a cycle, they have to standardize their reviews and improve the effectiveness and reference value of their reviews.

This move also reflects the efforts Dianping has made in its own product operations. Only by raising requirements for users and strictly regulating user behavior can we better build a high-quality content community.

5.3.3 Activity Operation

The author mentioned in the previous article that he was attracted by the "free meal" activity and became a loyal user of Dianping.com. Now, "free meal" has been renamed "free trial".

The author has always believed that "free dining" is a very successful activity operation of Dianping. As a user, you can enjoy free rewards for your contribution, experience the merchant's services and promote the merchant again; and the platform provides a channel for communication and exchange between merchants and users to obtain profits.

I think the name change of Dianping is intended to eliminate the hierarchy in the minds of users, as eating a free meal always gives people a derogatory feeling. On the other hand, we hope that more users can participate in the event, and the word "free" will surely be more attractive. Users can choose to participate in corresponding experience projects according to their level. If they want to experience better projects, they can produce more high-quality content, upgrade their membership, and enjoy more rights and interests. Such a cycle is a virtuous cycle and also contributes to creating a more harmonious review ecosystem.

It can be seen that Dianping’s operating strategy and direction are actually very clear. Whether it is retaining old users through content operations, attracting new users through event operations, or strictly regulating the behavior of members and merchants, it is all to present the most valuable reviews to users, return to the platform positioning, and thus attract more users.

6. Competitive product analysis

6.1 Main Competitors

In this article, the author compares it with Dianping’s similar product: the word-of-mouth APP. Koubei is an Internet local life service platform jointly created by Alibaba Group and Ant Financial Group by integrating the resources of both parties. Its services cover eight offline scenarios, including restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores, takeout, business districts, airports, beauty salons, and cinemas.

6.2 Competitive SWOT Analysis

VII. Summary and Suggestions

7.1 Summary

As China's earliest independent third-party consumer review platform, Dianping.com has gained popularity for its trustworthy services of providing local businesses, consumer reviews and discount information. In today's social context of rapid technological development, the Internet of Everything, and the growing size of the O2O market, people have higher requirements for the convenience and quality of life, which has also brought more opportunities for the development of life service O2O products such as Dianping.com.

7.2 Recommendations

Based on the above experience and analysis of the product, the author summarizes the following suggestions:

1. In terms of group buying and life services, products should pay attention to the information parity between merchants and users, and update store information in a timely manner. As mentioned in the previous analysis, we can start from both the merchant side and the user side, encourage them to update information in a timely manner, and ensure that the most accurate and reliable merchant information is provided to users. At the same time, we can build consumption and life scenarios for users to promote the increase of offline transaction rates.
2. As for motivating users to post high-quality reviews, this is the area that Dianping needs to focus on next, namely the quantity and quality of reviews. On the one hand, activities can be run to encourage users to produce more content and ensure the user activity of the UGC community; on the other hand, users can be motivated to compete and given more opportunities to display their own comments and become popular, thereby improving the quality of community comments.
3. Furthermore, as a UGC community, it should focus on the interactivity between users, rather than being limited to the interaction between users and merchants. Offline meetups and exchanges can be organized in offline stores to bring real experiences to online users, which will also help users understand each other and communicate further.
4. In 2016, Meituan and Dianping reached a strategic cooperation. It is reported that after the merger, Dianping's business focus will be on low-frequency, high-unit-price business. Therefore, the previous behavior of various life service O2O platforms spending money crazily to subsidize consumers may become less and less common. The author believes that this is a trend in the development of the product to date, but for its sinking market, perhaps such a trend has not yet begun, and there is still a lot of room for development in the sinking market. This is also an opportunity that Dianping can seize. It should provide meticulous services in existing markets, seize offline links, and boldly open up markets in second- and third-tier cities. This is the effective way to seize the dividends of the O2O market.

Author: Lorain

Source: Lorain