The most comprehensive analysis of Meituan’s food delivery platform ranking logic!

Newbies will definitely be at a loss when they first enter the food delivery market, so it is necessary to understand the ranking rules and "unwritten rules" of the food delivery platform.

This article mainly consists of four parts:

1. The core rules of Meituan Takeout ranking provide everyone with a comprehensive summary of influencing factors.

2. Many bosses who have dine-in restaurants do not know that Meituan Takeout and Dianping are linked. By doing a good job on Dianping, Meituan Takeout can also gain a lot of traffic.

3. Many bosses work with different Meituan managers and are not clear about the differences and restrictions among urban white-collar workers, CKA, KA and SKA. This article will explain them one by one.

4. As a huge entrance for dine-in traffic, the role of Dianping has always been underestimated. Bosses need to take the lead in marketing Dianping, which will be of great benefit to both dine-in and take-out businesses.

1. Meituan Takeaway Traffic Entrance

When it comes to food delivery on the platform, traffic is the key. But where to get the traffic from? The most comprehensive entrances mainly include 7: Search, Best for You, Discount Zone, Nearby Merchant List/Discover Good Food, Channel Merchant List, Historical Orders, Red Packets & Merchant Coupons.

1. Search entry

Here’s a tip: bosses can describe the dish’s name, label, and raw materials as detailed as possible so that it can be searched.

For example: Di Sanxian. If the platform only has the name of a dish, Di Sanxian, then customers can only search for this store and its products by searching for these three words accurately. But if the description clearly states "flavor is salty and fresh, Northeastern cuisine", then people who search for "salty and fresh" and "Northeastern cuisine" will also be able to find the store. In addition, if raw materials such as "eggplant" and "potato" are also written into the dish label, customers who directly search for the raw materials can also see them. It can be seen that whether the information is comprehensive determines the search traffic that a dish can obtain, which may differ by dozens of times.

2. Best for you

"Optimal for You" is the name of an entire section. The column name is different at different times. Sometimes it is called "Good Late Night Snack Shops", sometimes it is called "Afternoon Tea", "Selected Lunch", etc., all of which are "Optimal for You".

What is this column based on? First of all, different people see different content displayed in “Best for You”. For example, based on per capita consumption, if you spend an average of 20 per meal, then the dishes in the recommendation column will most likely have a per-customer price of around 20. In addition, stores that customers have collected will also be displayed in this column first, which is why many merchants ask for collection.

3. Special offer area

The "Discount Zone" column will give priority to displaying merchants and dishes from the platform's official activities, such as 9.9 flash sales. These activities generally require merchants to make large concessions, but shops should participate in such activities as much as possible after calculating the profit and loss balance.

4. Discover good food

This is a new column that mainly showcases popular dishes from nearby businesses. The key to “discovering good dishes” lies in finding products with very high store sales (note, not sales volume), and then making them attractive in price and pictures, which can effectively attract traffic from this column.

5. Channel List

I won’t go into details about the channel classification list, the key point here is to “select the right category” in the background. Everyone should remember: the first category of detailed categories: Sichuan and Hunan cuisine; the second category: barbecue; the third category: snacks and fast food. The categories in the background must not be chosen incorrectly, otherwise the traffic ceiling will be limited!

6. Historical Orders

Historical orders are repeat purchase orders. When the proportion of a customer's historical orders is higher than 8%, it means that the repurchase rate is relatively high and the customer's recognition is good. But if it is lower than 8%, merchants need to take some measures to increase the repurchase rate.

7. Red envelope and merchant voucher entrance

The platform has several forms: ① Red envelopes falling from the sky ② Sharing links ③ Customers can directly see various red envelopes in the backend "My-My Assets".

Tips: When other traffic entrances are difficult to increase for a while, bosses can consider using red envelopes and merchant coupons to increase traffic.

2. Four major factors affecting rankings

Here we break it down in detail for you. As shown in the figure:

1. Business factors

(1) Service quality

It mainly includes merchant ratings, delivery ratings and abnormal orders. Merchant ratings are not overly descriptive and can be improved in many ways.

Delivery score: Please note that the larger the delivery range, the better. If the range is too large, riders will be unwilling to accept orders and delivery will be delayed, which will lead to a decrease in the delivery score and affect the store ranking.

Abnormal order volume: situations such as timeout for orders and delivery delays, etc. As long as the abnormal orders are not caused by subjective reasons of the customers, regardless of whether the merchant is responsible or not, they will affect the store’s service quality score.

(2) Sales

There is a formula for sales: Sales = Average Order Value X Order Quantity

There is no exact number for whether the specific sales volume is calculated based on 3 days, 7 days or a month. The platform system will calculate the order volume in different periods using a weighted algorithm, and it will often change.

Business hours: The longer the business hours and the higher the order volume, the more beneficial it is to ranking.

Delivery range: The larger the delivery range, the more likely it is that the order volume will increase; but if the range is too large, it will affect the store’s service quality score. When faced with two evils, choose the lesser one. How to strike the right balance requires more attempts by businesses.

(3) Activity intensity

The actual discount enjoyed by the customer.

2. Conversion Factors

The following are 2 pictures:

Tips: The distance and time of delivery are very important. Maybe others are not as good as you in every aspect, but the one who is close to the water will get the moon first. You need to budget for the time the rider arrives at the store, and you can click "Meal Delivered" in advance to shorten the delivery time, which is beneficial to the store ranking.

3. Scenarios

It mainly includes categories, time periods, etc. Be careful not to choose the wrong category, otherwise it may lead to the wrong time period and your ranking will definitely drop.

4. User factors

User factors are related to “one customer, one face”: if a customer often looks at your sign, writes you good reviews, or frequently places orders with merchants similar to yours, he or she will be ranked higher. Therefore, asking for positive reviews can not only improve your store’s rating, but also allow customers to see you more often in the future.

The four major factors that affect the ranking are summarized as follows:

3. Dianping’s influence on Meituan Waimai

Why does Dianping have an impact on Meituan Waimai? Because they are a family! Therefore, doing well in Dianping will only benefit Meituan Waimai and will not cause any harm. The main benefits are as follows:

1. As mentioned in previous tweets, Dianping operates in a dine-in environment, and customers have a higher average order value than other platforms, so they are not very sensitive to price. Therefore, when the business is switched to takeout, customers will not immediately lower their acceptable price psychologically.

2. There is a dedicated screening entrance for "high review scores" on the Meituan food delivery platform, which is equivalent to adding a traffic channel.

To sum up, if you can get a score of 4 or above on Dianping and light up the "Store with High Review Scores", you will not suffer any loss.

4. How can a restaurant with dine-in services do well in Dianping?

1. Dianping can operate the "Second Floor of Merchants" well, which is the location where multiple pictures are shown in the picture below. Important information, such as "honors, marketing, activities", etc., displayed here will help promote customers to enter the store.

2. To do group buying well, the suggestions are as follows:

3. Do a good job in "buy order" sales

Using vouchers and payment functions to attract customers to pay through Dianping will help improve the store's ranking weight.

A small tip: Using Meituan’s cashier system can increase Dianping’s exposure.

4. Soft advertising tools: Dianping’s soft advertising tools are summarized as follows:

Tips1: The question area is very important and a place where you can use your ingenuity. Bosses can mobilize their relatives and friends to interact in the question area and use other people's mouths to express their own advantages.

Tip 2: It is best to use animated images in the recommended dish column. For food, animated images are easier to arouse appetite than static images and guide customers into the store.

Small tip 3: If the store achieves 5 stars, the natural traffic will be very good.

Tips 4: Evaluation management plan recommendation: Provide at least 8-10 high-quality reviews (with pictures and text) every month. Pay special attention here that high-quality negative reviews with pictures and text can also bring exposure to the store.

Tip 5: Meituan’s cashier system can push information to customers on WeChat after they make a purchase, guiding them to leave comments.

The above is everything you need to know about the rules of the food delivery platform. You can save it and come back to read it if you forget.

Author: Tianhai Overseas Takeaway Operation

Source: Tianhai takeaway agency operation