What's worth buying product analysis report

On July 15, 2019, " What's Worth Buying " was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (stock code 300785), with an opening price of 34.1 yuan. On the first day of listing, the stock price hit the daily limit, with a market value of 2.18 billion yuan and continued to rise. On May 29, 2020, the price per share of "Zhizhimai" (stock abbreviation) soared to 184.19 yuan, about 5.4 times the entry price. At the end of 2020, the stock price fell back to 82.87 yuan per share, but it was still more than twice the entry price.

In today's environment where giants are in power and e-commerce is rampant, how does "What's Worth Buying" leverage its own advantages to maintain its market share?

This article will comprehensively analyze from multiple perspectives how "What's Worth Buying" can gain a foothold in the Internet wave.

This article will analyze from the following aspects:

1. Industry Analysis
2. Competitive product analysis
3. User Value Analysis
4. Business value analysis
5. Product Iteration Analysis
6. Product structure analysis
7. Operational Analysis
8. Summarize

1. Industry Analysis

"Shopping guide e-commerce is born out of trading platforms, and has the function of assisting users in making online shopping decisions and facilitating transactions. The core value of shopping guide platforms is to provide consumers with price discounts and shopping references through rebates, coupons, product recommendations, etc., while providing brands with low-cost traffic sources. (iiMedia Research)" As a content-based shopping guide e-commerce platform, "What's Worth Buying" is destined to be deeply affected by the market conditions of the entire e-commerce industry. "Prosperity and adversity are shared by all", so what is the current prospect of the e-commerce industry? What about the opportunities in content-based shopping guide e-commerce? We will use the PEST model to analyze step by step

1.1 Politics

Since the release of my country's first five-year e-commerce development plan in 2007, my country has vigorously supported the development of e-commerce. The 13th Five-Year Plan proposes to "fully unleash the vitality of innovation and entrepreneurship in e-commerce" and "guide e-commerce to fully serve the national economy and social development" and make "e-commerce an important platform for promoting employment, improving people's livelihood, and benefiting urban and rural areas."

In 2019, my country's online retail sales reached 10.6 trillion yuan, completing the 10 trillion yuan target set for the 13th Five-Year Plan one year ahead of schedule; among them, the online retail sales of physical goods contributed 45.7% to the growth of total retail sales of consumer goods in the same period, nearly half of the total. E-commerce has become the main channel for residents' consumption in my country.

In April 2020, the State Council held an executive meeting and decided to "establish 46 new cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones", which is likely to accelerate the trend of my country's e-commerce going abroad and into the world. At present, the domestic e-commerce situation is very good. Under the advocacy and promotion of policies, the consumption potential of e-commerce will be further released, and shopping guide e-commerce, as a sub-sector, will also usher in new development opportunities.

(Some opinions are excerpted from the "E-commerce Development Vision Survey 2025" and "Implementing the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of E-commerce" to help win the battle against poverty" released by the Department of E-commerce and Informatization of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China; iiMedia Research | China's Shopping Guide E-commerce Industry Research Report in the First Half of 2020)

1.2 Economy

China has always been a populous country, accounting for 19% of the world's population, and in 2020 it exceeded 1.4 billion. The large population means a constant flow of material and spiritual needs. In today's Internet+ era, people are generally accustomed to using online channels such as online shopping to meet their various needs. In addition, with the country's modernization, people's living environment and income level have improved significantly, and their willingness to consume has increased. The extremely large user base and their consumption capacity bring a vast market to the e-commerce sector.

Source of chart: China E-commerce Report 2019 by the Ministry of Commerce

As people born in the 1990s and 2000s gradually occupy the main market of online consumption, the mainstream consumption concepts and preferences of consumer groups have also undergone tremendous changes. The new generation of consumers like social sharing, pursue entertainment, and belong to the group that enjoys life. Traditional e-commerce with a pure shopping model has reached its own traffic ceiling, while content e-commerce, which is consumer-centric and creates content around IP, KOL, live broadcasts, hot events, etc., and enables the simultaneous circulation and conversion of goods with content, has emerged as a new force and gained a lot of traffic (defined by Quest Mobile). In an environment where customer acquisition costs are getting higher and higher, traditional e-commerce trading platforms are willing to invest more money in shopping guide websites to obtain more low-cost, high-quality traffic.

1.3 Society and Culture

Domestic consumers have a habit of "shopping around" and pursuing cost-effectiveness. Shopping guide platforms are becoming more and more popular among the public, and GMV is increasing year by year. Among them, the UGC shopping guide platform, the content sources are mostly spontaneous disclosures by consumers, and are highly credible. Widely favored by consumers. The market size is growing rapidly and continuously.

1.4 Technology

The rapid development of new technologies has injected continuous vitality into shopping guide e-commerce

• The rise of mobile Internet has created a fertile soil for e-commerce and greatly reduced the cost of collecting product information. Consumers can compare prices of various online stores without leaving home.
• The rise of smart mobile devices has spawned a large number of APP applications, allowing consumers to shop online anytime and anywhere, significantly improving user stickiness and promoting order volume.
• The rise and application of big data and AI technologies enable platforms to learn consumers’ shopping habits and preferences, make personalized and accurate recommendations, and greatly improve transaction rates.

To sum up, various reasons have created market opportunities for content-based shopping guide e-commerce. TouBao Research Institute predicts that by 2023, the UGC shopping guide platform will reach a market size of 30 billion.

2. Competitive Product Analysis

Faced with this fast-growing track and trend, a large number of participants have emerged, including price-driven shopping guides and content-driven shopping guides. For example, companies such as What’s Worth Buying, Know the Goods, Gift Talk, Rebate Network, Taofenba, and Save Money Express, etc. According to iResearch data, Fanli.com has a clear advantage in user scale and is currently in the first tier; What’s Worth Buying, Shihuo, and Taofenba are important players in the industry with a greater influence and are currently in the second tier; other companies have a lower market share and belong to the third tier.

(In terms of comprehensive strength, What’s Worth Buying should be in the first echelon, but here we will refer to the report of iResearch Consulting for the time being)

As the strongest competitor of What’s Worth Buying, Fanli.com occupies the majority of the market share. This article will set Fanli.com as a competitor and compare the differences between the two companies based on their growth paths and core business models.

2.1 What is worth buying

In 2010, the What’s Worth Buying website was established

In 2011, the company's predecessor, Beijing Zhidemai Information Technology Co., Ltd., was established

In 2015, Beijing Zhidemai Information Technology Co., Ltd. was changed to Beijing Zhiyoumai Technology Co., Ltd.

In 2016, What’s Worth Buying received 100 million yuan of angel investment from Huachuang Capital

In 2017, What’s Worth Buying submitted an IPO application to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, intending to list on the Growth Enterprise Market.

In June 2019, the IPO review was passed. What’s Worth Buying may become the “first domestic e-commerce shopping guide stock”

In July of the same year, What’s Worth Buying went public, with its stock price hitting the daily limit on the first day and a market value of 2.18 billion yuan.

In 2020, Zhiyoumai Technology raised another 728.5 million yuan, which will provide capital for Zhiyoumai Technology's development in the next decade.

The business model of What’s Worth Buying is e-commerce shopping guide:

• Content sources: 80% user-contributed content + 20% editor-contributed content and merchant-contributed content
• Product categories: Comprehensive platform, covering all categories, mostly fast-moving consumer goods and 3C products
• Quality control: The backend review and reporting mechanism ensure the authenticity, harmlessness and richness of the content. In addition, the "value" rate and user reviews on the platform can also be used as a reference for judging product quality.
• User composition: Male users far outnumber female users
• User volume and ability to attract new users: Less than 100 million, mainly through natural growth through word-of-mouth communication
• Expanding business: short videos and live broadcasts

2.2 Rebate Network

2006, Fanli.com was established

In 2011, Fanli.com received a US$10 million Series A investment from Qiming Venture Partners and Siwei Investments

In 2014, Fanli.com received a USD 20 million Series B funding from Haina Asia.

In 2015, the company completed a round C financing of nearly US$100 million, led by Japan's Rakuten

In 2017, Haina Asia added C+ round of investment, the amount is unknown

In 2020, Jiangxi Changjiu Biochemical Co., Ltd. acquired Fanli.com and promoted asset restructuring in preparation for listing.

The business model of Fanli.com is also an e-commerce shopping guide:

• Content source: All PGC content
• Product categories: Comprehensive platform, covering all categories, mostly clothing and beauty products
• Quality control: Responsible for screening partners, the quality of goods is controlled by the partners, and we do not participate in supervision
• User composition: Female users far outnumber male users
• User volume and new user acquisition capability: The number of users exceeds 200 million, and the use of cash rewards to attract new users is strong
• Business expansion: offline rebate cards, short videos and live broadcasts

Summary: From the above analysis, it can be seen that although Fanli.com was established earlier, compared with What’s Worth Buying, it was faster to find its own positioning, establish a reliable profit model, and go public first. In 2020, it received a new round of financing and began planning for the next decade. Fanli.com has completed several rounds of financing after years of exploration. After the IPO failed, it was acquired by Changjiu Biochemical Company (hereinafter referred to as) in 2020. It promoted asset restructuring and prepared for a backdoor listing. However, with many competitors around it eyeing it, the future market situation is unpredictable.

Compared with rebate websites, What’s Worth Buying relies on high-quality content to attract and retain users. After years of accumulation, it has cultivated a group of high-quality content creators and highly active old users. Its UGC content cost is low, which is beneficial to the company's profitability. There are many fast-moving consumer goods. We need to grasp the daily needs of users, increase the frequency of users opening the app, and promote user activity and usage time. The quality of its products is checked at multiple levels, including review by company employees, user reports, user comments, and “value” rate, with multiple guarantees.

But on the other hand, compared with Fanli.com, the market for female users of What’s Worth Buying has yet to be developed; and its number of users and ability to attract new users are far less than that of Fanli.com, which is not conducive to the company’s rapid capture of the market; in expanding its business, Fanli.com was the first to break the offline deadlock and launch rebate cards, seizing some of the opportunities. The other two companies are currently exploring emerging business models of video and live streaming. If they can do well in this area, it may bring unknown new opportunities and development possibilities to the company.

3. User Value Analysis

In the content-based shopping guide e-commerce market, there are four main participants: consumers, content creators, partners (advertisers), and platforms. Its business logic is as follows:

3.1 Consumers

• Today's society is fast-paced and work pressure is high, and the 996 work system has become an unspoken rule. Many white-collar workers do not have enough time to compare the pros and cons of similar products, but they also have the need to pursue cost-effectiveness and are unwilling to be "suckers."
• Merchants often use price cuts, discounts, coupons and other means to stimulate consumer consumption. Many consumers often feel that the product I just bought yesterday has been reduced in price today. What a loss.
• It is difficult for consumers to "see everything" among the dazzling array of products. Strategic consumers may read through a large amount of data but still fail to achieve the desired results, and it is time-consuming and laborious.
• Since the popularity of online shopping, third-party merchants have hired a large number of online shopping trolls to fake orders for their own interests, resulting in too much false information in the review area, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish the true from the false and make accurate judgments.

3.2 Content Creators

Under today's severe employment situation, the market proportions are unbalanced, the phenomenon of "involution" among employees is serious, employees' salaries are suppressed and promotion is difficult. According to statistics from Zhaopin.com, the job satisfaction of white-collar workers in 2019 was only 2.38, of which the satisfaction with salary and benefits was only 2.16 (out of 5 points). Many people choose to supplement their family income with a side job or a part-time job. In addition, many full-time mothers who take care of their children at home also hope to have a job and be recognized by their family and society.

3.3 Advertisers

As an emerging Internet industry, online shopping has seen major e-commerce companies continuously competing to expand their market share. Market share is changing rapidly and competitive pressure is high. There are risks in placing large amounts of advertising, and the input-output ratio is not proportional. Taking JD.com and Tmall as examples, the website conversion rates are only 2.9% and 4.5%, respectively. On average, each transaction requires 34 and 22 visits, and the promotion costs are approximately 4 yuan and 6 yuan. The e-commerce industry faces intense competition, and high promotion costs further squeeze e-commerce profits. (TouBao Research Institute)

3.4 Platform

From the above analysis, we can find that when it comes to online shopping, consumers pursue cost-effectiveness, have a need to compare prices, lack effective strategies, and hate online scams. However, many content contributors are idle at home and have a psychological need to make money and seek recognition, or they are dissatisfied with their current jobs and want to find a side job. Partners suffer from fierce competition among peers, constant changes in market share, high advertising costs and low conversion rates.

How does What’s Worth Buying, as a platform, better meet their needs and attract them to this platform?

3.4.1 Good price and convenience

The integrated discount information content of the What’s Worth Buying platform is the foundation for building a shopping guide ecosystem, and its cost-effective products are the key to improving user stickiness. The promotional activities on various e-commerce platforms of What’s Worth Buying are clearly categorized and easy to see at a glance, and the method of claiming the benefits is also simple and clear. On the coupon homepage of the What’s Worth Buying App, there is information and links for redeeming coupons from many different platforms. For example, JD.com’s “10 yuan off for purchases over 99 yuan” and “30 yuan off for purchases over 299 yuan” allow users to receive the coupons and then jump to JD.com to enjoy a 10% discount. Compared with rebate websites in the same industry, users need to jump to JD.com’s own mall to place an order, and restricted products can only receive the rebate amount after the return period. In contrast, on What’s Worth Buying, users can enjoy clear discount amounts before placing an order, and the operation is convenient and quick.

The discounts and update speed offered by What’s Worth Buying are leading in the industry. On the evening of April 1, Luo Yonghao live-streamed and sold goods on the Douyin platform. The Zhiyoumai platform simultaneously compiled a list of products with prices lower than Luo Yonghao’s live-stream prices, and even published a special topic "Lower than Lao Luo" on Weibo to showcase the price advantage of the Zhiyoumai platform.

In addition to the cost-effectiveness of its products, Zhiyoumai’s rebate subsidies for life services are also better than its peers. For example, in the local catering industry, What’s Worth Buying’s maximum subsidy to Ele.me and Meituan is up to 10%. The subsidy rules are that you can receive a cash red envelope when ordering takeout, and you can get a maximum rebate of 10% after purchasing coupons; when you shop in the store, you can enjoy the exclusive 1-9 yuan coupons of Zhiyoumai, and you can get a maximum rebate of 10% after shopping. In the same industry, the rebate app offers a maximum rebate of 5% for Ele.me and Meituan Waimai, and the money-saving express offers a maximum rebate of 4.8% for Ele.me and Meituan Waimai; What’s Worth Buying has a greater advantage in terms of subsidy intensity. (Guolian Securities Research Institute)

3.4.2 One-click price comparison function

The homepage of What’s Worth Buying has launched a one-click price comparison function (APP version). By copying and pasting the product link, you can obtain the product’s historical price and other information with one click.

3.4.3 Efficient reporting + review mechanism

In August 2016, What’s Worth Buying called for the establishment of the “First Neighborhood Committee” to encourage users to actively report any negative information they encounter such as internet trolls, advertisements, scalpers, personal attacks, etc. while browsing. The first user to successfully and correctly report will receive a reward of 5 points each time. In addition, What’s Worth Buying has also issued strict community guidelines and regulations such as “leaking management regulations”.

The product reviews and shopping guides on What’s Worth Buying are mostly created by certified experts in various fields who have long-term cooperation with us. They are highly credible and practical.

3.4.4 Incentives

In order to fully tap the potential value of users, Zhiyoumai encourages users to actively participate in community topics, provide discount information, share shopping experiences and other high-quality UGC content. What’s Worth Buying uses the commonly used points, gold coins, and upgraded material rewards to discover, attract, and motivate users to become creators. Once the preferential information and good article recommendations provided by the content producer pass the review, the content will be automatically deemed valid and adopted on the Zhiyoumai platform. Subsequently, there will be other rewards such as expert dynamics, expert certification, expert influence, etc. to allow creators to gain a sense of accomplishment and encourage creators to continue to produce high-quality original content. Virtual points, gold coins, and small change can be exchanged for vouchers on e-commerce platforms such as JD.com, Taobao, and Amazon at an exchange rate of 10:1, allowing users to obtain certain material rewards.

Some active users have considerable incomes. A "first-year lifestyle expert" revealed that he "made around 38,733 yuan from Aunt Zhang" in a year (his side income from Aunt Zhang in 2018). Some users also post tips on making money by writing articles on the platform. There are certain money-making opportunities on the What’s Worth Buying platform, which is a strong incentive for some people.

3.4.5 Efficient diversion

The platform mainly charges in the form of CPS, that is, a partial commission is deducted only after the user places an order. This makes the e-commerce online promotion risk-free and targeted, and the effect is more obvious. Therefore, e-commerce companies tend to cooperate with shopping guide platforms to provide them with development opportunities.

Secondly, the nature of content shopping guide platforms such as What’s Worth Buying better meets advertisers’ upgraded needs for interactivity, content, effectiveness, and precision.

Summary: Through the above analysis, we can find that What’s Worth Buying has grasped the needs of all parties involved and won traffic and funds for itself.

4. Commercial Value Analysis

The current core business of What’s Worth Buying is to provide users with information on discounted products through spontaneous revelations from whistleblowers and other consumers, direct them to third-party e-commerce platforms, and induce purchasing behavior, and then collect commissions from the sales profits (CPS model). An important indicator for judging whether a business can develop healthily is revenue. Here we use the most commonly used data indicator GMV to analyze whether the core business of What’s Worth Buying is healthy.

GMV=number of users*conversion rate*average order value. The improvement of any one of the indicators, namely the number of users, conversion rate and average order value, will have a positive impact on the growth of overall revenue, so next we will focus on analyzing the means used by What’s Worth Buying to improve these three key indicators.

4.1 Increase the number of platform users

In terms of increasing the number of registered users, the platform mainly adopted two strategies

4.1.1 Platform self-promotion

4.1.1.1 Online Advertising

"According to the data monitored by Toutiao Advertising Intelligence, "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal" currently ranks 417th on the list, and its ranking continues to rise. The following table shows the basic information of "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal":

(Data source: BigBigAds)

From the above basic information on the advertising of "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal", we can know that in the theme of "Application", the important advertising media channels that "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal" has been running are Toutiao, Huoshan Video, and iQiyi. "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal" has been running for 238 consecutive times, and the number of advertising creatives has reached 14.

According to the BigBigAds analysis of the "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal" delivery trend, "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal" continued to buy a large amount of traffic from 2019-10-23 to 2020-06-18. During this period, "What's Worth Buying - Shopping Portal" first underwent a small-scale delivery test to determine the advertising media channels and advertising effects, and then the delivery reached its peak. ” (Excerpt from BigBigAds report)

4.1.1.2 Traffic diversion from other platforms

Create official accounts on social platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Zhihu, Bilibili, etc. to attract fans.

4.1.1.3 Promotion on TV programs

In June 2017, the special program of "What's Worth Buying" was broadcast on China National Radio's China Traffic Radio.

In June 2020, What’s Worth Buying appeared on CCTV:

"The layout of the consumer decision-making platform What's Worth Buying in various vertical fields of live streaming was also known to the outside world for the first time through CCTV reports. The "New Economy, Food Broadcasting Promotes Food Consumption" program broadcast by CCTV2, the financial channel of CCTV, explored the stories behind "food broadcasting" and its impact on consumption." (NetEase News)

4.1.1.4 Collaboration and joint branding to increase brand awareness

Cooperate with well-known brands such as Steam and Casio to launch joint products.

(Photo source: What’s Worth Buying official website)

4.1.1.5 Offline Promotion

On May 21, 2016, the first Friendship Day was held

In September 2020, What's Worth Buying will be on display at the China International Fair for Trade in Services

(Photo source: What’s Worth Buying official website)

4.1.2 Attracting new users from old users

With the bonus of 20 gold coins (exchangeable for a 2 yuan JD shopping card) and good user experience, many old users will actively recommend the product to their friends, forming word-of-mouth communication.

4.2 Improve conversion rate

Since mobile shopping is the mainstream trend, only the mobile conversion rate is analyzed here.

4.2.1 Reduce user churn

The home page navigation lists several commonly used core functions to reduce user loss before reaching the core functions.

Customers with clear purchasing intentions can use the search bar to quickly find the products they want and easily compare prices, reducing user loss due to complicated steps.

It has a quick screening function, and product information, discount prices, and product ratings are clear at a glance, reducing user loss due to useless information and unclear key information.

4.2.2 Improving Trust

Providing product sources, whistleblower information (click on the avatar to enter their homepage), order screenshots, automatic detection, and discount reporting make consumers feel safe, reliable, and trustworthy.

4.2.3 Creating a sense of consumption scenario

The product details page often has related articles such as unboxing experiences and reviews, making consumers feel as if they have already got the product and will lose something if they don’t buy it. It takes advantage of consumers' loss psychology: "Compared with gains, people are more sensitive to losses."

4.2.4 Demonstrating cost-effectiveness

Consumers can intuitively feel the strength of the discount based on the red-marked discount price, attached coupons, and price trend charts of "lowest in xx days" and "lower than Double 11".

In addition, there is a special area for cabbage, which, as the name suggests, is a special area for "very cheap cabbage prices". "People who love to take advantage of small bargains have a stronger desire for possession psychologically. This desire for possession will produce a corresponding sense of satisfaction every time they get a small advantage. The mentality of taking advantage exists in our human nature to a greater or lesser extent." That is, they take advantage of consumers' desire to get a bargain and encourage them to place orders.

4.2.5 Create a good reputation and popular atmosphere

The ranking function section includes the most popular products. A large number of user reviews create a strong sense of word-of-mouth and popularity, and use the herd mentality of consumers to stimulate consumers to place orders.

4.2.6 Build Authority (Authoritative Psychology)

"Consumers have a psychological tendency to respect authority, and in terms of consumption patterns, this is often manifested in the emotional component of decision-making far outweighing the rational component. This respect for authority often leads consumers to choose products consumed by authority without reason, and then personify the consumer objects, thereby achieving product sales. Common examples are celebrity endorsements, live broadcasts by internet celebrities, community leaders, KOLs, etc." The "Value List" section of What's Worth Buying takes advantage of consumers' psychology of authority and promotes their desire to buy.

4.2.7 Create scarcity and a sense of urgency for products

Create scarcity and a sense of urgency for products through scheduled sales, such as “limited-time flash sales” in the vegetable section and sale reminders in the discount calendar section. They all take advantage of people’s scarcity psychology that “scarcity makes things valuable” and use “hunger marketing” to stimulate consumers’ purchasing enthusiasm.

4.2.8 Give consumers a reason

According to the consumers' persuasive psychology, that is, "persuasive psychology is not to persuade others, but to allow consumers to persuade themselves." Here, the official editor uses the consumers' persuasive psychology to make some consumers have the illusion that "I am making money, not spending money", thus impulsive consumption.

4.2.9 Recommendation of similar products

Pull down the product details page to see related product information, most of which belong to the same category. When a consumer clicks on a product details page, it means that he is interested in the product. He is likely to be interested in similar products as well. So even if the product does not meet his expectations, he may browse other similar products and place an order, thereby increasing the overall conversion rate.

As mentioned above, the platform has utilized a series of consumer psychology in various ways to maximize the conversion rate.

(Some opinions and definitions are excerpted from the article "15 Common Consumer Psychology and Corresponding Marketing Strategies" by the Zhihu author "The Little Things of Operation")

4.3 Increase Average Order Value

Here we analyze two strategies to increase average order value.

Increase purchase frequency:

The platform uses section functions such as "Sign-in Benefits", "Daily Must-Receive", and "Discount Calendar", as well as various activities on the site, experience-based membership, on-site revelations, and continuous and rapid updates of good articles to increase user activity, allowing users to open the APP multiple times to browse and complete tasks. During this process, users may be attracted by some revelation or some recommendation, or they may want to use up the large coupons they received because they want to get a bargain, thus placing an order and making a purchase. In this way, the order rate of individual users can be increased, that is, the purchase frequency can be increased.

Increase the price of a single purchase:

The official information on the platform contains a lot of discounts on goods and discount coupons, which encourages consumers to "spend more money to buy discounts" and thus increase the amount of single consumption.

Some products can be added directly to the shopping cart, making it convenient for consumers to place orders together.

5. Product Iteration Analysis

In order to deeply analyze the iteration rhythm of What’s Worth Buying and explore the product iteration logic, this article summarizes all the core iteration versions of What’s Worth Buying from version 4.0 (the earliest version available) to version 9.9.9, as follows:

Version 8.7.3 of What’s Worth Buying added the first “New Value Men’s Shopping Festival” event, which is the first in-site event held by What’s Worth Buying. Starting from version 8.7.3, new on-site activities will be launched with each iteration of the product (too much data, omitted in the table). This can be regarded as a node, symbolizing the beginning of the rapid development of What’s Worth Buying.

And according to the distribution curve of cumulative downloads on Qimai data, it can be seen that the user growth curvature has continued to increase since version 8.7.3 (that is, starting from April 24, 2018), which belongs to the "J-shaped curve", so What's Worth Buying is divided into two stages for analysis:

Phase 1: Cold start phase

Before April 2018, versions 4.0-8.6 were the cold start phase of the mobile version of Why It’s Worth Buying products. The main goal of this stage is to complete the migration from PC to mobile terminal and improve the basic functions. Verify user needs, explore new features and new businesses, and expand channels.

As What’s Worth Buying accumulated users and grew in popularity, in 2014, Tmall cooperated closely with it, opened its API interface, and became an important channel. In November of the same year, version 5.1 of What’s Worth Buying introduced the quick ordering function for Tmall products, which greatly reduced the user’s usage cost, promoted the transaction rate, and accelerated the development of the platform.

In April 2015, with the increase in cooperating brands and the number of users, the 5.4 version of What’s Worth Buying added a “public testing” channel. On the one hand, it provided consumers with the opportunity to “try new products for free” and increased user enthusiasm; on the other hand, the public testing articles produced by high-quality users also provided merchants with the user feedback they needed; at the same time, it also provided other consumers with valuable reference opinions, achieving the effect of “killing three birds with one stone”.

In July 2015, the 5.8 version of What’s Worth Buying added an encyclopedia channel, providing a comprehensive knowledge base of various brands and product information on the market. Help users find the knowledge they need faster and more completely, and solve various consumer problems. That is, it strengthens the core function of "providing purchasing decisions for consumers."

In December of the same year, the 6.1.1 version of What’s Worth Buying added the JD Quick Purchase function, symbolizing JD’s official entry and becoming the second largest customer of What’s Worth Buying.

In June 2016, with the massive increase in discount information and news on the site, in order to avoid making the page too complicated and to enhance the user experience of consumers, the 7.0 version of What’s Worth Buying optimized and integrated the discount information and original news into the “Good Prices” and “Good Articles” columns respectively.

In August 2016, in order to achieve a slow growth in users, What’s Worth Buying version 7.1 launched a sharing-rewards feature (with a very small reward of 20 gold coins).

With the rise of short videos and live broadcasts, What’s Worth Buying followed the trend and catered to consumer preferences, launching video channels and “Value Broadcast Room” channels in versions 8.0 and 8.1 in 2017 respectively.

On October 19, 2017, after the 8.3 version update of What’s Worth Buying, users were finally able to create long articles on the APP, and the transfer from PC to mobile was basically completed.

On October 24, 2017, version 8.3.2 of What’s Worth Buying was launched in line with the “Double 11” event, with a special edition being launched, marking the first time to try out a large-scale event.

On November 16, 2017, due to the increasing number of users, the customer service function was launched in version 8.4 of What’s Worth Buying, and the basic functions were basically complete.

Phase 2: Collaborative operation and comprehensive development

From April 2018 to the present, the versions have increased from 8.7.3 to 9.9.10 (no major function updates, not included in the table), which is the rapid growth period of What’s Worth Buying. It can be seen that the user growth rate continued to rise during this stage.

In terms of retaining old customers, What’s Worth Buying continues to optimize basic functions at the product level, including “home page noise reduction”; clicking the “+” sign in the upper right corner of the app to quickly publish “breaking news” and “articles”; merging “good articles” and “good things” into a community and optimizing the interface; further improving the “wallet”, etc., to further enhance user experience and conversion rate. At the same time, What’s Worth Buying has increased user stickiness by adding some new features, such as the “Daily Must-Get Zone”, where users can receive Jingdou and various life discounts such as phone bills/takeout every day, in order to increase the frequency and willingness of old users to use the app. In addition, during this stage, What’s Worth Buying launches a new version every 2-4 weeks, and each version has new activities so that old users will not feel "boring".

Secondly, What’s Worth Buying is constantly expanding new businesses. For example, it has reached a cooperation with Kaola Global Shopping and added a quick ordering function for Kaola Global Shopping (to attract new users who love overseas shopping); it has added a life channel to collect various discount information on food/travel/local life, continuously broadening the user’s usage scenarios and attracting new users.

In order to seize market share, What’s Worth Buying has significantly accelerated its operating pace at this stage. Main operations: appearing on TV shows, such as participating in CCTV2's "Consumer Proposition" program and appearing on CCTV programs to increase visibility; attracting traffic from social platforms, such as creating official accounts on Weibo, Douyin, and Kuaishou to attract fans; collaborating with well-known brands such as Steam, Casio, etc.

From the data, during this period, the number of users of What’s Worth Buying has shown explosive growth, and there is no sign of slowing down, indicating that during this period, a series of actions taken by What’s Worth Buying at the product and operational levels have achieved good results.

Overall, What’s Worth Buying has a slow pace and is of the “win with stability” type. From its financing situation (only one round of financing in nine years) and its early efforts to attract new customers (it only paid 20 gold coins, or about 2 yuan, to attract new old customers), we can see that it is not in a hurry to expand but is taking every step carefully. When the basic functions were basically completed and the trial activities were initially successful, What’s Worth Buying began to further expand its business, polish the activities on the site, and cooperate with operations to increase publicity efforts to attract and retain more users. This is the overall iterative idea of ​​What’s Worth Buying.

6. Product structure analysis

In the iterative analysis, we analyzed the iterative steps of the product functions of What’s Worth Buying. Next, let’s take a look at what user needs these functions meet and how they are distributed in the entire app. This is mainly analyzed through product structure. The following is a brain map of the product structure of Why It’s Worth Buying 9.9.10 version:

To facilitate analysis, the author reorganized the product structure of What’s Worth Buying according to users, scenarios, needs and functions to obtain the following table:

Overall analysis:

The users of the platform are divided into two categories: consumers and content contributors, and their needs need to be met.

There are three scenarios when consumers use products:

1. Have a clear consumption intention
2. Have consumption intention but not clear
3. No consumption intention yet

Scenario 1: Consumers have clear consumption intentions

Some consumers have their eyes on a product and come to the platform to see if there is a better price. At this time, they can search for the corresponding product name and model through the search bar on the homepage and compare prices in the search results. Consumers who have already selected a store can paste the product link into the "Compare Prices and Find Coupons" column to find discounts with one click. If they are worried about future price cuts, they can subscribe to the product and set up price reduction notifications.

Some consumers come to the platform to look for discounts before using life services such as ordering takeout, buying groceries online, and sending express deliveries. At this time, they can choose "Meituan Takeout" among the various services in the life channel to receive coupons and place orders to get rebates; or choose "Express Delivery Discounts" to receive discount coupons before placing an order.

Scenario 2: Consumers have consumption intentions but are not clear

Some consumers who come here to "buy cabbage" for discounts can participate in limited-time flash sales to grab super-cost-effective products; or buy cheap products in the cabbage area; or get coupons in the coupon area and then look for inspiration.

Some consumers may have the need to buy “big items” but do not want to place an order rashly and suffer losses. At this time, they can come to the platform to make some strategies, and learn the basic knowledge of the products, such as the performance and parameters of the computer, from the encyclopedia column, review articles, shopping guides and other sections, and read the experts' analysis of the products and their recommended related products. You can also refer to the comments below the products or articles to get solid advice.

Some consumers may want to buy snacks, stock up on New Year's goods, buy clothes, etc., but have not decided which specific item to buy, so they come to the APP to browse and find inspiration. At this time, they can use the category navigation function to find the corresponding category to browse, or directly filter the desired products in the good price channel based on their general psychological expectations.

Scenario 3: Consumers have no consumption intention for the time being

Some consumers open the APP with a casual attitude to see if there is anything "worthwhile" or new. In this scenario, they can first sign in to receive experience points and change (which can be obtained by signing in for a certain number of consecutive days, and can be used to redeem prizes in the points mall); then go to the daily must-get area to receive free "JD beans", red envelopes, etc. (they need to complete some tasks, such as following a JD store); then go to the "0 Yuan Trial" column to apply for crowd-tested products (what if they win the lottery); by the way, take a look at the "Rankings", "Value Lists" and "Discount Calendar Columns" to see if there are any good products. If you are interested, you can buy them immediately; you can also go to the "Topic Square" and "Hot Articles Ranking" of the community channel to see what everyone is talking about, or randomly browse the content of interest in the "Good Articles" and "Show Things" main channels; finally, if you are really bored, you can interact with the robot Xiaobing, and maybe you can even find products that suit your taste.

There are two scenarios when content contributors use the product:

Scene 1: Novice creation

When a user publishes his first original content, if he finds a good piece of information and is eager to expose it, he can click the "+" sign in the upper right corner of the homepage to quickly publish it. The platform also provides a simple tutorial for reference.

If users who are not in a hurry to publish, if you want to understand the basic rules for publishing original content, you can go to the "My Creation" section to learn about the basic information of "revelation", "posting articles", and "showing things", and click on "Submission Management" to view the "Newbie Guide".

After a preliminary understanding of original rewards, community rules, and publication format, some users may need to further learn how to create high-quality original content. At this time, you can enter the "Creation Academy" section to read articles and deepen your study. Or directly search for related articles in the comprehensive search bar.

After completing the necessary learning, the user begins to create for the first time. At this time, they can randomly select the topic; or refer to "recommended tasks" and "recommended activities" to complete the creation of the specified topic and receive more rewards.

After the content is published, users need to understand the review progress, and users can view it in "Submission Management"

Scenario 2: Experienced old users operate

After logging into the platform, old users will usually look at the recent "creation activities" and "task activities" to think about whether there is anything worth writing about. Since they are already skilled in their business, they don’t have to click on “My Creation” to view content like strategy, you can directly click on the shortcut entrance.

When old users choose the right theme, they can click on the convenient entrance and start creating quickly. That is, click the "+" sign (revelation, good article) in the upper right corner of the homepage; or the "camera icon" (spreading objects) in the "spreading objects).

When old users create a certain amount of content and accumulate some popularity, they will hope that their status will be officially recognized (psychological needs). At this time, they can go to the "Expert Certification" section to see if the conditions are met and complete the certification. Because expert certification has rigid requirements on the amount and quality of users' creation, creators have also encouraged them to create more high-quality content.

Since old users need to know their current creation volume and other data when participating in interactions or applying for creator certification, they can go to the "Creation Data" section to view it.

Finally, when all users have various usage and experience problems that cannot be solved, they can inform online customer service.

Summary: From the above analysis, we can find that what is worth buying can meet consumers' shopping and wandering needs; it can meet the basic business needs of content creators, and design a quick entry for the required high-frequency functions. However, due to too many functions and complicated business, and the design of multiple entrances in one section inevitably makes the page more chaotic. Other important functions are not conspicuous enough. For example, "My Creation" is considered an original center. Basically, the sections that each content contributor will use can be read out alone, but it only appears as a small level, along with "My News" and so on. For example, the "Xiaobing with You" function is a more distinctive AI shopping guide function, but it almost makes people unable to detect its existence. Its icon is more like a sticky note, inserted next to the search bar of the Good Price Channel, which is completely inconspicuous. To sum up, what is worth buying is the overall layout, but there is a certain room for improvement.

7. Operational structure analysis

As we all know, "product operation is not divided". What work has been done in the process of gradually gaining a foothold, becoming bigger and stronger? Let’s sort it out below according to the AARRR model.

7.1 Attracting new customers (A)

In order to attract new products, we chose the following ways:

• Online advertising
• Other platforms drain traffic
• Promotion on the program
• Cooperation and joint creation to gain popularity
• Offline Promotion

For details, please see the new recruitment section of commercial value analysis, which will not be discussed here.

7.2 Stimulate activity (A)

• Sign-in benefits, you can receive experience every time you sign in (used to membership upgrade), broken silver (redeem gifts), etc.
• Must receive daily, you can receive Jingdou, phone coupons, taxi coupons, etc. (tasks must be done, such as paying attention to a store on JD.com)
• Task activities, you can get a piece of silver after completing tasks such as browsing, following, and posting on the site.

7.3 Improving Retention (R)

New events, what's worth buying for each version iteration (2-4 weeks) will launch new events. Such as "Anniversary Celebration Friendly Exclusive Activities", "7.23 Super Cabbage Day", Chinese Valentine's Day, "Golden September and Silver October Renewal Season", etc.

7.4 Share and spread (R)

Invite gift activities, "Invite gift storm to upgrade by 100% will get extra gold coins, up to 9 times, and a gift card with a hundred yuan!" (December 7 to December 13, 2017)

Invitation is gifted. For each new user invited to register and fill in the invitation code, you can get 20 gold coins (currently)

7.5 Increase income (R)

Regarding the methods of increasing income, we have a detailed introduction in the commercial value analysis section, and will not go into details here.

8. Conclusion

Through an overall analysis of the shopping guide e-commerce market and what is worth buying, we can draw the following conclusions:

• Common factors of policies, economy, society, culture, technology and other factors have promoted the development of shopping guide e-commerce in recent years, and will continue to maintain a certain high growth rate in the next few years.
• In this industry, What is worth buying has obvious advantages in corporate revenue and user scale, it has a large number of active users, and has strong industry influence. It is temporarily in the second tier (what worth buying should be the first tier, but here is the latest report of iResearch Consulting 2020), with huge potential; and compared with competitors, its advantage lies in the deeper moat, and a large number of active users and high-quality content accumulated by time will be difficult to imitate or replace in the short term.
• In the shopping guide e-commerce market, there are four main participants: consumers, content contributors (mainly for content e-commerce), advertisers, and platforms. If the platform wants to achieve rapid growth, it must solve the pain points of consumers, content contributors, and advertisers, so as to continuously generate user value.
• What is worth buying? The current core business is shopping guide. In order to maintain positive revenue growth, first, what is worth buying is constantly acquiring new users through various methods such as paid and free; second, what is worth buying is carefully polishing the various functional sectors and details of the product according to the consumer's psychology, so as to successfully complete the conversion; finally, what is worth buying is increased by a full discount and a full discount, and then stimulating users' purchase frequency through activities and coupons, thereby achieving an increase in customer unit price.
• Overall, the development from its establishment to the present is divided into two stages, and every step is steadily taken in the process. First, open up channels, improve basic functions and the migration from PC to mobile terminals; after the foundation is laid out and well, start comprehensive operation and promotion, and continuously optimize various businesses and expand user usage scenarios to achieve stable and rapid growth of user scale.
• What is worth buying on mobile is the target users and content contributors, so all functional designs are centered around meeting user needs. There are three main scenarios for consumers to use APP: clear consumption intention, unclear consumption intention, and no consumption intention at the moment; there are two types of usage scenarios for content contributors: novices and veterans. Through the review of what is worth buying functions, we found that it meets the various needs of users well, and a good user experience is the vitality of a product.
• Operation is crucial to the development of a product. It can be seen that what is worth buying has done a lot of work in attracting new products, promoting vitality, retention, and self-dissemination. At present, the results are good.

Above, the author analyzes what is worth buying and how to grow steadily from seven parts of the system, including industry, competitors, user value, commercial value, product iteration, product structure, and operation. It can be seen that good products cannot be rushed to achieve success, and require patience and careful polishing. If you want to make a "good product" successful, you also need to promote it comprehensively between internal and external factors such as "the right time, place, and people".

IX. Future Outlook/Optimization Suggestions

Through the above analysis, we have understood what is worth buying and growing. Then what will its future be? Next, the author will use the SWOT model for systematic analysis, hoping to draw effective conclusions.

Combining the SWOT model and some interview materials and official speeches of the founder, the author's future development prospects for what is worth buying are as follows:

Official Outlook:

9.1 Create an APP in depth, show the "value" in all aspects, and create a "consumer content community"

– Corresponding advantage 1, opportunity 4

The founder's speech: We will create more in-depth what is worth buying this APP, and this community will have various "values". On our platform, the changes we have seen this year are because diversified content has more users to interact with, and this interaction will bring more new user content production. This production is very benign, and there were many positive cases in China in the past. The company has increased its investment in the consumer content community, which will bring a lot of presentation opportunities to more customers, including brand owners and e-commerce customers.

Corresponding actions: reflected in the iteration of APP, constantly test new businesses and optimize existing businesses. "Spreading" has supported short video formats, and irregular on-site live broadcast activities are also being tested.

9.2 Create a differentiated and obvious consumer MCN

– Corresponding Opportunity 3, Threat 3

The founder's speech: We will create a differentiated and obvious consumer MCN in China. In the past, there were many MCNs, but there were very few MCNs dedicated to consumer content and were serious consumer content. We will probably do a few things, one is account incubation, the other is professional empowerment for these accounts, and help MCN match the brand and sales. Simply put, if we are sure that KOL and MCN institutions are the main body of the future production of content in this world, we must empower these people with the ability to consume content.

Corresponding action: It is worth buying its subsidiary Xingluo Chuangxiang released its 2020 plan: "Officially announced" live streaming and selling goods. Help brand owners accurately match creators from the vast crowd; help creators accurately match products suitable for goods based on their fan pictures, so as to "understand fans better than experts."

9.3 Pay attention to market segments and create multiple consumer APPs and account matrices

– Corresponding opportunities 2 and 4

The founder's speech: It is necessary to expand in vertical industries and scenarios, which is more like an aircraft carrier cluster. The main force of the aircraft carrier is called the main APP that is worth buying, but in each sub-segment scenario, there will be a lot of consumer APPs and account matrices. Each sub-segment account and matrix represents a sub-segment user group and the group of users that customers in the sub-segment scenario need to take seriously.

Here is an example. Last year, I saw a good opportunity in What is worth buying APP. Many consumers may be young singles. In the traditional sense, single users mainly rent houses and have no demand for home appliances and furniture. However, today's young people have furniture needs even one person, and they also have high-quality furniture needs. Therefore, we provided the observation of users to Zhihuashi in reverse and released a co-branded sofa, which has obtained good sales and reputation. In this example, we can see that every niche group has the value of being taken seriously, which is worth exploring with our customers.

Corresponding actions: What is worth buying and launching the "Shoe Size Assistant" APP.

9.4 Create a consumer big data platform

– Corresponding Opportunity 2

The founder's speech: We try our best to accumulate consumer content and data on a consumer big data platform worth buying. This big data not only makes our business better, but also deeply empowers all partners, and finally becomes a data asset shared by the group and partners.

Our company focuses on consumption, and focuses on consumption content and consumption data. By constantly collecting content, constantly producing content, constantly recommending content, obtaining various data, and finally accumulating data capabilities. "Content + Data" is the inner firm solution we can deliver to all users and customers in today's uncertain era.

Corresponding actions: What is worth buying for listing financing projects in 2019? "Renovation and Upgrading of Personalized Technology Platforms Based on Big Data"

In 2020, What is worth buying completed a refinancing of 728.5 million yuan. This investment will be used to upgrade the platform 1), such as adding live broadcasts, short videos and other content to build a business platform/scenario; 2) Make every effort to empower MCN projects, create "differentiated and obvious consumer MCNs", and achieve "being able to understand consumers than experts", and match KOLs with more accurate consumer content and consumers. 4) Internet Research Institute project further accumulates consumption data, helps data mining, and provides technical support for accurate push.

Immature tips (for version V9.9.10):

First, further optimize the product structure – corresponding disadvantages 4.

What is worth buying As an APP that integrates shopping guides, media, tools and community attributes, its business is very complicated, especially after the launch of the "Life" column, the volume has become larger, which has led to a large number of functional designs that match the business and are dazzling. In this case, in order to improve the user experience, page layout and UI design have become very important. The page should be simplified as much as possible without affecting the user's use and summarize and organize it well. High-frequency function design is a quick entrance, important functions are made more conspicuous, etc.

The problems existing at this stage of the platform are:

• I want to emphasize too many prominent functions, which leads to too much content displayed on the first-level page (such as the homepage), plus additional insertion of advertisements, "topics" on other pages and other elements, which makes the user experience poor
• Functional overlap is difficult to distinguish and logic is confused. For example, the "Classification Navigation" on the home page corresponds to the "Classification" in the top column of the "Good Price" page and the "Classification" in the top column of the "Community" page, and is different from the "Classification" of the product details page of the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the "Classification" on the
• The important functions are not outstanding enough. The "Original/Creation Center" that is required for general creation (especially newcomers) includes tutorials, with the unobtrusive name "My Creation" and is listed under the "My" page-My Function Section, which seems "unusual". When I first downloaded the app, it took me a long time to discover it. In addition, the icon of the AI ​​shopping guide function "Xiaobing with you" is more like a "stick note", which is mentioned in the previous product structure.
• It is difficult to find some information, such as live broadcasts can only be entered from the entrance of the activity page. Part of the reason is that the live broadcast business has not been officially started yet, and there is no live broadcast entrance at all during the inactivity period. New users entering at this time may not know that there is a live broadcast function on the site. In addition, there is no announcement board that can store all announcements. They are published in different official accounts in a distributed manner. Users want to find a specific activity or announcement in the past, or view historical activities/announcements in chronological order.

Second, explore the women's market – corresponding opportunity 1.

What is worth buying? Since most male users have always been called "straight male APP". In fact, in the online consumer market, women's consumption strength is obvious to all. What is worth buying? Nowadays, there is no refined layout for vertical markets such as clothing, cosmetics, bags, etc. that women often buy. It is recommended that some resources can be invested in the future to develop. If the women's market can be opened up, the number of users will inevitably increase significantly.

Third, pay attention to information security issues – corresponding threat 4.

Author: Wang Zai8978

Source: Wang Zai 8978