Dingdong Maicai Product Analysis

In May 2017, Dingdong Community transformed and was officially renamed Dingdong Maicai . The Dingdong team began to go all in on fresh food delivery, and Dingdong Maicai has grown rapidly since then.

In July 2018, Dingdong Maicai celebrated its first anniversary, with daily orders exceeding 30,000 and GMV reaching over 36 million.

By December 2019, Dingdong Maicai had 550 forward warehouses across the country, with daily orders exceeding 500,000 orders, revenue reaching 700 million in December, and GMV for the whole year of 2019 reaching more than 5 billion.

In the eyes of industry insiders, Dingdong Maicai is undoubtedly a phenomenal dark horse, and it still maintains exponential growth to this day. Why has Dingdong Maicai been able to survive in the fresh food war with such a high mortality rate and continue to develop rapidly?

This article will analyze the following aspects to help you understand the development of Dingdong Maicai and the fresh food e-commerce industry:

1. Industry Analysis

Fresh food includes three types of unprocessed primary products: fruits and vegetables (fruits and vegetables), meat, aquatic products, and two types of processed products: bread and prepared food. Prepared food includes refrigerated frozen foods, dairy products, and non-refrigerated bulk grains. Fresh food e-commerce sells the above products in the form of e-commerce.

Fresh food e-commerce has a "long" history. In the early days, it was restricted by factors such as Internet technology and user consumption habits, and its development was relatively slow. Later, as Internet giants continued to increase their investment and deploy innovative models such as new retail, they quickly drove the development of fresh food e-commerce.

However, there are industry pain points in fresh food e-commerce: unclear profit model and high supply chain requirements.

So the entire industry has been in a state of constant exploration. However, the epidemic in early 2020 broke this "calm", once again pushing fresh food e-commerce to the forefront and accelerating the development of the entire industry.

The purpose of industry analysis is to find out the catalysts and driving forces for the development of the industry. Therefore, in this industry analysis, I will use the PEST analysis method to analyze the factors that enable the development of the fresh food e-commerce industry.

The PEST analysis method is a model for analyzing the four factors that affect the development of an industry: political, economic, social and technological.

1.1 Political factors

In recent years, the government has attached great importance to the fields of agricultural production and circulation. According to incomplete statistics, in 2019, the government issued more than 40 government policies related to agricultural products and cold chain logistics, and promoted the optimization and improvement of the infrastructure of the fresh food industry at the government level. For example: "Opinions on Developing Circulation to Promote Commercial Consumption", "Notice on Promoting the Interconnection between Farmers and Merchants to Improve the Agricultural Products Supply Chain", etc. The introduction of relevant policies has become an important external factor in promoting the development of fresh food e-commerce.

1.2 Economic factors

From an economic perspective, online consumption has long become a part of Chinese consumers’ daily consumption. As of June 2019, the number of Internet users in my country reached 854 million, of which 639 million were online shoppers, accounting for 75%. In terms of transaction amount, the online retail sales of physical goods in 2019 was 852.39 billion yuan, an increase of 19.5%, accounting for 20.7% of the total retail sales of consumer goods.

Domestic e-commerce platforms have spent nearly 20 years of development to complete the education of domestic consumers: on the one hand, the main consumer groups have greatly increased their trust in the quality of online products and services; on the other hand, the comprehensive application of online payment systems has also greatly improved the convenience of online transactions; in addition, the rise of instant delivery with takeout as the mainstream has further educated users on home consumption habits.

1.3 Social factors

The rise of a new generation of consumers has brought an increase in demand for fresh food e-commerce. The spending power of Generation Z (those born after 1995 and 2000) is growing rapidly. They grew up with the Internet and have a high Internet penetration rate. When purchasing fresh food, they value convenience and variety. As their spending power increases, fresh food e-commerce just happens to meet their consumption needs.

According to the "GenZ White Paper" released by QQ Advertising & Kantar Consulting in 2018, China's Generation Z population (15-23 years old) has reached 149 million people. It is estimated that by 2020, Generation Z will account for 40% of my country's overall consumption power. They are gradually becoming the main group of online shoppers, growing faster than other age groups.

In addition, factors such as staying at home for epidemic prevention, extended holidays, and delayed resumption of work and school in various places have further boosted the "stay-at-home economy". Residents' development of online and even home consumption habits will bring a boost to the demand side of the development of fresh food e-commerce.

1.4 Technological factors

The continuous advancement of science and technology is also one of the factors that contribute to the continuous development of the fresh food e-commerce industry. From a technical perspective, electronic payment, artificial intelligence big data, logistics technology, and the popularization of smart phones are all driving factors.

For the fresh food industry, the application of AI and big data plays a positive role in store site selection, supply chain efficiency improvement, and product structure optimization. Specifically, for example, artificial intelligence and big data can predict user preferences, and deep mining and analysis of user data can help gain insights into consumer needs, providing support for retail companies' decision-making and experience; the maturity of cold chain and logistics technology has further reduced the loss of fresh products;

In addition, the development of smart phones and electronic payments has further enhanced users' consumption experience; with the further development of technology, it will provide better support for the development of fresh food e-commerce.

Political, economic, social, technological and other factors have become powerful external factors in the development of the fresh food e-commerce industry.

The high frequency and rigid demand characteristics of fresh food e-commerce have attracted various capital investments. The entry of capital has further promoted the development and improvement of the industry.

According to the Fastdata report, in the past decade, the financing scale of the fresh food e-commerce industry has exceeded 150 billion yuan, and the financing amount in the first half of 2020 was 15.0 billion yuan, which exceeded the financing amount for the whole year of 2019.

The above reasons have promoted the development of the fresh food e-commerce industry. How will the fresh food e-commerce industry develop in the future? Will it have enough room for development?

According to a report by iResearch Consulting, the market transaction volume of China's fresh food e-commerce industry reached 279.6 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 36.7% over the previous year. Affected by the epidemic in 2020, consumers' demand for fresh food delivery has increased rapidly, and the transaction scale of the fresh food e-commerce market will increase significantly. It is estimated that by 2023, the transaction scale of the fresh food e-commerce market will exceed 800 billion yuan, and the market prospects are bright.

In recent years, fresh food e-commerce has developed rapidly with the support of capital. In 2019, as capital attitudes became more conservative and most fresh food e-commerce companies had not yet achieved large-scale profitability, many fresh food e-commerce platforms began to face crises, and the fresh food e-commerce industry ushered in a new round of reshuffle. At the same time, the number of monthly active users of fresh food e-commerce companies declined significantly.

Since October 2019, affected by the big promotion of fresh food e-commerce, the number of monthly active users of fresh food e-commerce has increased rapidly. In December 2019, the number of monthly active users of fresh food e-commerce reached 31.2282 million, an increase of 82.5% year-on-year. Since 2020, affected by the epidemic, the monthly active users of fresh food e-commerce have maintained a strong growth momentum.

2. Competitive Product Analysis

The huge trend of fresh food e-commerce has attracted many players, including Internet giants such as JD.com, Hema Fresh, and Meituan Maicai. There are also entrepreneurial fresh food e-commerce companies such as Dingdong Maicai, MissFresh, and PuPu.

After years of development, fresh food e-commerce has formed various models. So far, these models are still in the development stage. In my opinion, these models will coexist and develop in the future.

Specifically, there are several models for fresh food e-commerce:

Before conducting competitive product analysis, several business models will be briefly analyzed:

(1) Analysis of forward warehouse model

Nowadays, the fresh food e-commerce industry has entered an era of fresh food delivery that pursues more efficient delivery. The forward warehouse model of fresh food e-commerce places goods closer to consumers, improving logistics delivery efficiency and experience, and has therefore attracted widespread attention from the capital market.

Relatively speaking, the forward warehouse model is a capital-intensive investment and is an asset-heavy and operation-heavy model. From the perspective of the fulfillment cost structure of fresh food e-commerce in the forward warehouse model, the costs of warehousing and distribution from the large warehouse to the forward warehouse and the last mile are relatively high.

In addition, the forward warehouse model generally has no offline stores and lacks offline traffic entrances, requiring higher marketing costs and high subsidies to attract customers. Overall, the forward warehouse model requires high cost investment and a longer return cycle. At present, the forward warehouse model is still in continuous development and iteration. Whether it can achieve a balance between the cost and revenue sides, find a profitable way, and thus obtain positive cash flow is the key to whether the forward warehouse model can be successfully implemented.

(2) O2O platform model

The platform-to-home model of fresh food e-commerce is a light-asset operation model, in which the platform mostly undertakes the role of online traffic diversion and offline delivery. After consumers place an order, crowdsourced deliverymen will pick up the goods from nearby merchants. After the delivery is completed, the platform will take a certain percentage of commission to make a profit.

The gross profit margin of fresh food e-commerce in the platform-to-home model is relatively low, but the model is lightweight and the threshold for entry into the platform is relatively low, making it easier to quickly achieve scaled merchant access and cover more users. However, while the platform is expanding its territory and radiation area, it must also pay attention to the quality and fulfillment efficiency of the merchants that have settled in.

For fresh food e-commerce with a platform-to-home model, long-term development requires increasing the merchant retention rate and optimizing delivery efficiency to improve user retention and satisfaction.

(3) Community group buying model

The community group-buying model of fresh food e-commerce uses WeChat as a carrier to integrate multiple community group resources to form a pre-sale + group-buying e-commerce platform centrally managed and operated by merchants.

Compared with other fresh food e-commerce models, the community group buying model has the following three characteristics:

First, the community group-buying model is promoted by the group leader in the WeChat group, using the chain of acquaintances to reduce customer acquisition costs; secondly, the "purchase based on sales" pre-sale model is adopted to achieve zero inventory and reduce losses; finally, collective shipments are made based on the community, and the last mile is usually delivered by the user themselves, saving logistics costs and terminal delivery costs.

In recent years, driven by capital, the community group buying track has emerged as a new force. In addition, the industry threshold is relatively low, and community group buying platforms have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Homogeneous competition has become increasingly fierce. Since the second half of 2019, there has been a gradual reshuffle. Some companies have experienced layoffs and bankruptcy, while some companies have improved their competitiveness through joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions. The competition in the industry has become increasingly fierce. For community group buying platforms, the short-term test is the control over group leaders and the ability to expand across regions. In the long-term, the competition is the ability to continuously and stably provide supply chains and refined operations with cost-effective products.

(4) Pick up at the counter

The pick-up at the counter model is typically represented by Shixing Fresh Food. Therefore, the analysis uses Shixing Fresh Food as a case study.

This "pre-order + full cold chain + self-pickup in refrigerators" operating model achieves zero inventory through reverse customization, sales-based procurement and order-based purchasing. At the same time, through large-scale direct purchase from bases and intensive cold chain distribution, it directly connects agricultural product production bases with consumers, reducing losses and distribution costs.

The cabinet model has two main characteristics: first, the "last mile" adopts the cabinet model, which reduces the fulfillment cost of the "last mile" by deploying self-pickup cabinets in the community as a tool for consumers to fulfill their obligations. Secondly, the company focuses on building a C2B2F supply chain system through pre-sales to optimize fresh food circulation costs and reduce losses.

(5) In-store + home delivery model

The in-store + home delivery model is typified by Hema Fresh, which is mainly positioned in the mid-to-high-end market and high-spending groups and has a strong brand effect. This model has high user stickiness and can establish high industry barriers. However, the model is relatively heavy and requires a lot of store costs and labor costs in the early stages, making it difficult to achieve scale quickly. At the same time, the service area that can be covered is relatively low.

Therefore, with the growing development of online retail, the fresh food e-commerce industry has also broken away from the traditional fresh food model. New models such as forward warehouses, store-warehouse integration, community group buying, store-to-home delivery, and refrigerator self-pickup have emerged one after another. At this stage, a variety of business models coexist in the fresh food e-commerce industry, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Compared with other e-commerce categories, fresh food e-commerce has complex links and higher requirements for transportation and storage. There is currently no mature profit model. Fresh food e-commerce with stronger supply chain management capabilities is more likely to succeed in the breakthrough.

After analyzing the main business models of the fresh food e-commerce industry. Next, let’s take a look at the competitive product analysis of Dingdong Maicai. Dingdong Maicai mainly adopts the forward warehouse model. Therefore, this competitive product analysis will select Dingdong Maicai’s direct competitor, MissFresh, for comparative analysis.

2.1 Dingdong Shopping

Dingdong Community was founded in 2014. From 2014 to 2017, we tried to find the direction through trial and error. It was not until April 2017 that we started Dingdong Maicai.

In 2016, we completed a round of equity financing;

In 2018, the company completed angel round, A round, A+ round, strategic investment and B+ round financing respectively. Investors included Gaorong Capital, Fortune Ventures, Red Star Macalline, Tiger Global Management, HUPO HARMONY CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LTD, Sequoia Capital and Capital Today.

In 2019, it completed its B+ round of financing, with investors including Capital Today, CMC Capital, Lingtou Investment, Star Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Bertelsmann Asia Investment Fund and Longhu Capital;

In May 2020, the company completed its Series C financing, with the investor being the American firm Pan-Atlantic Investment Group.

In December 2020, it completed another round of financing, with investors including Star Capital, CMC Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Longfor Properties and BAI.

Dingdong Maicai provides fresh food services based on the model of "direct purchase from the source + distribution from the forward warehouse + instant delivery to home within 29 minutes". Its main business categories include fresh vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, live fish and shrimps and other ingredients for three meals a day.

At present, more than 80% of Dingdong Maicai’s products are directly sourced from production areas, with the number of fresh produce direct supply areas reaching 350. Direct procurement from manufacturers shortens the intermediate links in the supply chain and greatly improves the efficiency of the entire chain. At the same time, due to centralized SKU procurement, we can have a large enough order volume and gain stronger bargaining power with manufacturers; thus, the purchase unit price is lower, and coupled with strictly maintaining a certain gross profit margin, the price of goods is relatively favorable.

In order to meet the vertical user needs of cooking, Dingdong Maicai only focuses on providing more than 2,000 SKUs of fresh vegetables, especially a rich variety of vegetable and soy products, which greatly meets the diverse cooking needs of users.

A small and accurate number of SKUs can improve turnover efficiency, thereby making the food quality fresher and cash flow circulate faster; at the same time, it also reduces the cost of reservation, tracking, and display, and reduces the average inventory cost.

The membership system implemented by the platform can provide Green Card members with six major benefits - free food, Green Card exclusive coupons, Green Card exclusive prices, Green Card Day on Fridays, free delivery, and exclusive customer service, which enhances user stickiness. The consumption frequency, average order value, and retention rate of member users are far higher than those of non-members.

2.2 Daily Fresh

In December 2014, it completed a US$5 million angel round of financing from Yuanjing Capital and Guangxin Capital;

In May 2015, it completed a US$10 million Series A financing round, with investors including Tencent Investment and Guangxin Capital.

In November 2015, the company completed a RMB 200 million Series B financing round, with investors including Zhejiang Merchants Venture Capital and Tencent Investment.

In April 2016, it completed a RMB 230 million B+ round of financing, with investors including China Growth Capital and Yuanyi Investment;

In January 2017, the company completed a US$100 million Series C financing round with investors including Lenovo Capital, China Growth Capital, a fund managed by Zheshang Venture Capital, KTB of South Korea, Tencent Investment and Yuanyi Investment.

In March 2017, it completed a US$230 million Series C+ financing round with investors including Time Capital, Tiger Global Management and Yuansheng Capital.

In December 2017, it completed a $500 million Series D financing;

In September 2018, it completed a US$450 million Series E financing round with investors including Poly Capital, Times Capital, Huaxing New Economy Fund, Glade Brook Capital, Davis Selected Advisers, Tencent Investment, Goldman Sachs, Tiger Global, and Sofina.

In May 2020, a new round of strategic financing was completed, with CICC Capital as the investor;

In July 2020, it completed a strategic financing of US$495 million from investors including ICBC International, CICC Capital, Abu Dhabi Capital Group Tiger Global Management, Tencent Investment, Goldman Sachs Group, and Suzhou Changshu Government Industrial Fund;

In December 2020, a new round of strategic financing of RMB 2 billion was completed, with investors including Qingdao Guosen, Qingdao Municipal Government Guidance Fund and Sunshine Venture Capital.

Through the "city sorting center + community forward warehouse" model, MissFresh has now established an ultra-fast cold chain logistics system in 16 major cities across the country, providing members with delivery services in as fast as 30 minutes and realizing data-based management of large-scale distributed warehousing systems.

Since the implementation of the full-category strategy, MissFresh has evolved from a fresh food e-commerce company to an online comprehensive supermarket. The SKUs in the forward warehouse have increased from more than 1,000 to more than 3,000, covering 12 major categories including vegetables, fruits, meat, poultry, eggs, aquatic products, wine and beverages, snacks, daily necessities, etc., realizing one-stop purchase of fresh food and daily necessities.

In addition, based on the accumulation of front-end user data and the big data empowerment of Tencent Smart Retail, MissFresh has reversely established a digital supply chain, accurately selected products according to user needs, and continuously promoted the standardization and branding of fresh products.

3. User Value Analysis

There are three main participants in fresh food e-commerce: suppliers, platforms and users. Next, let’s focus on the needs of suppliers and users, and how Dingdong Maicai, as a platform, meets their needs?

3.1 Suppliers

At present, Dingdong Maicai’s upstream suppliers mainly include urban wholesale markets, brand suppliers and agricultural cooperatives. The following will analyze the pain points of the three one by one.

First, the city wholesale market

The city wholesale market is the main channel and business format for our agricultural product flow. However, there are many problems in this industry at present. There are many small and medium-sized businesses in the urban wholesale market, with extensive management and a lack of entry and exit mechanisms for the agricultural product wholesale market. Vicious competition occurs frequently, resulting in generally low wholesale agricultural product prices and limited profits.

At the same time, the role of wholesalers requires them to hold inventory (advance payment), and upstream suppliers of agricultural products require them to hold inventory, which occupies merchants’ funds. On the other hand, there is the payment period. When selling goods to end customers, customers have a period for settling the payment, which can easily cause large economic losses to wholesalers.

Second, brand suppliers

Brand suppliers generally promote their products by cooperating with traditional retail supermarkets. However, to display their products in large supermarkets, on the one hand, they need to pay relevant entry fees; on the other hand, they also face fierce competition from other similar brands, making it difficult to guarantee sales.

In addition, for brand suppliers, in order to increase brand exposure and popularity, most brand suppliers use advertising to deepen the brand's position in the minds of consumers. However, brand building is not an easy task, especially for small and medium-sized companies.

Third, agricultural cooperatives

Agricultural cooperatives, as production associations, bring together a large number of small farmers, and the primary purpose of small farmers joining vegetable and fruit cooperatives is to gain convenience in selling their products. After agricultural cooperatives collect agricultural products from small farmers, they mainly supply and sell them to wholesalers and other channels.

In this case, there may also be some problems for agricultural cooperatives:

(1) Information asymmetry in the supply chain: Fresh agricultural products are different from other commodities in terms of trading and the difficulty in identifying their safety and quality has led to the concentration of channel advantages of fresh agricultural products offline. Therefore, there is a lack of foundation in supply chain management, standardization certification, and fresh food brand building.

(2) Lack of a stable sales market: Since most wholesalers decide the purchase volume based on market conditions, the order volume for agricultural cooperatives is often not effectively guaranteed. Once the market conditions are bad, agricultural products are easily unsalable, causing huge economic and property losses to farmers.

(3) Too many circulation links: Under the wholesaler and agricultural cooperative model, there are too many circulation links in the agricultural products process. On the one hand, too many circulation links increase costs, and on the other hand, they may also lead to excessive losses of agricultural products.

3.2 Users

Dingdong Maicai’s target users are mainly young people in first- and second-tier cities. At the same time, fresh food is a high-frequency and urgently needed product. Therefore, what are the pain points for this type of user group? Next, I will analyze the pain points of target users based on typical user scenarios.

User A: Ms. Wang, 25 years old, a new employee and a homebody.

Scenario: I was lying in bed at home on the weekend, and I really wanted to eat a popular online snack that I saw recently, so I opened Ele.me, but after searching for a long time, it seemed that no store had it!

User B: Mr. Wang, 26 years old, white-collar worker

Scenario: On the way home from get off work, I thought about making a simple meal because I had already ordered takeout at noon and the price was not low. But then I remembered that it was already evening and the vegetable market next to the community was closed. There was a fresh food convenience store next to the community, but the remaining vegetables might not be very fresh.

User C: Ms. Li, 30 years old, single, senior white-collar worker

Scenario: It's the weekend again, and she was thinking about cooking a meal. She wanted to buy some fresh and high-quality ingredients to cook a meal, but the small vegetable market nearby didn't have the ingredients she wanted. So, she walked to a large supermarket to buy them. As a result, she bought too many things at once and felt too tired.

User D: Ms. Fan, 26 years old, just graduated from university

Scenario: I often see news reports saying that take-out food is not very hygienic. I want to cook my own meals, but I don’t know how to cook because I lack cooking experience.

User E: Mr. Wu, 38 years old, entrepreneur

Scenario: I am usually very busy at work, and I have older parents at home. They are also quite old and have difficulty walking. Therefore, it is rather troublesome for the two elders to buy groceries on a daily basis. They usually purchase ingredients for the week on weekends, but they don’t feel fresh on Thursdays and Fridays.

User F: Ms. Liu, 32 years old, full-time wife

Scene: I often go to the vegetable market and bargain with vendors there, asking for green onions, etc. However, one time I discovered that the dishes I bought had quality problems, and I wanted to find the other party, but he kept denying it.

Combined with the analysis of typical user scenarios and needs above, we can know that when users want to buy certain fresh food products, they often go to large supermarkets, community fresh food convenience stores, vegetable markets, Ele.me and other places. However, it seems that there are some pain points at present: no time, certain products are not available, there are few varieties, the recipes are not fresh, the quality cannot be guaranteed, and there is no after-sales guarantee, etc.

3.3 Platform

From suppliers to end users, we can find that each has certain needs and the current solutions fail to fully meet their needs. So, how does Dingdong Maicai, as a platform, solve these problems and attract them to its platform?

On the supplier side:

First, Dingdong Maicai adopts a 7+1 quality control process to ensure the quality of fresh produce. To ensure the quality of fresh produce, Dingdong Maicai adopts a 7+1 quality control process, conducting all-round quality control on the source of goods, processing warehouse, processing process, forward warehouse, inspection, sorting, customers, and after-sales service. It also enables product source traceability to meet consumers’ demands for high-quality and affordable fresh products.

Second, the platform’s advertising effect is obvious, which can save brands’ publicity costs; since Dingdong Maicai has a large amount of traffic and users use it frequently, it can increase brand exposure; especially the high-quality pictures and copy displayed on the product details page, which have a positive impact on the product brand. In addition, on the Dingdong Maicai platform, you can often see large-scale events planned by the platform, such as the New Year’s Goods Festival and New Year’s Goods Market. During large-scale events, corresponding products are often launched. These measures not only save consumers time in selecting products, but also allow branded products to be sold more directly and quickly. This also allows consumers to form a habit of buying the brand when making a dish, thus further enhancing the brand's stickiness to customers.

Third, Dingdong Maicai signed a letter of intent directly with agricultural cooperatives, and the agricultural cooperatives directly supplied agricultural products to the platform. It directly connected small markets with large markets, built an integrated production and marketing chain, and expanded agricultural product channels. At the same time, by purchasing directly from agricultural cooperatives, it also avoided problems such as highly dispersed upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and multiple circulation links, effectively reducing procurement costs and commodity circulation time.

Fourth, by using data algorithms to empower platform operations, fresh food e-commerce has accelerated its development during the epidemic. The same is true for Dingdong Maicai, a leading vertical fresh food e-commerce company. In terms of user growth, the daily growth of Dingdong Maicai users has increased from 20,000+ to 50,000+, and the proportion of naturally growing new customers in total new customers has increased from the original 25% to 70%. Therefore, it can be clearly seen that Dingdong Maicai's demand for stockpiling will increase significantly, and procurement will naturally increase. At the same time, due to the surge in the number of users, Dingdong Maicai has also continuously upgraded its data algorithms. Continuously apply data algorithms to order forecasting, user portrait identification, supply chain transparency, etc., so as to provide upstream suppliers with timely and accurate market demand forecast information, guide upstream rational production, and match upstream output with market demand.

On the user side:

First, enrich the SKU categories. As of July 2019, Dingdong Maicai has cooperated with more than 200 cooperatives and more than 3,000 farmers and breeders to conduct direct source procurement. Currently, the platform has a total of nearly 2,000 product SKUs with rich categories to meet the basic needs of family consumers, and some Internet celebrity products are often added.

Second, Dingdong Maicai’s value is to never sell bad vegetables to users. The quality of fresh produce is ensured through the 7+1 quality control process, namely supply quality control, processing warehouse quality control, processing process quality control, forward warehouse quality control, inspection quality control, sorting quality control, customer quality control and after-sales service.

Third, Dingdong Maicai adopts the "forward warehouse + home delivery" model, which places the forward warehouse at a node at the end of the supply chain closest to consumers, so that fresh food can be closer to consumers and the delivery efficiency is higher, with goods being delivered to homes in as fast as 29 minutes. At the same time, Dingdong Maicai has its own delivery team. This "single point to multiple points" delivery model is easy to merge orders on the one hand, and more efficient than the "multi-point to multiple points" delivery model on the other hand. It uses the continuous improvement of operational efficiency to ensure the arrival time at home, thereby driving user demand in reverse.

Fourth, the humanized product design and after-sales service are in line with real scenarios. For example, every time you place an order, Dingdong Maicai will prompt you whether you need free green onions. When you buy fish and add them to the shopping cart, the product design is also considerate, and will provide processing methods such as kill well (no internal organs), kill well (with internal organs), and do not kill. For example, when you buy sugarcane, you will also be offered processing methods such as peeling and cutting, and [unpeeling] cutting. These humanized product designs and processing options are more in line with our daily offline scenarios and can meet the needs of more users. At the same time, after purchasing the product, the design of after-sales/refund services makes users feel more at ease.

Fifth, the recipe function with complete classification. In order to solve the needs of users who don’t know what to eat and how to cook, Dingdong Maicai provides a wealth of recipes in the recommended methods on the product details page and the cooking inspiration in the live broadcast function module. At the same time, the recipe also provides a one-click purchase function for ingredients, making it convenient for users to place orders.

4. Commercial Value Analysis

The core business logic of Dingdong Maicai is the model of "direct purchase from the source + distribution in the forward warehouse + instant delivery to home within 29 minutes". An important indicator for judging whether a business can develop healthily is its operating income. Here we use GMV, the most commonly used data indicator in e-commerce, to analyze whether Dingdong Maicai’s core business is healthy.

GMV (gross merchandise volume) = number of users * conversion rate * average order value. Any improvement in any of the indicators, such as 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 Dingdong Maicai uses to improve these three key indicators.

4.1 Increase the number of users

In order to increase the platform's revenue growth, the number of registered users is the most basic guarantee for the platform. So in terms of increasing the number of platform users, that is, attracting new products, what specific actions has Dingdong Maicai taken?

4.1.1 Invitation with courtesy

On the Dingdong Maicai APP, there is also an activity called "old users invite new users", which provides certain rewards for both the inviter and the invitee. The inviter will receive 40 yuan for each friend he invites, and the invited friend will receive a 108 yuan red envelope for new friends and 8 free-range eggs.

4.1.2 Mamabang Community Promotion

Liang Changlin, the founder of Dingdong Maicai, previously founded Mamabang. Young mothers with new consumption concepts are exactly the right customers for Dingdong Maicai. By targeting young mothers within the community, Dingdong Maicai can directly and accurately target them, and can achieve precise targeting at low cost. On the one hand, it can reduce the overall promotion cost of Dingdong Maicai, and on the other hand, it directly brings a large number of accurate initial users to Dingdong Maicai.

4.1.3 Local Marketing

The app was promoted in supermarkets, vegetable markets, community entrances and other places where target groups gathered. Every newly registered user could receive substantial rewards such as fruits, eggs, and condiments on the spot. This achievement also helped Dingdong Maicai to quickly accumulate a large user base in the early stages.

4.1.4 Large-scale advertising investment

At the end of 2019, Dingdong Maicai landed on the trendy elevator smart screen, covering many core cities such as Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai;

The picture above shows the popular creative advertisement of Dingdong Maicai on the trendy elevator smart screen

In the elevator that users must pass through on their way to and from get off work or home every day, a consumption scenario of "place an order after get off work and pick up the groceries at home" has been created, which grabs users' attention at the first moment, solves the pain points and needs of grocery shopping difficulties, and helps Dingdong Maicai establish a high degree of trust and brand awareness with users, thereby converting them into actions of searching and downloading the App.

Therefore, we can see that Dingdong Maicai attracts new users through a combination of online and offline methods. The online method is mainly fission (old customers bringing in new customers) and promotion in the Mamabang community, while the offline method is mainly ground promotion in communities and brand promotion in office buildings.

4.2 Improve conversion rate

After acquiring more users for the platform through online and offline channels, we also need to find ways to get these users to place orders and convert them into paying users of the platform in order to generate more value. How does Dingdong Maicai do this?

Conversion rate is the core of e-commerce products, and the core of conversion rate is to create a shopping feeling. Of course, the shopping feeling of different products may be different, such as Taobao and Pinduoduo. In short, in order to improve the conversion rate, we need to help users find what they want to buy and give them reasons to place orders.

There are many factors that affect conversion rate, but there are two key points that play a crucial role in the conversion rate: first, the user's purchase scenario; second, the transaction intermediary;

Specifically, purchase scenarios include searching for products, browsing items by category, and browsing. Transaction intermediaries refer to product information and shopping guides (such as the popular video and live broadcast functions in e-commerce products).

Next, let’s take a closer look at how Dingdong Maicai is implemented and what measures and methods it has taken to improve the conversion rate of registered users on the platform?

4.2.1 Live streaming function

Live streaming e-commerce refers to a form of e-commerce that uses live streaming as a channel to achieve marketing goals. It is the product of the two-way integration of live streaming and e-commerce in the context of the digital age. The live streaming function is the first-level tab of Dingdong Maicai, which shows how much Dingdong Maicai values ​​live streaming.

In the live broadcast of Dingdong Maicai, there will be anchors introducing related products, and by watching the live broadcast, you can also receive some coupons, etc., which will help improve the overall conversion rate of the platform.

4.2.2 Product Details Page

The product details page is a very important link in the user conversion path. It mainly includes information such as product details and reviews. Dingdong Maicai’s details page is also a four-level details page commonly used by e-commerce products, including product page, review page, details page and recommendation page; next, let’s look at their role in improving conversion rate one by one.

(1) Product page

The product page mainly displays product pictures, prices and other information.

By analyzing the product page of Dingdong Maicai, we can see very exquisite product pictures. And it is accompanied by beautiful text descriptions. For example, the water spinach in the picture above has tender and juicy leaves, tastes good when stir-fried with garlic, and is freshly picked, which will make people more hungry and have the urge to buy. It allows users to quickly learn about the characteristics of the product, thereby assisting users in making purchasing decisions and improving conversions.

In addition, on this page, we can see the real-time purchase status and delivery time range of the product purchased by XXX from the picture. The design of these functional points can also satisfy users' purchasing desire to a certain extent.

(2) Evaluation and FAQ

The user evaluation system shows the user's true feelings about the product, service, logistics and other related information after purchase. Its main function is to provide other users with reference opinions on purchase decisions and reduce shopping time costs.

In the review list of Dingdong Maicai, we can find that the product review information is sorted, rather than being placed at the top according to the latest time. Judging from the product mechanism, it is speculated that reviews with pictures are placed at the top. Moreover, in the top reviews, there will basically be responses from official operators. The design of the functional points of these products can further enhance users' favorability towards the platform and reduce users' decision-making time, thereby improving conversion rates.

(3) Recommended practices and related recommendations

Below the reviews and FAQs, you can see recommended practices and related recommendations.

The first is the recommended practice. Its usage scenario may be when users are not sure how to buy certain products or want to know if there are other ways. The product provides this function at this time, allowing users to know more about the recipes and further improves the possibility of users purchasing dishes.

Secondly, the related recommendation function is that under this dish, the product will recommend cooking or similar dishes with the dish, further enhancing users' willingness to purchase similar or combination dishes.

(4) Details

Next, let’s take a look at the product details page of Dingdong Maicai.

On the product details page, we can see information such as product features, real-life display, mission, detailed text description and picture display.

On the one hand, this information gives users more ways to understand the product, and on the other hand, it also displays our quality control process to users. These introductions will help enhance users' trust in products and establish guarantees for user trust and security. This allows users to purchase products with more confidence and confidence.

(5) You may also like it

The e-commerce system uses the mobile phone user information, product information and user portrait classification as system input, and uses appropriate recommendation algorithms and recommendation methods to provide users with personalized product recommendations. I guess you like it is Dingdong Maicai’s personalized recommendation.

Personalized recommendations help users click directly on this page to enter the details page of other products they are interested in, saving operation time while helping to increase the probability of purchasing other products and increasing conversion rate.

4.2.3 Search

When a user has a clear purpose, his path to purchasing a product may be to search for the product - enter the product details page - add to the shopping cart - pay. Therefore, the search function user experience and search results are also crucial to the overall conversion of users.

In Dingdong Maicai, search is at the top position on the home page and the category page, and the position is more prominent; at the same time, on the search page, we can also see functions such as historical search, search discovery and I often buy. These functions help users make decisions and thus improve users' purchase rate.

Of course, search results are also very important for users with clear targets. For example, if you cannot find what you want after searching, it may affect users' purchases. The display of search results is the SKU of the product. Currently, Dingdong Maicai has about 2,000 SKUs (categories), which is 6-10 times the number of SKUs purchased by ordinary community groups, and this number is already a relatively rich category.

In addition, when we search for a product on the search results page, especially when there is no such product, it will show the display style in the replenishment and provide a similar entrance, which will increase users' expectations. "We have this product on the platform, but you can also check out similar products in the replenishment." Such a design also further helps users make decisions, thereby improving conversion rates under this path.

4.2.4 Home

As the entrance to important functions of a product and the placement of event information, the first impression of the homepage is very important to users.

Through the analysis of Dingdong Maicai's homepage, we can see that its homepage mainly includes functional modules and entrances such as search, banner location, green card membership, Dingdong Farm, invitation to neighbors, limited-time rush purchases, Friday Green Card Day, you may like, special promotions and other functional modules and entrances.

1 yuan to grab milk (or other special offers), middle scrolling carousels (mainly some limited-time special offers Banner), limited-time purchases, and the bottom you like, special offers, etc. are all conducive to promoting users' orders and improving conversion rates.

4.2.5 Category

Dingdong Maicai’s classification function is also a first-level tab of the product. The second-level navigation bar under the first-level classification of products is set on the left side of the page; for example, the first-level navigation bar is divided into recommendations, new products, special discount areas, daily fresh, pork, chickens, ducks and poultry, etc. A single product displays exquisite pictures, names, rules, labels, current prices and marking prices, XX people place orders, add to shopping carts, etc. In product information, most of the products placed on it will display limited-time special offers, special offers, and bought prompt information, which aggravates the user's psychological urgency, thereby promoting users' orders and further improving conversion rates.

4.3 Increase Average Order Value

The average customer price refers to the average payment amount of paid users over a period of time. Therefore, there are two ways to increase the average customer price: first, increase the single consumption amount of a single user; second, increase the consumption frequency of a single user over a period of time. So how did Dingdong Maicai do these two things well?

First, let’s take a look at the measures that Dingdong Maicai is increasing the single consumption amount of a single user:

First, raise the delivery threshold

Dingdong Maicai, which once used the selling point of "0 delivery fee and 0 delivery fee", adjusted the regional operation strategy on September 5, 2019. The delivery fee rules will be adjusted to charge a 5 yuan delivery fee when the amount of the order item is less than 28 yuan; when the amount of the order item is greater than or equal to 28 yuan, you will enjoy free shipping rights. During the Spring Festival in 2010, the delivery fee was increased to 38 yuan.

Through the increase of the delivery fee threshold, Dingdong Maicai's average customer price has increased from more than 50 yuan to more than 60 yuan, which has eliminated some "fleece players"; through this measure, users can be guided to increase the amount of single purchases, and it is also a further optimization of the platform's distribution resources.

Second, special offers and free purchase activities

The platform has set up words such as special offers, limited-time special offers, buy 1 free 1 and other products in the product classification page. The setting of these activities also creates a sense of urgency for the purchasers, thereby promoting the user's orders as soon as possible, and overall increasing the user's single consumption amount.

Third, discount activities and value-for-money exchange activities

On the shopping cart page of the product, we can also see that the APP has set up a full discount function on it. After users spend a certain amount, they can get the corresponding discount (but the full discount function is only for green card member users), such as 7 yuan off for purchases over 99 yuan, 6 yuan off for purchases over 79 yuan, etc.; below the full discount function, there is also a full-time exchange function, and there will be 10 exchange items each time. The rule is that the full discount is over 1 yuan, and you will enjoy a super value exchange price.

These two methods are also commonly used measures to increase the amount of single consumption in e-commerce products. At the same time, at the bottom of the shopping cart page, we can also see that you may like the function, which is actually the recommended function. It recommends related products through big data mining technology and recommends more products that you may purchase, which may also increase the user's single consumption amount to a certain extent.

Fourth, coupons

Dingdong Maicai will often give away some coupons for designated products, which can be viewed directly in my - coupon function. For example, the red envelope coupons for hotpot are shown in the picture above. The function of this type of coupon red envelope is also one of the measures to increase the amount of consumption per user.

Fifth, Gift Cards and Enterprise Purchase

Finally, Dingdong Maicai also provides two other functions: balance recharge and corporate procurement. The balance recharge uses the first charge to provide benefits to attract users' recharges and increase the amount of single consumption. Enterprises purchase services for B-side can also bring a lot of funds to the platform and also help increase the amount of single consumption.

Next, let’s take a look at how the platform increases the frequency of users’ purchases:

First, set up a user incentive system

The user incentive system is an important measure and method for user retention, and Dingdong Maicai has also set up such a point incentive system.

The point rule is to sign for 30 days in a row, and you can get a total of 60 yuan in grocery shopping. In terms of getting points, it is mainly through shopping (refunding 1 point with real payment of 1 yuan), lottery, sign-in, etc. At the same time, we can also use points to redeem some full discount coupons.

Using sign-in method, users have cultivated the habit of opening APPs every day. At the same time, signing in to receive points, redeeming points for full discount coupons, etc., all affect users' purchasing decisions, thereby increasing the frequency of purchases.

Second, gamification motivates Dingdong Farm

Cultivation games are a game adopted by many e-commerce products at present. The essence is that users generate some specific behaviors during the gameplay, and use users' specific behaviors to bring greater commercial value to the product.

In Dingdong Farm, we feed the fish. Receive feed through a series of tasks, such as signing in, browsing products, placing orders to purchase products, inviting friends to register, etc. When the small fish passes through several stages such as fry-child-young fish-adult fish-ripening fish-ripening fish, they can obtain redemption vouchers.

Through this kind of cultivation mini-game, on the one hand, it can improve the retention of users, and on the other hand, it can promote users to complete a series of behaviors.

Third, Green Card Member Service

Membership service is also an important means for e-commerce platforms to increase the purchase frequency of a single user. In Dingdong Maicai, members can enjoy 6 major benefits, including free food collection, green card exclusive coupons, green card exclusive price, Friday green card day, free delivery fee, exclusive customer service, etc.

These membership rights allow users to enjoy 1 free meal for purchases of 39 yuan, receive 4 exclusive coupons per week, 800+ super value exclusive prices, 88% off and large coupons every Friday, as well as free delivery fees and exclusive customer service. In terms of activation methods, there are also continuous annual, annual card members, continuous seasonal and seasonal card members. At the same time, Dingdong Maicai often cooperates with some membership platforms to launch joint membership services, such as the recent Himalaya, where you can purchase continuous annual membership services and get Himalaya VIP.

Member services have increased the frequency of users' consumption to a certain extent. At the same time, members will often enjoy some discount services, which is also beneficial to users to increase purchase amounts and promote user consumption to a certain extent.

Fourth, frequent purchase list and repurchase

After the user completes the purchase of the product, we can see the repurchase and frequent purchase list functions on the order page. After the user clicks to purchase again, avoid re-selecting the product. After clicking on the regular purchase list, it is convenient to view the products you often buy. For users who have regular purchases of certain products, it also saves time and makes it more convenient to purchase.

Fifth, platform services

The impact on purchasing frequency also includes the overall service of Dingdong Maicai’s platform. In terms of after-sales service, Dingdong Maicai has launched a safe return and exchange service. In addition, the entrance for refunds is also quite obvious, which is very convenient for users to after-sales service.

5. Product Iteration Analysis

Since Dingdong Maicai’s core business was not fresh food e-commerce before version 7.0, its predecessor was Dingdong Community. The business difference from fresh food e-commerce is quite different. Therefore, this product iteration analysis will focus on analyzing versions 7.0 and later.

According to the above figure, according to the direction of function iteration, Dingdong Maicai is divided into 4 stages for analysis:

The first stage will comprehensively transform the self-operated fresh food e-commerce business and improve the basic module functions of e-commerce

Dingdong Maicai was formerly Dingdong Community, which is a tool that provides convenience for daily community life. The online mobile app is combined with offline service stations to provide a neighborhood social platform to realize second-hand transactions, carpooling, housekeeping recommendations, payment of water, electricity, coal and property fees, collect express delivery on behalf of others, provide neighborhood dialogues, and community BBS platforms, providing more convenience for community life.

Later, with the business adjustment, it began to officially transform into its own fresh food e-commerce business.

It is at this stage that Dingdong Maicai mainly does two things: First, it begins to rename "Dingdong Maicai" and adopts a brand new logo; Second, it takes down the Dingdong community functional module and launches basic functional modules related to e-commerce, which are specifically manifested as: neighbor Tab goes offline, quick delivery business goes offline; new classification Tabs and enhanced search functions; new shopping carts and orders Tabs; optimize ordering process, shopping cart functions optimization, etc.

Since it has not been launched since the V1.0.0 version, some functions of Dingdong Maicai should be iterated directly on the basis of Dingdong community. However, as an e-commerce product, the most important thing is to ensure that users can place orders normally and complete the ordering process, which is also the basic needs of users. Therefore, at this stage, Dingdong Maicai mainly completes the construction and improvement of basic functions related to e-commerce products, with the purpose of realizing users' "buying vegetables" needs through mobile terminals, and the iterative content is more functional, with the purpose of realizing its basic business.

The second stage accelerates the iteration of product function points, and at the same time, the operational activities continue to stimulate user consumption

From July 2017 to May 2018, that is, during the iteration period from version 8.2.0 to 8.13.0, on the one hand, the product is constantly iterating its functional points and adding new users; on the other hand, operational activities are constantly stimulating users' consumption.

First of all, in terms of operational actions, Dingdong Maicai has continuously launched new recruitment and discount promotion activities, such as sharing red envelope activities, invitation gift activities, adding new welfare zones for newcomers, adding various promotional activities, and value-for-money exchanges, etc., in order to attract new users, encourage old users to place orders, and realize the platform's new recruitment. At the same time, in terms of operations, user incentive measures have been introduced: sign-in and get points activities to improve users' retention of the platform.

Secondly, there are constant actions in the iteration of product function points. After meeting the basic needs of users in the first stage, that is, after the user is available (can place orders), more new functions are launched and iterated and optimized in the first stage.

After accumulating a certain amount of user data, in order to meet the needs of more users, especially users with unclear shopping purposes. New functions such as "Quality Recommendation", "Product Recommendation", and "Guess You Like" have been added, and the recommendation of algorithms has been promoted to promote users' orders. At the same time, in order to help users make better decisions, popular keywords have been added to the search function module.

The product is launched with the pre-sale function, which can also collect user needs in advance to reduce the overall operation and supply chain costs and pressure.

When the platform is online, check common questions in contact with customer service. On the one hand, for new and old users who are not familiar with the problems and rules of placing orders, it will help solve confusion in the process of purchasing products, reduce their concerns about placing orders, and promote users to place orders. On the other hand, it can also reduce the pressure on the platform's manual customer service.

New quick note function and modify delivery time. At the same time, new quick note function are added to view the location of the delivery staff during delivery and support time-out compensation, which can understand the color matching information of the order in real time, further meet users' diverse needs during the ordering process and also enhance users' reputation.

In order to promote users to place orders again and increase the repurchase rate of products, the platform has also added a "buy again" function at this stage.

Due to the new users brought by operational activities, in this stage, in order to better ensure the user experience, the product is constantly optimizing related functions, such as optimizing the ordering process, shopping cart function, refund process, order list, login logic, limited-time rush-in function, etc. On the one hand, iterative optimization of functions can continuously improve user experience, meet user needs, and create and enhance product reputation. On the other hand, new users who are constantly entering and old users who are repurchasing can also promote the continuous improvement and iteration of products.

In addition, at this stage, in order to reduce the user's decision-making time and promote user ordering, the product has also added some other small functions: such as arrival reminder, opening a grab reminder, and adding coupons to expire soon.

In short, we can see that at this stage, on the one hand, the operation continues to acquire new users through new recruitment mechanisms and various discount activities. After new users enter, the product also begins to launch an incentive mechanism to sign in and receive points function to retain more users and improve more possibilities for users to place orders. On the other hand, in order to ensure the user's experience during the purchase process, meet more user needs, and improve conversion rates. The platform is also adding new features and constantly iterating and optimizing functional points.

The third stage is to launch the membership system to further optimize the product experience

As shown in the figure above, from May 2018 to June 2019, that is, during the iteration period from version 8.14.0 to 8.30.0, the member service system began to be launched; on the other hand, it further iterated and added more functions to improve user experience and meet user needs.

After the implementation of the previous stage of operational activities, the platform has accumulated a lot of users. In order to carry out more refined operations. Against this background, Dingdong Maicai launched a green card membership service, which enjoys 6 major benefits: free food collection, green card exclusive coupon, green card exclusive price, Friday green card day, free delivery fee, and exclusive customer service.

The channel's "what to eat" recipe function is added, and in subsequent updates and iterations, the recipe can be filtered according to the scene, the recipe details are added, and the video content is added, and the support for sharing on WeChat is supported, further expanding the scenarios for users to purchase products and improving user stickiness.

In order to increase the repurchase rate and provide platform users with more reference opinions on purchasing decisions, Dingdong Maicai has added product evaluation functions and added frequently asked questions on product details pages.

At the same time, Dongmaicai also further improves users' trust in the purchase decision-making process by scanning the product QR code online to view product traceability information, online customer service and other functions. In order to increase the average customer price, the coupon function has been added to the product details page and shopping cart.

In addition, in order to meet more diverse user needs, Dingdong Maicai also added functions such as invoice issuance, default delivery address, and corporate procurement at this stage.

Finally, in order to further improve the user experience, the product has also optimized some important functions at this stage, such as the message center, member green card interface, purchase change function, search function, order placement and shopping cart function.

The fourth stage optimizes product functions and further improves user experience

As shown in the figure above, from July 2019 to December 2020, that is, during the iteration from version 9.0.0 to 9.20.0, Dingdong Maicai mainly focuses on optimizing the functional points of each module of the product.

Through the analysis of product iteration paths, we can find that at this stage, Dingdong Maicai mainly focuses on optimizing core functions. For example, product evaluation function, refund function, core transaction process, search function, scan, online customer service function, newcomer zone, classification page and other functions. It supports customization of refund amount, using gift coupons in shopping carts, users can choose default avatars, etc.; thus further improving the user experience of the product and improving conversion rate. In order to further improve service quality and user satisfaction, Dingdong Maicai launched the function of supporting pop-up window reminder and evaluation guys.

Secondly, in the context of the outbreak, Dingdong Maicai responded positively and also launched the "contactless delivery" function.

With the rise of the live streaming and sales model of e-commerce platforms, Dingdong Maicai has made a new revision of the "What to Eat" channel, putting the live broadcast function into a first-level Tab, further expanding the scenarios for users to purchase goods and reducing the time for users to place orders. In addition, in order to increase the average customer price, Dingdong Maicai's shopping cart function has added new functions such as price reduction reminders and order-sharing.

Finally, due to the new crown epidemic, the fresh food e-commerce track has accelerated its development speed and competition has become particularly fierce.

Overall, Dingdong Maicai's development roughly goes through four stages:

The first stage will comprehensively transform the self-operated fresh food e-commerce business and improve the basic module functions of e-commerce;

The second stage is to accelerate the iteration of product function points, and at the same time, the operational activities are continuous, expand the number of users through operational means and product iteration, and further stimulate user consumption;

The third stage is to launch the membership system to further optimize the product experience;

In the fourth stage, optimize product functions and further enhance user experience.

6. Product structure analysis

For e-commerce products users, they can be roughly divided into: target users and unclear users. The two user behavior path scenarios are also different. Clarify the user path: Search for products - Enter the product details page - Add to shopping cart - Settlement payment - Evaluation (some users); For users who are not clear, the possible path is: Browse products - View details - View products - View details... Add to shopping cart - Payment settlement - Evaluation (some users) and other series of repeated operations and processes.

For clear users, the overall path is clearer. It is unclear that users rely more on some more operational functions and mechanisms to reduce user decision-making time, create a sense of urgency, and attract users to purchase.

Although the user paths are different from those with clear goals and unclear goals, the entire shopping process is consistent. I divided them into before, during and after shopping. At the same time, for the sake of easy analysis, I will re-examine the product structure of Dingdong Maicai according to the scenario, needs and functions and get the following table:

Next, let’s analyze the product functions of Dingdong Maicai in an overall manner.

During the process of users using Dingdong Maicai, the author believes that there are three typical scenarios: first, before purchasing the product; second, during purchasing the product; third, after purchasing the product. Below, I will analyze these three typical scenarios one by one.

6.1 Before purchasing

Before purchasing the product, users want to determine whether Dingdong Maicai can be delivered in their place. Therefore, they can check whether it is within the delivery range through the positioning function of the homepage. When the user has confirmed that it is within the delivery range (of course, it may also be outside the delivery range, and this situation is not included in the analysis), the next step is to purchase. In the previous analysis, it was also mentioned that there are two typical target users for e-commerce products: target clear users and unclear users. There may be some differences in the behavioral paths of the two users purchasing products. For those users with clear goals, that is, users who determine what products they want to buy, their purpose is actually to quickly find the products they want. So, he may use the search function to find the products he wants. For users with unclear goals, there are two situations: First, although the goal is unclear, they want to find the product they want as soon as possible. At this time, they may enter the category Tab to find the corresponding product; Second, if the goal is unclear, they are not in a hurry, and they want to take a look. At this time, he can casually browse through the live broadcast function you may like.

In addition, for users who are not clear, they usually rely more on some more operational functions and mechanisms to reduce user decision-making time, create a sense of urgency, attract users to purchase, etc. Therefore, the platform provides a variety of promotional activities and entrances to receive red envelopes and coupons on the homepage, such as "newcomer try new prices", "108 yuan newcomer coupon package", "limited-time rush purchase", etc.; thus making these users more attractive to the platform and prompting them to buy.

In addition, in order to help users make better decisions, solve users’ questions during browsing products, and satisfy users’ desire to understand other users’ evaluations of products during this process. The platform also provides product review and FAQ functions.

For green card members, Dingdong Maicai directly places the exclusive products and member function portals to the homepage; it is convenient for members to receive weekly exclusive coupons before shopping, and can also browse exclusive discount products in a concentrated manner.

Before purchasing a product, especially for users who don’t know much about the product, there may be some questions: such as delivery issues, order issues, etc. Dingdong Maicai is also in my - Contact customer service, etc., which provides online customer service, FAQ and other entrances to facilitate users to consult related questions and doubts before purchasing products.

In addition, it is for users who don’t know what to eat, are not good at cooking, or want to find recipes. The platform also provides recipe functions, and we can discover the corresponding recipe functions in product details - recommended recipe methods and live broadcasts - cooking inspiration.

In product details - recommended practices, the platform will recommend related recipes based on the ingredients of the product. The recipe also provides one-click purchase function to facilitate users to purchase related ingredients in one click (relevant ingredients refer to other ingredients in the recipe except for the ingredients browsed)

In live broadcast - inspiration for making recipes, the recipes are classified in detail, including popular ones, and according to ingredients, staple foods, scenes, specialties, tastes, populations, etc., and searches in recipes are also supported. In addition to the Dingdong Maicai official account that shares recipes regularly, this channel also has many food big Vs, who share food cooking through pictures or videos.

6.2 Purchasing

During the purchase process, that is, when the user browses the product and develops a strong purchasing intention, the function of adding the shopping cart is provided when browsing the product. At the same time, when the user is browsing the product, he may also want to see which products were bought in the shopping cart and what the current price of the product is. Therefore, when browsing products, the viewing (direct) shopping cart function is also provided.

For Dingdong Maicai, in addition to the basic settlement function, it is intended to promote users to purchase when purchasing goods. It also provides functions such as replacement, coupon collection, and order collection.

When the user determines the product and enters the settlement page, he or she can also modify the receipt information according to the situation, such as the delivery time and delivery address, to avoid order errors.

In addition, before submitting an order, the platform also provides a note function. When users have special needs, such as not knocking on the door after they arrive, making phone calls, and if there is no one, putting it at the door, etc. You can directly use the note function to make notes.

Finally, before the user submits the order, the platform supports payment methods such as account balance, Alipay, WeChat, Huabei, etc. Convenient payment for users.

6.3 After purchase

After receiving the order, when the user finds that there are some problems with the product and wants to consult after-sales service, the platform also provides corresponding functions and entrances. Users can operate after-sales matters in my - contact customer service and mine - my order - after-sales/refunds.

After receiving the goods, users can also evaluate the delivery services and goods according to the situation.

In addition, when users want to order another order, they can also purchase items they have purchased before in my order-purchase function. At the same time, we can also view items they have purchased frequently through the regular purchase list, thereby reducing the user's purchasing decision time.

summary

From the above we can see that Dingdong Maicai’s product design has a good control over details and can give users a better experience. The overall function is clear, simple and efficient. It meets users' needs before, during and after purchase.

7. Product Operation Analysis

Whether it is the addition, iterative optimization or operation of product functions, the same goal is essentially achieved through different means, that is, to achieve product user growth, user maintenance and revenue. Therefore, the relationship between products and operations is very close.

As an e-commerce product, Dingdong Maicai relies on operational drives, especially some coupons and promotional activities. Next, let’s take a look at the operating measures of Dingdong Maicai.

First, let’s take a look at the new media operations. In this part, we will mainly analyze the operation of Dingdong Maicai on Shuangweiyi Dou (WeChat, Weibo and Douyin); on Douyin, Dingdong Maicai’s daily operations mainly involve posting some recipe-related short videos, and the number of works and fans are not large. Weibo mainly promotes some lottery and promotional activities, and also forwards some Weibo content from Dingdong Maicai users. It can be seen that it is more of a promotion and interaction with fans, but the overall operation is relatively small. The WeChat official account mainly publishes some important news about promotions, lottery draws and Dingdong Maicai.

In the new media operation part, Dingdong Maicai does not have many actions overall. It mainly uses the new media platform to interact and promote various daily activities between users.

Let’s take a look at Dingdong Maicai’s actions in the event operation. Event operation is actually an operational means to quickly improve relevant indicators in the short term through organizing activities.

Author: The prosperity is gone

Source: The prosperity is gone