Meituan.com Again Ranks First in October With Sales Exceeding US$27 Million

BEIJING, Dec. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Meituan.com, a Chinese group buying website with a strong focus on maintaining steady and stable growth, again held onto its ranking as the top selling site in the sector. According to tuan800.com's "China Group-Buying Statistics Report for October 2011", Meituan.com's monthly growth rate has, without interruption, exceeded 20 percent since inception and again ranked first in sales with its sales number surpassing RMB173 million (approx. US$27.3 million) for the month.

Maintaining a stable and steady monthly growth rate of 20%

It is not surprising that Meituan.com again ranked first in terms of sales in October, as the website has maintained a steady monthly growth rate of 20 per cent since inception. According to data released by tuan800.com, Meituan.com recorded sales of over RMB130 million (approx. US$20.5 million) in August, while sales for September and October exceed RMB150 million (approx. US$23.7 million) and RMB170 million (approx. US$27 million), respectively. In addition, November's numbers have already topped RMB200 million (approx. US$311.6 million), according to preliminary data.

Meituan.com's steady and stable growth is a result of the combination of its successful operating strategy and management model. Meituan.com CEO Wang Xing said a big difference between Meituan.com and many other group buying sites is that Meituan.com didn't go for a highly rushed expansion plan. "We purposely held growth at a reasonable rate, as, if growth is too accelerated, the rapid increase in the number of cities, headcount and overall scale of operations will make it into something very difficult to manage," said Wang.

Meituan.com completed the launch of local sites in nearly 100 cities before the end of April 2011, and then kept the number basically unchanged from May to October. For those six months, the website focused on improving results by maximizing the potential of its many subdomains. In addition, Meituan.com opted for a carefully thought out online marketing model focused on increasing traffic rather than participating in cut-throat advertising wars. The website's daily number of unique visitors currently exceeds 3 million, ranking the site first in the sector for this important statistic.

Ranks first in Customer satisfaction

Meituan.com continues to improve the quality of its services, while maintaining strong growth in sales, traffic and other key indicators. The latest DCCI group-buying report shows Meituan.com was recognized by consumers as the top website in terms of customer satisfaction. Seventy per cent of the site's new sign ups are as a result of referrals by existing customers.

Meituan.com CEO Wang Xing noted that the essence of group-buying lies in creating value for both merchants and consumers. "Consumers are more important than merchants as they are the most sensitive: they, in fact, undertake the biggest risk as they pay for the coupon up front as well as pay the final bill in due course. For this reason, customer satisfaction is paramount, and is what ultimately decides whether that customer will stay with you or move on to someone else."

Unlike its rivals who are just pushing for expansion and increased sales on a massive scale, Meituan.com first, foremost and always focuses on satisfying the customer, and, in doing so, has achieved a number of industry firsts. To cite just a few examples, Meituan.com established:

• the first of its kind customer assurance program, including unconditional refunds within 7 days of purchase and refunds on expired coupons;
• the first evaluation system with five levels of gradation, giving the consumer a much stronger say in the entire sales process; and
• the first large-scale call center across the sector capable of resolving 99 per cent of customer inquiries within 72 hours of receipt.

SOURCE Meituan.com