If you are a product manager at Google's food delivery service, how will you increase the market share?

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If you are a product manager at Google's food delivery service, how will you increase the market share?

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chandra-singh · Answer 1 · 2022-02-14T03:56:48+0000

Clarify:

Which country does Google offer food delivery service? – assume its India

Does Google have its own fleet of delivery boys? – No

Why do it? - High consumer interest in food, Google is observing high #searches for food delivery

Objective: Assuming Increasing #orders is the goal. Is Revenue also the goal? – Revenue is not the immediate goal.

Time frame? - 1 year

About Google:

Strengths:

High reach of Google

High trust among users

Its Google – technology support, use existing/ create new technologies

Weaknesses:

Existing players in India have much higher user base, have customer’s trust

Google has a much lower inventory of restaurants, and no operations support

Existing players have a lot of data on consumer preferences and bookings, which google does not have yet

Has no delivery capability. most restaurant don't have delivery capability

Goal:

Increase mkt share – User growth, Not profit

Evaluation criteria:

#users – acquired & retained

Complexity

Strategies

Acquire an existing player – Will give Google immediate growth in reach to additional restaurants and users.

Setup team to increase inventory of restaurants – It is a great strategy to build own team, however hiring, training, ramp up is likely to take time.

Create a separate app for food delivery – Ordering food is a repeat behaviour, a separate app will offer superior CX, leading to higher repeat usage. Given Google’s tech prowess, they can do it fast.

Extensively advertise food booking service within Google’s Network – This approach will work once the reach is built, probably an approach to follow for Phase 2

Inbuild food experience into other Google apps – share on G Photos, Youtube, Google Maps – Build as an experience for users, people doing it for the love of food. However, this strategy is going to take time, hence not recommended for now.

Recommendation

Acquire an existing player

Create a separate app for food delivery

These recommendations will give Google the fast built up in inventory and consumer reach. This will also help build a delivery capability. There could be some churn when user move from existing player to Google's new app. One way to minimise churn is to incentivise users to do their first Google transaction.

Rafa · Answer 2 · 2021-12-12T19:54:57+0000

A clarification - by increasing market share, are we referring to the acquisition of new users? Correct.

An [Big] assumption that I took is that there is a good relationship between the different divisions of Google, and we could cooperate to promote the food delivery service.

Disclaimer - Google’s food delivery service isn’t available in my country, so my knowledge about the service is limited.

There are a few attributes that can affect food’s delivery demand:

Quality
Price
Speed
Timing
Simplicity
Reach \ Offer \ Diversity

Let’s analyze each attribute and map where google could have a unique proposal.

1 - Quality + Price - Google does have a competitive advantage in collecting feedback on the quality of food from its google maps feedback.
What could we do here:
1.1. Allow searching dishes around and conveniently show their ranking (support statements as “find the best\cheapest burger around”)

1.2. Positioning as the “IMDB of dishes” could make Google the 1st station when searching for food delivery.

2 - Speed - as far as I understand, the service will not include creating the food or delivering it. Therefore, the ability of Google to affect the delivery speed is limited.

3 - Timing - Timing refers to when we present the advertisement\suggestion to order food. What could we do here:
3.1. Google knows which meetings users have on their calendars - if there are events as a team meeting, football game, quality time, the kids are coming, lunch, etc. During the event creation, Google can suggest ordering food or reminding to order before the meeting as an extension of the reminders feature. (remind me to order food 1 hour before).

3.2. YouTube - when identifying a pattern in which a user watches YouTube for a long period (multiple videos) or plays a long video (which we can estimate that she will complete) - show an ad of food delivery. (Disclaimer, I call it an ad, however, it could be an embedded feature).

3.3. Google Maps knows where users travel and whether the place they are staying in has breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and if it doesn’t, Google can offer a delivery (in one of its platforms)

4. Simplicity - ordering food can be simple; once Google knows your address and payment method (gPay), it offers and prioritizes the options based on your previous feedback, 2-3 clicks should be enough for ordering food. I don’t think that Google has some significant advantages here for first-timers.

5. Reach \ Offer \ Diversity - many restaurants already listed in Google Maps. However, listing the companies is not enough without solving the delivery chain. I don’t think that Google has some significant advantages here for first-timers.

Summary

I would like to elaborate on the competitive advantages that Google has in other services to acquire new users for the Google food delivery service. The strategy is to target users when they are most likely interested in ordering food. We will preset personalized ads based on location, company (friends), and previous experience (their feedback, others’ feedback, and trends).