Dianping E-membership Cards Issued Passes the 10 Million Mark

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Jul 10, 2013, 10:00 ET

SHANGHAI, July 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Dianping, a leading local life and business platform in China, announced a milestone recently when the number of its mobile platform-based e-membership cards issued had passed the 10 million mark in only 265 days after launch. On May 28, 2013, the number of cards issued in a single day reached 130,000, an all-time high. Dianping's e-membership cards were created to interact with the member management and marketing interactive platform for local merchants, offering more precise marketing tools based on a "big data" amount of consumption stats, reducing merchants' marketing costs.

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Dianping's e-membership cards became available online in September 2012. Consumers from 20 large and medium-sized cities across China may add to their collection of e-membership cards of different merchants via Dianping's mobile apps by browsing through several local life and business categories, including restaurants, leisure and entertainment, daily necessities, barbers and beauty salons as well as other retail services. Local merchants may offer e-membership cards, manage member preferences and set up marketing campaigns online.

Different from traditional member cards which require an in-store application and need to be carried on one's person at all times, e-membership cards are easy to access, download and use. Consumers only need to open Dianping's mobile app to find merchants and add the merchant's membership card to immediately become the merchant's VIP member, enjoying a VIP level of service from a wide variety of merchants each time they buy that merchant's product or services.

E-membership cards can help merchants solve a basic problem - customer retention. Relevant research finds that 60% of new clients come from the recommendations of existing clients. In addition, if the retention rate among existing clients increases by a mere 5%, profits will grow anywhere from 25% to 85%.

Merchants get access to a database containing the member's name, gender, age, birthday and timestamp of when they selected that merchant's card. Merchants can archive members' times of purchase, amount, preference and feedback to gain a comprehensive understanding of members' consumption patterns. Access to this information will allow merchants to customize marketing campaigns by selecting from an array of marketing tools according to the consumption patterns of different members. These abilities to customize will lead to a higher number of members selecting that merchant's card and to a higher level of customer loyalty.

Many top retailers in China have already availed themselves of business opportunities brought about by the e-membership cards and have been able to launch marketing campaigns based on consumption patterns earlier and made significant improvements in their performance results in less than a year. As of June 23, 2013, the number of Dianping's e-membership cards for "Grandma's," a large restaurant chain in China, had reached 511,727, of which 244,861 alone were from its eight outlets in Shanghai. In addition, the Shanghai outlets of China's national chain restaurant "Jiangbian Chengwai Roasted Fish" have seen its membership number surpass 90,000 in just four and a half months after starting to offer its Dianping e-membership cards online. These members are expected to bring in nearly one million yuan in new sales to its five Shanghai stores every month.

About Dianping

Dianping is the leading local platform in China offering local business search, user generated reviews, detailed business information, featured discounts, group buying and other merchant services through Dianping.com and mobile apps. Founded in April 2003, Dianping.com was one of the first websites to provide reviews of retail businesses written by independent consumers across China. Powered by a large and growing user community, Dianping.com offers a full spectrum of local business content and reviews of restaurants, boutiques, entertainment, leisure and lifestyle services. In addition, Dianping.com provides a one-stop targeted marketing solution for small and medium-sized businesses using electronic coupons, online advertising and group buying. To meet the growing demands of mobile users, Dianping has also expanded into the mobile app space and seen exponential growth in adoption and usage.

Dianping.com was founded by Tao Zhang in 2003 and its founding team included Jason Li, Bo Zhang, Shuhong Ye and Edward Long.

Key Statistics

As of Q2 of 2013, Dianping had more than 70 million monthly active users, over 26 million reviews, and more than 4 million local businesses covering approximately 2,300 cities across China.

As of Q2 of 2013, Dianping (including Dianping.com and Dianping mobile apps) had more than 2 billion page views monthly, out of which, over 70% came from mobile users. Since inception of its mobile services, Dianping's mobile apps had accumulated more than 75 million unique users.

Dianping is headquartered in Shanghai, China, with established branch operations in 30 cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Wuxi, Ningbo, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Qingdao, Shenyang, Dalian, Changsha, Harbin, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Hefei, Changzhou, Foshan and Taiyuan.