Ferro Industries: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy
Ferro Industries runs a industrial components marketplace in Europe, live in 7 cities.
Last month: 136,375 active buyers, 24,455 active sellers, 238,314 searches, and an overall fill rate of 61%.
That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 89%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 33%.
Growth marketing has been buying buyer-side installs, because buyer acquisition is cheaper and the install numbers look good in the board deck. Supply acquisition is manual and slow.
scale
- searches
- 238314
- active buyers
- 136375
- active sellers
- 24455
- buyer to seller ratio
- 5.6
liquidity
- cities live
- 7
- overall fill rate pct
- 61
- top 3 cities fill pct
- 89
- bottom half cities fill pct
- 33
acquisition
- buyer side
- paid, scaling
- seller side
- manual, flat
Advise the general manager. Your answer should provide:
- Analysis — which side is constrained, where, and what the fill rate really says.
- Risks — what happens if you keep acquiring on the current side.
- Recommendation — which side, which cities, which mechanism, and the metric that proves it.
State any assumptions you make.
80 points, 60% to pass.
- recommendation15
- market analysis25
- risk assessment20
- financial analysis20
Reveal suggested structure
Liquidity is local. Find the constrained side per geography, stop acquiring on the long side, and concentrate supply until density crosses the threshold.