Meridian Foods: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy
Meridian Foods runs a packaged foods marketplace in India, live in 11 cities.
Last month: 58,520 active buyers, 12,492 active sellers, 699,870 searches, and an overall fill rate of 54%.
That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 78%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 31%.
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
- 699870
- active buyers
- 58520
- active sellers
- 12492
- buyer to seller ratio
- 4.7
liquidity
- cities live
- 11
- overall fill rate pct
- 54
- top 3 cities fill pct
- 78
- bottom half cities fill pct
- 31
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.