Research On The Market Development Strategy Of DDC’s Community Group Buying Business In Third-and Fourth-tier Cities

With the gradual saturation of the e-commerce market in first-and second-tier cities and the fact that Chinese urbanization rate has reached over 60% in 2019,communities in third-and fourth-tier cities have become an important untapped retail market.The outbreak of the Newcastle Pneumonia in 2020 has resulted in the closure of transport and community control under the epidemic prevention and control policy,which has posed serious challenges to the normal life and basic security of the population.At such a special time,community group buying takes advantage of the model,through the simple operation of online booking and payment,the next day users can collect the supplies alone at the designated location,the whole process to achieve "no contact",better suited to epidemic prevention and control demands.At the same time,the new and specific market environment and the excessive profits of the platform economy have inspired internet companies to enter the community group buying.However,among the nearly 300 prefecture-level cities across China,selecting the right cities for this business and developing a sound market development strategy are key to a company’s success in developing this business.This paper focuses on the market development strategy and how to select the right cities for the community group buying business.Taking DDC as an example,this paper firstly combines the current development status of the company and the current development background of the company with an in-depth analysis of the development status of the community group buying industry through extensive review.The literature analysis method,the SWOT analysis method are being used and theories related to market development strategies were introduced to DDC’s through the analysis matrix to arrive at a growth-oriented strategy(SO)suitable for DDC’s development of community group buying business.Secondly,to further classify prefecture-level cities across the country for market development,this paper uses the urbanisation rate of each city in 2019 from the National Statistics Administration as a screening indicator,and builds a screening model based on the support vector machine algorithm in machine learning to comprehensively screen out cities suitable for market development.The screened cities are further subdivided by population share and composition data,and their geographical location is analysed visually in relation to the density of the screened cities to make a regional breakdown of the market development strategy.Based on the above analysis and based on market development theory,further detailed development strategies are analysed.Lastly,this paper concludes the following:(1)DDC adopts a growthoriented market development strategy(SO)in the community group buying business as a whole;(2)DDC can conduct market development in coastal areas and inland areas according to relevant national policies and geographical advantages;(3)the market development strategies can be tailored to different regions,such as building its own strong transportation and distribution system,creating category characteristics and(3)customising market development strategies in different regions,such as building their own strong distribution systems,creating category and brand characteristics,etc.In summary,the paper concludes with examples of research shortcomings and looks at possible directions for future research.