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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s now 1am. You\u2019ve been cramming for the exam a few hours away, and feeling hungry. You need to eat and charge up. Instead of going downstairs to that pizza shop, you want to try something new this time. What do you do now?<\/p>\n
The only option back in the 1990s would be to go to that bulky (and outdated) Yellow Pages book hoping to find a different eatery nearby, but you may end up finding nothing. You would then either go order that pizza you\u2019ve eaten 100+ times or go back to study, feeling discontented.<\/p>\n
Things have changed dramatically since the birth of Yelp in the early 2000s. Yelp is a business directory service and online crowd-sourced review platform that provides information on local businesses from restaurants to salons. It has two core customer segments: the \u201cindividual consumers\u201d who find information about and post reviews for local businesses, and the \u201cbusiness owners,\u201d many of whom own small- and medium-sized businesses and have their businesses listed on Yelp for marketing and revenue generating purposes.<\/p>\n
Yelp has been a disruptive innovator in the mobile internet era by providing a free source of local business recommendations and reducing the time needed to flip through hundreds of coffee-stained Yellow Pages. It has also created tremendous opportunities for business owners by enabling them to advertise on the platform and become known to a much wider scope of customers.<\/p>\n
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Value Created #1: Extensive coverage through multi-dimensional expansions. <\/strong><\/p>\n Customers hope to see reviews on a variety of local businesses. They seek information not only from their home regions, but also the places they travel to. Yelp has met such expectations particularly well by proactively expanding to different business segments and geographies. As of Dec 31, 2018, Yelp has expanded to a total of 22 business categories from arts & entertainment to automotive. It has also entered 30 countries worldwide with translation available in multiple languages. [1]<\/a>\u00a0By establishing an extensive network of businesses and locations, Yelp strives to minimize blind spots on its platform and maximize information available to consumers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Value Created #2: Diversity and Authenticity of Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n Equally important is consumers\u2019 willingness to get authentic, insightful, and abundant reviews by people from diverse backgrounds. They want reviews that are personalized and vivid, not boring facts. Yelp gets such job done with its largely UGC-oriented system where every consumer can post reviews with unique perspectives. As of Dec 31, 2018, consumers had contributed 177.4 million cumulative reviews of almost every type of business. [2]<\/a>\u00a0To ensure authenticity of the reviews, Yelp has adopted a \u201ctop-secret\u201d automated review management algorithm since 2004 to decide which reviews are shown and which are filtered out. It also prohibits business owners\u2019 from soliciting positive reviews from customers to preserve fairness and transparency of the platform.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Value Created #3: Becoming THE One-stop Shop for Consumers through Expanding Vertically and Creating an Integrated Chain of Services<\/strong><\/p>\n Yelp isn\u2019t merely a review platform, but a one-stop shop that provides a comprehensive set of services for consumers through vertical expansions<\/strong> from the upstream (information & review seeking) to the downstream (product purchasing).<\/p>\n For example, consumers who just read restaurant reviews on Yelp would naturally want to \u201chave a meal\u201d as the next action. Yelp didn\u2019t let go of this lucrative piece of business. It has partnered with Eat24 and GrubHub, two prominent online food delivery companies and integrated both of them into its ecosystem. [3] <\/a>By enabling consumers to order delivery and\/or take-out directly on its platform, Yelp has created a new and meaningful revenue stream through commissions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Similarly, Yelp has incorporated online reservation and waitlist, and service quote requests into its platform. [4] <\/a>To a significant extent, Yelp has made itself the go-to place for consumers who hope to make their \u201clocal\u201d life easier, more convenient, and fun. And by making a wide range of products & services available to consumers, Yelp has effectively increased customer stickiness and reduced chances for multi-homing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Value Created #4: (For business owners) Increasing Customer Awareness and Traffic to Generate Higher Revenue and Profits <\/strong><\/p>\n Business owners are incentivized to promote their presence on Yelp, as the platform exposes them to a massive user base, many of whom with an intent to make a purchase when using Yelp. A research study suggested that 93% of Yelp users pay for products or services immediately after reading reviews, and that many would purchase from a business that is highly rated on Yelp. [5]<\/a> Another study led by a 性视界 professor concluded that a restaurant which boosts its Yelp review score by one full star can see revenues increase 5 to 9 percent. [6]<\/a>\u00a0In other words, Yelp reviews can increase a business\u2019s top- and bottom lines significantly. The higher the Yelp rating, the more revenue a business can earn.<\/p>\n Because of the impact Yelp could have on their financial performance, many business owners opt to pay Yelp an advertising and promotions fee to increase their chances of getting displayed on the platform. Consequently, advertising has been a primary source of revenue for Yelp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Achieving Network Effect and A Virtuous Cycle<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, with the active engagement of both individual consumers and business owners, Yelp has managed to create a virtuous cycle and benefit from a growing network effect<\/strong>. As the repository for reviews builds, more customers go to Yelp as their trusted source for information on local businesses. With the increased traffic on the platform, business owners become more willing to promote their Yelp profiles by paying for advertising and providing better produces and services. Ultimately, Yelp sees its revenue and profit go up and can deploy more capital to improve the platform in exchange for higher customer satisfaction rates and a larger market share.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> Form 10-k, YELP INC. for the fiscal year ended Dec 31, 2018. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.yelp-ir.com\/index.php\/financial-information\/sec-filings<\/p>\n [2]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid<\/p>\n [3]<\/sup><\/a> Yelp Business Model | How Does Yelp Make Money? (n.d.). Retrieved from https:\/\/www.feedough.com\/yelp-business-model-how-does-yelp-make-money\/<\/p>\n [4]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/marketingland.com\/wp-content\/ml-loads\/2014\/08\/yelp-bing-translation.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
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