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Medium Market Entry Market Sizing

Jiabao Meals

#Logistics #Food Prep #E-commerce
ProHub Comment

This case tests the candidate's ability to structure a market sizing problem by segmenting a large population into addressable customer segments based on household composition and service frequency. The candidate must balance top-down market analysis with reasonable assumptions about penetration rates and market share in a fragmented competitive landscape. The iterative nature of the prompts guides candidates from strategic considerations through pricing frameworks to quantitative market sizing.

Estimated Time 15 minutes
Difficulty Medium
Source HKUST
50 / 100
Our client is Alading (阿拉丁), an e-commerce behemoth based in Suzhou operating within China and beyond. It has recently expanded its domestic operations providing groceries under its Huanghe (皇盒) brand, taking advantage of its large-scale logistics to offer delivery in parallel to storefront services. Alading is considering leveraging its existing Huanghe’s superior supply chains and distribution networks to expand into meal kit delivery with a new service called Jiabao (家宝). Meal kits made by Jiabao contain fresh or semi-cooked ingredients as well as cooking instructions for a full meal serving either 2 or 4 people. Customers can sign up for either of these meal kits that deliver 2 or 4 times a week. Alading wants to use Shanghai as a test market. Several competitors are already in this space that charge on average 50 RMB per meal per person with no dominant player. What would be the revenue potential for Jiabao to launch in Shanghai?

Clarifying Information

  1. Assume population of Shanghai is 25 million.
  2. Assume 5 million households in Shanghai.
  3. Either number can be used as starting point, as long as candidate can justify the purchasing behaviour of the target customer.
  4. For example: Segmenting by income or age to match take rate
  5. Segmenting by number of people in household to match product offering