Commercialization could be a tricky problem for any services, but how does a menstruation-tracking app move into e-commerce?
Chai Ke, founder of a leading Chinese period-tracking app Dayima, talked about the company’s monetizing initiatives through its e-commerce platform, Meiyueyouxuan, at TechCrunch Shanghai last week.
According to Ke, it’s been a cautious entry, taking over seven months to agree on the final form of their e-commerce platform. As a female-focused community, Dayima has plenty of options in doing e-commerce business, he believes, “some say we should sell luxury products, but that only focuses on a small portion of our users. What I am trying to find is a business model that can serve all of our users.”
“As a menstruation period tracker, our final choice is to focus on sanitary pads, tampons, warmer pads, brown sugar, ginger tea–consumer goods that every girl would use during their period 12 times a year.” he said.
A distinctive feature of Dayima’s e-commerce services is its “Cycle Purchase”. After placing orders for the things you want, the site will send you the monthly quota of them before your period begins according to tracking data synced from the app, avoiding the obligation of purchasing sanitary pads offline.
Chai believes that their attractiveness is in their ease-of-use. “We do not have the lowest price or even the fastest delivery, but we want to differentiate from other e-commerce sites with convenience, the key recipe to the success of 7-Eleven”, said he.
Chai also emphasized the importance of reproductive apps for women in China, where the lack of family or personal doctors has made fertility features a natural fit for young female users who are born in the age of mobility.
Dayima is one of the most highly funded companies in China’s consumer-facing mobile health space. They raised US$30 million Series C in funding from Ceyuan Ventures and existing investors Sequoia Capital China and Bertelsmann Asia Investments
Chai Ke is serial entrepreneur in the healthcare industry. After several failed projects, he launched Dayima in 2012 which has accumulated over 80 million users as of present.