Multi-market food-delivery group
2025
Programme + org design
Vendor strategy across 18 markets
The first 60 days: an incubation programme for new marketplace vendors
A programme that routes incubation effort by vendor grade, an operating model that settles who owns a new vendor, and a cascaded OKR tree to measure it.
At a glance
80% → 90%
new-vendor activation target
~6×
more orders when the first order lands fast
~7×
orders for vendors who reach top class vs similar-grade peers
~15×
more median orders for top-grade vendors with ads and deals live (first 30 days)
The problem
About 1 in 5 new vendors stayed inactive after onboarding.
The group target was to raise new-vendor activation from 80% to 90%. Incubation ownership was split across sales, account managers, agents and onboarding. Some entities ran about 10pp behind target.
The analysis
4 cuts of the same question: where does early volume come from?
Chart A · Time to first order
Vendors who get a first order fast generate about 6× the volume.
Orders per vendor in the first 30 days, indexed (fastest = 100)
First order in under 10 days75% of active vendors
100
First order in 10 to 20 days15% of active vendors
28
First order after 30 days10% of active vendors
16
Today: 74% get a first order within 7 daysTarget: 80%
Source: Group vendor cohorts, 2024–25, anonymised
Chart B · Load vs activation, by entity
Entities whose managers carry 2–3× the vendor load activate 15–20pp fewer new vendors.
New-vendor activationVendors per account manager
Source: Entity-level activation and account-manager load, anonymised
Chart C · Spread across markets
The payoff from incubating the right vendors ranges from 4× to 21× by market.
Ratio of 30-day orders, top-class vs same-grade vendors (A-grade), Markets 1–17, sorted
~4×
overall, B-grade (3–5× by market)
~17%
of A-grade vendors reach top class by day 60
Source: Group vendor cohorts, 30-day order averages, anonymised
Chart D · Ads and deals by order bucket
Conversion and ad take-up rise together through every order bucket.
Menu conversionShare running paid-click campaigns
One market, Q1, by monthly order bucket
Source: One market, Q1, vendor order buckets, anonymised
Cohort note · Vendors that reached top class
Half
the time to first order
The operating model
3 stages, one owner per stage, and thresholds set by medians.
Framework 1 · Vendor stages
01Activation
The first order.
02Incubation
2–30 orders a month, then 30–100 orders a month.
03Acceleration
100+ orders a month.
Framework 2 · Who should incubate new vendors?
Option #1
Account managers incubate top-grade vendors
Each account manager takes ~20–30 new vendors a month.
Con80–85%+ of these vendors are still too small by day 60.
Option #2
One operations team incubates everyone for 60 days, then hands over
ConHigh-potential vendors wait 60 days for an account manager.
Option #3Selected
Single operations incubation team with early graduation
High-potential vendors graduate to account managers at day 15, 30 and 45. Everyone else stays with the operations team through day 60.
Day 15Day 30Day 45
Framework 3 · Graduation thresholds
Cumulative orders needed to graduate differ several-fold by market, so each market sets its own thresholds.
Day 15 gateDay 30, 45, 60
Source: Cumulative orders, median of three cohorts, key accounts excluded, anonymised. Same vertical scale across the four markets.
Framework 4 · Automated vendor check-ins
Small vendors get automation; high-potential vendors get a person, triggered by the check-ins.
D0–D60
Triggered check-ins
Escalation to an account manager.
Rollout
Piloted in 2 markets, rolled to 18 markets over 10 weeks.
Ad-and-deal packages
Tier 1Tier 2 · No-brainerTier 3
3 tiers, one no-brainer tier, and a minimum commitment. Rule of thumb: ~450 clicks → ~45–50 orders a month.
Recommendation
Chase speed to first order, then route effort by vendor grade.
Early volume decides which vendors become large, and early volume depends on how fast the first order lands. The programme turns that into 4 decisions.
- 01Chase speed to first order.
- 02Route effort by vendor grade: automation for small vendors, people for high potential.
- 03Set graduation thresholds by medians, market by market.
- 04Measure it with a cascaded OKR tree.
OKR tree · Baseline Mar 2025 → year-end target
Metric
Baseline
Target
Top-grade vendors with >75 orders in first 60 days
34.9%
75%
Top-grade vendors with ads and deals live on day 0
4.6%
60%
Top-grade vendors with ads and deals live on day 30
17.6%
75%
Vendors with >1 order in first 30 days
75%
90%
Method notes
- ·Ratios use 30-day order averages.
- ·Graduation thresholds are medians across three cohorts, key accounts excluded.
- ·Deck-level figures are internal and shown as ratios and indices.
- ·Markets and entities are anonymised and numbered; numbering carries no meaning across charts.
- ·No realised outcome is claimed here; the figures are targets.