Dianping Sees IPO Larger Than Yelp as Users Tap China Reviews
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– 17 hours ago @ streetfightmag.com: Dianping.com, China’s largest website for location-based food and entertainment services, plans to sell shares in an initial public offering in five years and says it may be worth more than Yelp Inc or Groupon. Dianping, with 75 million monthly active …
Dianping is a fraud and any investor should stay well away. Of the reviews on the site, very few are genuine reviews. The vast majority of reviews come from paid publicists who advertise their services on Taobao and other sites (check Taobao listings for 5 Star Dianping rankings, there are now hundreds of firms controlling tens of millions of zombie accounts). Dianping is now becoming worthless to users due to paid publicity pollution. Many Chinese friends will no longer use it to check out restaurants. Dianping makes almost zero effort to verify accounts (despite this being a legal requirement) and will inevitably face regulatory consequences. Dianping's sales force is out of control, with staff (contractors) in second and third tier cities extorting restaurants (widely reported in the Chinese media in 2014). Those restaurants that refuse to buy advertising on Dianping or participate in group buying events face a tsunami of nasty negative reviews. Stay away. Inevitably Dianping will face a consumer and regulatory backlash.