Extract discovery insights

To: Chief Product Officer From: Product Manager, Ordering Subject: Q4 Product Strategy Synthesis: Debunking the Marketplace Hypothesis

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Executive Summary

The recommendation in the draft synthesis—to build a supplier marketplace—is based on a misinterpretation of support data and interview signals.

A closer analysis reveals that demand for a discovery marketplace is weak. Instead, the data reveals a critical, systemic gap in our core product: delivery verification and invoice reconciliation. Restaurants are losing hundreds of pounds monthly and spending hours manually reconciling short deliveries, substitutions, and incorrect invoices.

Next quarter, we should not build a marketplace. We should build an end-to-end delivery check-in and automated reconciliation workflow.

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Key Findings & Evidence Strength

#### 1. Demand for a "Supplier Marketplace" is an artifact of a single customer * Finding: Customers are not asking for supplier discovery. What looks like our highest-volume ticket category is heavily skewed by one account, and the few requests for "more suppliers" reflect a desire to bring existing suppliers onto Larder, not discover new ones. * Evidence Strength: High (Quantitative & Qualitative) * Ticket Skew: "Add more suppliers" represents 75 of 200 tickets (37.5%). However, 58 of those 75 tickets (77%) were submitted by a single customer: Calder Group (14 sites), repeatedly requesting onboarding for four specific existing vendors (Brakes, meat, dairy, wine). * Only 17 other accounts (out of 1,140 total accounts, ~1.5%) submitted requests in this category. * Interviews: Only 1 of 10 respondents (Pizzeria) actively asked for a marketplace for choice/pricing. In contrast, multi-site operators explicitly stated: "Finding suppliers isn't the problem. Knowing what actually arrived is" (Café group) and "I'd use a marketplace if it existed, I suppose. But day to day, what kills me is the paperwork" (Tapas bar). Even Calder Group’s interview makes clear their goal is centralizing their existing supply base onto one system.

#### 2. The critical operational pain is post-order delivery check-in and invoice reconciliation * Finding: Restaurants face daily operational chaos and margin loss between order placement and invoice payment. Deliveries arrive short or substituted, chefs lack a frictionless way to record discrepancies, and finance teams waste days chasing credit notes. * Evidence Strength: Very High (Triangulated across support & interviews) * Support Tickets: Combined, Delivery didn't match order (34 tickets) and Invoice reconciliation (29 tickets) account for 63 tickets across ~60 distinct accounts—nearly 4x the unique account breadth of general supplier requests. Core sub-issues include: "Invoice includes items not delivered", "Short delivery not shown in app", "Credit note missing", and "Export for accountant doesn't show credits". * Interviews: 8 out of 10 interviewees cited this as their primary operational bottleneck. The impact is acute and financial: * Direct losses: Gastropub lost ~£600 last month paying for unchecked deliveries; Steakhouse pays unmatched invoices due to lack of time. * Wasted admin: Hotel finance team spends days chasing credit notes; Bistro owner spends Sundays matching notes with highlighters; Noodle bar re-types paper notes into the app. * Dispute friction: Bakery notes supplier disputes are "my word against theirs."

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What This Means for Next Quarter

Building a two-sided marketplace would require massive operational lift (supplier acquisition, vetting, liquidity) while failing to solve the core retention and efficiency problems of our existing 1,140 accounts.

Instead, we must complete our core product loop: Order $\rightarrow$ Receive $\rightarrow$ Reconcile.

#### Next Quarter Roadmap Priorities

1. P0: Mobile/Tablet Delivery Check-In Flow * Problem solved: Staff currently check goods on paper clipboards or sign blindly. * Feature: Fast, touch-friendly check-in workflow at the delivery door. Staff can mark line items as accepted, short, rejected, or substituted, with photo capture for damaged goods.

2. P1: Discrepancy & Credit Note Tracking * Problem solved: Finance teams manually chase suppliers for credit notes; owners lack proof of short deliveries. * Feature: Automatically generate and email a discrepancy report to the supplier upon delivery check-in, creating an audit trail and tracking outstanding credit notes until resolved.

3. P2: 3-Way Invoice Reconciliation & Accounting Export * Problem solved: Invoices don't match orders, and exports fail to reflect credits. * Feature: Match PO $\rightarrow$ Delivery Note $\rightarrow$ Final Invoice. Highlight variances automatically and update accounting exports to include verified credits.

4. Fast-Follow / Targeted: Self-Serve Supplier Onboarding Portal * Problem solved: Satisfies Calder Group and similar multi-site accounts wanting their off-platform suppliers integrated. * Feature: A lightweight "Invite Supplier" flow where restaurants send an onboarding link directly to their existing vendors to set up a digital catalog.

Synthesis for the CPO: prioritise delivery-to-invoice accuracy, not a marketplace

Recommendation: Next quarter, prioritise a lightweight workflow for recording what arrived, resolving discrepancies and tracking credits. Continue targeted supplier onboarding, but do not commit to a supplier marketplace on this evidence.

Main findings and evidence strength

1. Delivery discrepancies and reconciliation are the clearest recurring customer problem

Eight of ten interviewees describe problems spanning delivery checking, missing items, substitutions, invoice matching, disputes or paperwork. These problems have concrete consequences: the gastropub reports paying roughly £600 for undelivered goods last month; the bistro spends Sunday evening reconciling documents; the hotel’s finance team chases credits weekly. These are self-reported examples, not verified savings estimates.

The ticket export independently supports this pattern:

Delivery and reconciliation together account for 63 tickets from 62 distinct accounts. Treating them as one related workflow reveals a broader account-level signal than supplier requests.

Evidence strength: Strong evidence of a recurring problem among the customers represented, supported by both interviews and tickets. Moderate evidence for prioritising it across the customer base: ten interviews and support contacts are not representative measures of prevalence among all 1,140 accounts. We also cannot yet tell which part of the workflow offers the greatest benefit.

2. Supplier coverage matters, but ticket volume overstates the breadth of demand

“Add more suppliers” is the largest individual category, at 75 of 200 tickets. However, 58 of those 75 tickets—77%—come from Calder Group, one 14-site account, repeatedly requesting four named suppliers. The remaining 17 tickets come from 17 accounts.

That concentration matters. Repeated requests demonstrate an unresolved, potentially important need for Calder; they do not represent 58 independent customers. Calder is also larger than Larder’s typical independent restaurant account. Its commercial importance should be assessed separately rather than inferred from ticket volume.

Evidence strength: Strong evidence that Calder needs broader coverage, and credible evidence of interest from other accounts. Weak evidence that supplier expansion is the most widespread customer need.

3. Supplier coverage is not the same as a marketplace

The pizzeria explicitly wants more choice and better prices. Calder explicitly requests a marketplace, but its stated goal—ordering from every supplier in one place—could also be addressed by onboarding its existing suppliers. The tapas bar expresses only qualified interest and prioritises paperwork; the café group says finding suppliers is not the problem.

Thus, two interviewees express clear enthusiasm, not “most customers.” Most supplier tickets ask for named existing suppliers or “more suppliers”; they do not establish demand for discovery, comparison or transacting with new suppliers.

Evidence strength: Limited evidence for a marketplace specifically. The evidence does not establish likely adoption, willingness to pay or the supply-side requirements for making it useful.

What we should build next quarter

Make delivery-to-invoice accuracy the main product investment. Begin with a focused pilot covering:

• Recording actual quantities received, shortages and substitutions at delivery, without retyping clipboard records.
• Preserving a discrepancy record and supporting evidence that can be shared with suppliers.
• Showing differences between ordered, received and invoiced items, with outstanding credits tracked through resolution.

Validate the workflow with independent and small multi-site restaurants before scaling. Prioritise the smallest useful end-to-end slice rather than assuming full reconciliation automation is necessary.

Measure delivery-recording adoption, time spent reconciling, unresolved discrepancy age and credit-resolution time against pilot baselines. Validate reported financial benefits rather than extrapolating the £600 anecdote.

Keep supplier coverage as a bounded parallel effort. Assess onboarding Calder’s four requested suppliers and the associated retention or expansion opportunity. Separately test whether other restaurants primarily need existing-supplier coverage or genuinely want to discover and switch suppliers.

Reconsider a marketplace only after broader, account-level research and behavioural tests demonstrate demand beyond Calder. Continue addressing ordering and access issues, each responsible for 31 tickets; this recommendation is a prioritisation decision, not evidence that those basics are solved.

Synthesis for the CPO: what to build next quarter

Headline: The evidence doesn't support a marketplace. It points to the gap between what we order, what arrives and what we're invoiced. I recommend building delivery checking and reconciliation next quarter.

Corrections to the earlier draft

• "Add more suppliers is our top category by far" is an artefact of one account. Of 200 tickets, 75 are in that category, and 58 of those come from Calder Group, which repeats four requests: Brakes, a meat supplier, a dairy supplier and a wine merchant. The other 17 come from 17 different accounts. Without Calder, it is our smallest category (17 of 142 tickets, 12%).
• "Most customers want a marketplace" is wrong. Only 2 of 10 interviewees asked for more suppliers (Calder and the pizzeria). The tapas bar was lukewarm ("I suppose") and went straight to paperwork. The café group said finding suppliers "isn't the problem."

Findings and strength of evidence

1. Customers can't easily verify what was delivered against what they ordered and were invoiced for. Strength: strong. - Interviews: 7 of 10 describe this unprompted, and an eighth (tapas bar) says "paperwork" without detail. Examples are short fish orders found a week later, a chef signing notes unchecked (~£600 in a month), finance chasing credit notes, "my word against theirs," clipboard re-typing, and invoices that never match. - Tickets: "Delivery didn't match order" (34) and "Invoice reconciliation" (29) total 63 tickets, 44% of non-Calder volume, from about 62 distinct accounts. The ticket summaries include "short delivery not shown in app," "invoice includes items not delivered," "credit note missing" and "export doesn't show credits." - Interviews and tickets are independent sources and agree. The combined grouping is my judgement, but delivery tickets alone (34) are still twice the non-Calder supplier requests.

2. Generic demand for more suppliers is small and vague. Strength: moderate. - The 17 non-Calder tickets are "any plans for more suppliers?" (8) and "more produce suppliers" (9). They show mild interest, not a pain point. One interviewee (the pizzeria) wants more choice and better prices.

3. Calder Group has a real, specific need. Strength: strong for Calder, weak as a market signal. - Calder is one account with 14 sites, which says it would move all ordering to us with a marketplace. This is a stated, conditional intent. Its tickets name four suppliers, which is an onboarding request, not evidence for a marketplace. We don't yet know Calder's revenue or how many similar multi-site groups we have.

4. Smaller issues: ordering, logins and tablets. Strength: moderate, low priority. - Ordering (31 tickets) and login/access (31 tickets) are mostly routine. "Can't log in on tablet" matters because delivery checking will likely happen on a tablet at the back door.

What this means for next quarter

Build: a receiving and reconciliation flow. - Staff record what actually arrived at the door: shorts, substitutions and weights. - The app flags mismatches against the order and the invoice. - It produces a timestamped record the owner can send to the supplier as a credit-note claim. - Credits flow into the accountant export.

This addresses the main complaints: finding out a week late, the "my word against theirs" disputes, and double entry. It also helps the people who file tickets about short deliveries and missing credit notes.

Don't build: a marketplace. It's a large investment backed by one account and a few vague requests.

Handle Calder separately. Onboard their four named suppliers through our existing process if feasible. Then ask Calder whether that satisfies their "move everything to you" condition, and get their revenue.

Fix before building: tablet login reliability, since the new flow depends on it.

Caveats

• The sample is 10 interviews from September, and I don't know how they were recruited. Eight of ten raising the same pain is encouraging but not a measured prevalence.
• Tickets show what people contact support about, not everything that hurts. Customers with delivery problems may just pay the invoice, as the steakhouse does.
• Ticket data is one quarter, and the `account_sites` values are inconsistent for a few accounts (for example 1418 and 1625), so I haven't segmented by size.
• The £600 loss is one anecdote. Before committing scope, we should size the cost of short deliveries and unclaimed credits across a sample of accounts.

What would change my view

If we find a meaningful segment of multi-site groups like Calder, with material revenue that is blocked on supplier coverage, supplier breadth becomes a segment-specific bet. It would then be worth testing through targeted onboarding before any full marketplace.