2 Wang Xing's infinite game welcomes “ ultimate ” World War I

source ： All day technology （ID：iawtmt） author ： juck edit ： Luo Lijuan

Just when jd.com confirmed its high-profile entry into the takeout industry , Take-out food “ eldest brother ” Meituan has been eyeing the new market .

3 Since the month , Including millet 、 MUJI products and other enterprises , Both have reached cooperation with meituan flash purchase , Announced to be stationed in the US regiment . With the support of meituan distribution system , The fastest time for consumers to place an order 30 The goods can be received in minutes .

It also means that , Meituan's distribution of goods has further expanded , From takeout 、 Fresh to daily necessities 、3C Digital, etc ,“ Send all things ” The territory is becoming fuller .

all the time , Meituan's popular positioning is the delivery platform , Borrow from many retail enterprises in a short time “ Hand in hand ”, take “ Send all things ” The service is extended to the whole country , The reasons and plans behind it are curious .

There are two kinds of statements that have been discussed more by the outside world ： firstly , Meituan's going deep into the retail industry is actually “ attack as a means of defense ”, Actively resist the attack of rivals by actively laying out their main businesses ; second , Meituan has coveted the retail market for a long time , In particular, I have great determination to win the real-time retail market , Even want to build this business into the second growth curve of the company .

In this arena , Not only Jingdong , Ali 、 Big Internet companies such as byte have long been eyeing , Even built a near-field retail life service circle , Trying to take out 、 medicine 、 Fresh food and other instant retail markets seize the upper hand .

As experienced the hundred regiments war 、 Take out war , Eventually, meituan will become the industry leader , Obviously, we won't wait to die , After all, standing still means getting it “ The cake ” Will be eaten separately .

01

Consumption certainty builds a trillion market

Meituan business includes takeout 、 Group purchase 、 Wine Brigade 、 Travel 、 Fresh food and other business forms , Retail is only part of it .

Many people will define retail as , A business activity that sells goods to consumers , But meituan started from paying attention to this track , The definition of retail is more than that .

“ Our perspective on retail is broader , That is, selling products or services to end customers , We think this is the original definition of retail .” stay 2021 At the third quarter earnings conference , Meituan CEO When Wang Xing mentioned the company's retail business , It is clearly pointed out that the retail of meituan is divided into commodity retail and service retail , End customers include both consumers , It also includes small and medium-sized businesses .

Before Wang Xing publicly explained the concept of meituan retail , This enterprise, which is good at delivery service, has begun to explore the retail field .

It is difficult to explore the specific business start-up time , But will “ retail ” Rising to the strategic level of the company is in 2021 year 9 At a strategic press conference in August , Wang Xing announced that the group's strategy will be changed from “Food+Platform” Upgrade to “ retail + Technology ”, The status of retail business has been officially determined .

Meituan attaches importance to retail business , One or two things can also be seen from the composition of the later leadership . The next month after the strategy announcement , Wang Xing led the team to set up a five person retail task force , Personally lead retail related businesses , The team members are all core executives of meituan without exception .

As the retail business covers a wide range 、 There are many sub categories , At present in meituan App There is no unified entrance , Include “ US group buying vegetables ”、“ Buy medicine ”、“ Meituan optimization ”、“ The supermarket is convenient ”、“ Buy wine ” And so on belong to its business scope .

Meituan has not set up an independent entrance for retail business

But if we look at the internal organizational structure of the enterprise , Meituan retail business is relatively clearer and simpler .

According to the business manager of meituan flash purchase , The company's commodity retail business mainly includes meituan optimization 、 US group buying vegetables 、 Meituan flash shopping 、 Meituan fast donkey 、 Meituan medicine and other parts . among , Meituan preferred is the community group purchase business , Provide next day service ; Meituan buys vegetables for 30 Minute self service , Provide instant delivery home service ; Meituan flash purchase belongs to 30 Minute instant retail business ; Meituan fast donkey is for takeout merchants B2B Fresh food distribution business .

In the past two years , Meituan is with C End consumers are more closely connected “ retail ” Some of them ran all the way , Especially the real-time retail track , It is to spare no effort to layout . In addition to the cooperation of this year's official publicity , Previously, meituan also worked with famous and innovative products 、 Sephora and other enterprises with a large number of offline chain stores have cooperated , Outstanding achievements . Physical businesses are now working on real-time retail , Just like the scene when restaurants opened takeout .

Results show that ,2022 First quarter of 2009 , Meituan flash shopping 、 Meituan preference, meituan shopping and other business lines “ New business and others ” Year-on-year revenue growth 47% reach 145 One hundred million yuan , Percentage of total group revenue 31.3%; among , The order volume of meituan flash purchase and GTV（ Total platform transactions ） They increased by nearly... Year on year 70% and 80%, Meituan's orders for vegetables increased year on year 120%.

however , When talking about the reasons for meituan's retail business layout , The aforementioned meituan flash purchase business manager told all-weather technology , The company logic still complies with user needs ,“ The mission of meituan is ‘ Help people eat better , Better life ’, Retail is part of it . At that time, we had an insight into the immediate purchase needs of users , Many users search for products on the platform , Even the search category is much larger than the platform SKU.”

The business manager also said , The epidemic also makes users have higher requirements for consumption certainty , Prefer to be controllable at the time of performance 、 Delivery distance optional platform to buy goods .

On the other hand , about B For end-users , Access to meituan retail business is equivalent to adding a sales channel , This offline physical business is full of uncertainty at present , It is undoubtedly a certainty guarantee .“B and C Both experiences have been put forward , Business can run quickly .” Meituan flash purchase business manager said .

Judging from the huge prospect of the real-time retail market , Meituan will not miss this big cake .

According to iResearch consulting calculation ,2019-2020 In, the scale of China's instant retail market increased from 830 Billion yuan to 1510 One hundred million yuan , To 2021 The market scale reached 2280 One hundred million yuan ; With the improvement of consumer users' requirements for shopping convenience , The continuous improvement of supply side infrastructure and the gradual maturity of warehouse allocation performance capacity , Coupled with the improvement of digital level , Expect to 2025 The size of China's real-time retail market is expected to reach 11940 One hundred million yuan .

picture source ： China merchants securities  

The double stimulus of trillion market and user demand , Meituan will never let go .

02

Flash warehouse expands instant retail

In the past, fali group purchase 、 Take out and wine travel , Meituan mainly provides technical services ; Now its retail business is more physical , It needs to rely on offline entities .

Hold it close 7 Meituan with billion trading users , Although the number of active businesses on the platform has reached 900 ten thousand , But a large part of them are small and medium-sized businesses . That means , What offline businesses can provide SKU It is very likely that it will not be able to meet the huge consumer demand .

To solve this problem ,2020 Meituan flash purchase incubated a new project —— Lightning chamber , Mainly engaged in daily necessities and fast-moving goods .

It is different from the offline convenience store that meituan has accessed , Storage capacity , Meituan lightning warehouse management SKU Keep at 3000-5000 Kind of , Far more than the former （ about 1000-2000 Kind of ）; In Category , Meituan lightning warehouse also complements offline convenience stores to a certain extent , For example, the former increases pet supplies such as cat litter .

It is reported that , Flash store warehouse is operated by merchants , Access meituan platform , The latter provides traffic climbing support in addition to the novice period , It will also provide support and guidance to businesses throughout their life cycle . for example , In the initial stage of business , Meituan flash purchase will pass the site selection 、 User operation and other methods , Help merchants find the most suitable warehouse location , Combined with the shape of the warehouse, the layout of the warehouse is designed .

Meituan flash purchase business manager revealed to all-weather technology , In actual operation , Meituan lightning warehouse products are only sold online , Provide the fastest 30 Minutes delivery home service , Meituan flash purchase is responsible for performance delivery .

In a way , Meituan lightning warehouse is similar to the front warehouse mode of fresh e-commerce , But there are great differences in business strategies . The business manager explained , Meituan lightning warehouse adopts platform mode , In addition to daily necessities and fast-moving goods , We also deal in some long tail goods , Can't make fresh products .

“ The gross profit of daily necessities and fast-moving products is higher than that of fresh products , Less loss in daily operation , Lower labor costs , Therefore, meituan lightning warehouse will have higher floor efficiency than fresh warehouse .” The aforementioned business manager said , Based on these differences , Meituan lightning warehouse is unlikely to suffer serious losses like fresh food warehouse .

At the end of last year , Meituan flash purchase has announced the development plan of meituan lightning warehouse project —— Hope to be in 3 Within a year, 10000 “ Flash store warehouse ”, And continue to increase investment in capital and other aspects , support 200 A business with an annual revenue of more than 100 million .

According to the exclusive information of all-weather technology , By 2022 year 6 month , Meituan lightning warehouse has covered the whole country 100 Multiple cities , The number of partners exceeds 500 individual , Merchants build stores 1000 More than .

Develop retail business , In addition to increasing inventory on the goods side to meet consumer demand , The performance ability that users value , The importance cannot be ignored .

According to the business manager of meituan flash purchase , At present, the contract delivery work of meituan retail business has not organized a separate team , It still relies on the original business and meituan delivery capacity service ,“ This can increase the income of riders , Fill the order blank during the off peak period .”

First half of last year , Meituan adjusted the rider reward mode , Detailed as according to the distribution distance 、 Comprehensive pricing of delivery period and other indicators . Because the service scope of some retail stores exceeds 3 km , In the new billing mode , Riders can get higher income by giving one free order .

03

The giant scuffle that cannot be bypassed

Although instant retailing is an emerging market , But the trillion scale imagination space still attracts the giants to compete fiercely .

Even considering the situation of each family , With the growth of Internet traffic peaking , The core business of the head enterprise tends to be stable , Supply chain 、 The performance service capability is gradually improved , The need to develop high-frequency consumer business has become more urgent , Instant retailing is just in line with this setting .

Like meituan , Ali's layout in the real-time retail track is scattered in all business lines , Are you hungry 、 Amoy fresh up 、 Tmall supermarket 、 HEMA and others are carrying the task of weaving Alibaba's near-field retail ecological network ; Especially hungry , Also in the 2020 year 7 The upgrade was announced in January , from “ delivery ” To “ Send all things ”, Make every effort to build the economy around .

Judging from the published results , Alibaba's near-field retail business is also developing rapidly , Results show that , In the first quarter of this year, the revenue of the local life service where you are hungry increased year on year 29%, It is currently the fastest growing segment of Alibaba Group .

in addition , Tiktok's local retail ambition is also gradually revealed ,2021 It went online in “ Group purchase ” Marketing tools , Then it was tested in the form of a small program “ Take out ”. During this year's epidemic , Some businesses have also started takeout and instant delivery businesses , Although not officially initiated , But it also tests a new model for Tiktok local retail .

The most noteworthy is JD , After holding hands with dada “ Hour purchase ” Business , Integrate and operate jd.com's internal real-time retail business resources ; And in the flow pool scale 、 User stickiness, etc , China Merchants Securities found through comparison , Jingdong home （ Dada's local instant retail platform ） It is equivalent to meituan flash purchase .

“ Instant retail ” The model tests the performance and supply chain capabilities of the platform , Once we keep up with consumer demand , The consumer experience is rising , The business will enter a positive cycle ; conversely , The platform will face a serious crisis of trust .

China Merchants Securities also believes that , The competitive barrier of the platform model lies in the flow and distribution capacity , And think hungry is similar to meituan flash purchase mode , It is expected that the competition pattern will be similar to takeout ; Compare JD home with meituan flash purchase , The former has a high conversion rate of users in supermarkets , The latter comes home with a strong mind 、 High flow conversion efficiency .

It should be noted that , Higher required performance capability , To some extent, it will also increase the performance burden .

In the past, meituan would subsidize distribution to a certain extent , but “ Burn money for scale ” In the current stable growth environment, the way of has become impassable , Meituan business is also facing cost reduction and efficiency increase 、 Pressure to shrink input .

The new business management of meituan is 2021 The financial year report telephone conference has indicated that , In the future, we will start to improve business efficiency and unit economic benefits in new businesses . Meituan's new business layout will also embark on the road of cost reduction and efficiency increase , The business focus will also shift from innovation and expansion to pursuing both economic and social values .

thus , The high distribution cost of long-distance transportation , Or it will fall on consumers , Whether it will eventually affect consumption enthusiasm is still in doubt .

Results show that , Meituan “ New business and others ” Part of the income has become after catering takeout , The second largest source of income ; But this business is also the most expensive part of meituan at present , The net loss in the first quarter was as high as 90 One hundred million yuan .

Opportunities and challenges , Can meituan stabilize the second growth curve or end up sloppily , Only time can test .