Meituan buys vegetables-product analysis

First, the purpose of product analysis

Among the many fresh e-commerce products, how does Meituan buy food under the cusp of deus ex? This product analysis understands the strategic direction of Meituan's grocery shopping and gives some opinions.

Second, a simple product introduction

Meituan grocery shopping mainly provides online grocery shopping services for users. Users can place orders by mobile phone anytime and anywhere. After receiving the user's order, Meituan selects a nearby warehouse service station for distribution according to the address bound by the user. The radiation range is 2 kilometers, and the delivery speed can achieve the fastest delivery of vegetables in 30 minutes.

Third, the development process of fresh e-commerce industry

Fresh e-commerce is currently in the development stage, and it has experienced two waves since its development in 2005. In 2005, Guo Yi Fresh was established, which opened the first wave of fresh e-commerce. Since then, Vegetable Butler, Tuotuo Industrial Co., Ltd. and SF Express have been launched one after another. With the continuous development of fresh e-commerce, the supply gradually exceeded the real demand of the market, and 20 12 began to stop expanding. In 20 13, with a series of mergers and acquisitions such as SF Express and Tuotuo Industrial Co., Ltd.' s nationwide expansion, fresh e-commerce ushered in the second wave of climax, followed by the intervention of giants to continuously increase the cold chain and fresh supply chain, some small and medium-sized fresh e-commerce enterprises closed down or were merged, and the industry entered the reshuffle stage. The intervention of capital has opened up a new retail model, opened up online and offline consumption scenarios, and some choose stores instead of warehouses (Wal-Mart, Yonghui Supermarket, Carrefour); Some choose the front store and back warehouse (box horse fresh), and some choose the front warehouse (fresh every day, Meituan gourmet shopping). These new retail models have accelerated the development of fresh e-commerce, and capital has tried its best to seize the market. Everyone wants to verify that their retail model is correct. In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic led to national isolation, which also brought explosive growth to the fresh e-commerce industry. During the Spring Festival, the daily average active users of fresh e-commerce platforms increased by 9 1% compared with 20 19, and the orders of major fresh e-commerce platforms increased by 2- 10 times.

Fourth, the business model of fresh e-commerce

At present, the development of fresh e-commerce is no longer limited to the sales model of pyramid schemes. At present, the products on the market show several new modes, such as pre-warehouse, integration of stores and warehouses, community grouping, store-to-store and refrigerator font. At present, all kinds of business models keep pace with each other, and the competition is intensifying. Compared with other e-commerce products, fresh e-commerce links are complicated, and the requirements for logistics, transportation and refrigeration are higher. At present, the whole market is still in the process of model exploration, and most enterprises are still in the state of subsidizing losses and fighting price wars. Judging from several products with good industry development at present, fresh e-commerce with strong supply chain management ability is expected to break through.

Fifth, the whole strategic deployment process of Meituan's grocery shopping.

5. 1 exploration period

From 2065438 to July 2007, Meituan entered the "catering+new retail" for the first time, and opened a 2,000-square-meter store similar to "Box Horse Fresh Food"-Palm Fish Fresh Food.

The overall operation mode of fresh palm fish is almost the same as that of box horse, and it wants to realize the integration of stores and warehouses like box horse. It has released its own application and promised to deliver it within an hour. However, Palm Fish Fresh only sells frozen aquatic products, and its product quality is far less popular with users than that of Box Horse Fresh, so it has failed to gain a firm foothold in the fresh market and has little influence in the industry.

On 20 18, Meituan upgraded "Palm Fish Fresh" and renamed it "Elephant Fresh". In order to make up for the short version without fresh aquatic products before, "Elephant Fresh" has been repositioned as an online and offline fresh supermarket integrating fresh food, food, catering and e-commerce, and a restaurant seafood has been set up like a box horse, and the distribution service has been upgraded to "the fastest delivery within 3 kilometers" like a box horse.

From 20 18 to 12, elephant fresh food failed to meet the high-frequency consumption habits of users for a period of time. Although there are fresh aquatic products, the supply is insufficient, and a series of factors, such as personnel cost, store rent and high unit price, hinder the elephant fresh and competing products to share the market.

5.2 Development cycle

20 19 19 "Little Elephant Fresh" was renamed Meituan Shopping, and an App with the same name was launched. Although there was no good result in the past water test, Meituan decided to challenge fresh e-commerce in the next time and opened the first offline service station in Shanghai. The overall strategy has changed. "Meituan Shopping" takes community service as the incision, and changes the previous 3 km distribution to 1.5 km distribution. It is less difficult to superimpose Meituan's shopping business on the basis of Meituan's existing delivery system. Community residents can place an order to buy ingredients through the mobile App, and Meituan will deliver the three meals a day that customers need to their homes through the services of warehousing, sorting and distribution set up by the community.

On the whole, the US Mission seems to have a well-planned strategy, but the model is the path taken by predecessors, and it is very good and intensive. As we all know, "Shopping in Ding Dong" first rose in Shanghai, focusing on fresh retail platforms to solve the problem of customers' difficulty in buying food. The overall mode is the pre-warehouse distribution mode of "APP+ Community Service Station". Everyone in Shanghai knows that the market is basically saturated, and "Meituan Shopping" put this model in Shanghai for the first time, which has no competitive advantage at all. More practice may be for pilot testing.

After more than 60 days of exploration, the overall model of Meituan's grocery shopping is not yet mature, and Meituan has transferred the pilot back to Beijing. On March 26th, 20 19, Beijing Market Test opened convenience service stations in Tiantongyuan and Beiyuan respectively. Residents 2 kilometers around the service station can place orders and deliver them to their homes through Meituan's grocery shopping App.

5.3 Rapid expansion period

On April 10, Yaojiayuan Station in Beijing was opened.

17 In April, the cumulative service stations of Meituan in Beijing and Shanghai reached 10.

On July 10, the US delegation chose Wuhan as the third shopping pilot.

Up to now, the specific number of community service stations in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou has not been found. According to Beijing statistics, there are currently 5 1 station.

abstract

Judging from the layout of the whole life cycle of fresh e-commerce by Meituan, Meituan is trying every step, trying to follow the path taken by predecessors, and there is not much revolutionary innovation in gameplay. Although it will save a lot of things to plant trees for our predecessors to enjoy the cool, it is difficult for Meituan to win the first place in the field of fresh e-commerce in terms of current strategic deployment. but

From the perspective of Meituan, Meituan's shopping may be an attempt by the new retail industry. Based on its own commercial value, Meituan is currently at the same level as BAT. As a leading local life service enterprise, Meituan has a catering-based distribution service system and long-term catering and food big data support. At present, the average daily order volume of the US delegation has exceeded 2 1 10,000, and more than 500,000 riders deliver it immediately, which can basically meet the needs of fresh e-commerce.

However, as far as the current market environment is concerned, the so-called trump card in the hands of Meituan has long been unafraid of advantages in the fresh e-commerce market. Taking community service sites as an example, Ding Dong's grocery shopping has been distributed to 550 sites all over the country, and it is still expanding. Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai markets tend to be saturated, and the daily fresh food enters the Beijing market earlier than the US group's grocery shopping, which has cultivated a lot of users' good habits. Judging from the distribution personnel, Boxma Xiansheng is backed by Ali and has a strong distribution team. The distribution of Dianda and Hummingbird covers 6 million riders nationwide, with an average daily distribution of 4.5 million orders. The distribution force behind this is more advantageous than the American group. Judging from the origin, logistics and transportation, and cold chain storage, Meituan is not afraid of advantages in buying food. First, because the early products have been tested for a long time, early mature businesses such as Box Horse and Daily Fresh have quickly reached the unicorn scale, and the cooperative suppliers are relatively stable. In order to attract suppliers, Meituan has obvious disadvantages in the development of buying food.

Although scale does not mean everything, the particularity of fresh food industry belongs to a high-frequency, low-cost, time-sensitive and service-oriented industry. Although the food shopping of Meituan seems to be vertical and lightweight, it is also a heavy operation and early investment. Compared with some small and medium-sized players, Meituan has the advantages of capital and traffic, but it has no advantage for big players. Its corporate culture lacks the support of e-commerce operation professional system and the accumulation of professional talents, and its products are not afraid of development.

The field of fresh e-commerce has been developed for more than ten years. Although the competition is fierce, it still can't be scaled up, and the market has not explored which model is the ultimate model in this field.

Through the overall strategic deployment of Meituan, I feel that Meituan entered the fresh e-commerce because it is now an order of magnitude of BAT, and giants and capital are optimistic that the fresh e-commerce industry itself cannot fall behind. First, it monopolized its own industry position. The second is to show their strength to investors. In the fierce competition in the industry, relying on their own brand strength, regardless of scale and cost, draw their own piece in the pie. Throughout the past few years, Meituan acquired * * * to enjoy bicycles, made hotels and took taxis, and was told to enter the game industry. Nowadays, Meituan's shopping for food can be described as an attempt to share the market. Its real idea may not be to change people's lifestyles.

If Meituan wants to go further and further in the fresh e-commerce industry, I have several suggestions for strategic deployment:

1. From the perspective of urban distribution, the layout of giants all started from first-tier cities. Can the US Mission detour to consider second-and third-tier cities? Although the pace of life in second-and third-tier cities is not as fast as that in first-tier cities, a large number of users have developed the habit of online shopping during the epidemic. Therefore, the US Mission is now stable in the first line, focusing on the strategic deployment of the second and third lines, which can rapidly expand the fresh retail territory. In addition, the labor cost, rent and logistics cost in second-tier cities are relatively low, and the saved costs can be used to subsidize users.

2. From a technical point of view: Meituan has always been an enterprise that attaches importance to big data. After all, urban white-collar workers are only a small number of people, and those who can order takeout rarely have time to cook. Most people who buy food are over 35 years old, and the traditional concept of online shopping cannot be separated from offline scenes. How to integrate offline scenes with online shopping? Can Meituan add real video of dishes or VR of origin to each product, instead of online refined product pictures, so that users can truly feel the quality of the products and get a good word-of-mouth effect?

3. From the perspective of operation mode, Meituan has formed a good user accumulation by virtue of its brand strength for many years. Can we consider the cooperation mode of merchants and let them enter the US Mission to buy food through certain qualification examination? First, it can help businesses broaden their sales channels. Second, Meituan can quickly open the market and form a win-win cooperation model. Coupled with the existing community group model, it can accumulate good reputation for users and stabilize the market.

4. Talent cultivation: The reason why Meituan lacks a pioneering business model at this stage is the lack of talent accumulation. Meituan's corporate culture does not have the complex and ever-changing operation support of fresh e-commerce. Every supply chain link in the fresh food industry needs excellent management talents. If more money is spent on advertising, it is better to introduce or cultivate professional and pioneering talents so that every strategic decision can be ahead of the industry.

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