Group buying is just paving the way for takeout
Of course, the dilemma of Douyin’s in-store HE Tuber group purchasing of restaurants is not limited to one cashier system.
In essence, group buying means that merchants have to offer more favorable prices to attract consumers, which will undoubtedly dilute merchant profits, especially those small and medium-sized fast food merchants whose unit price per customer is not high. For
consumers who dine in the store at the same time,
this table saves a discount because of the group purchase, and the other order orders the original price, but the dishes are almost the same, and the consumer will be very unhappy. This is also something that businesses don’t want to see in their operations.
And Meituan is not a sleeping lion.
Since April 2022, Meituan has piloted the group-buying
version of the takeaway product Pinhaofan in many places. According to the introduction, "Pinhaofan" uses the method of "popular meal recommendations + ordering + unified delivery" to allow users to place orders, merchants to deliver meals, and riders to deliver. Pinhaofan has copied the idea of "group buying" in catering to the takeout business that focuses on "point-to-point". It can be said to be a combined product of "in-store group buying" + "home takeout".
Theoretically speaking, Pinhaofan has achieved a "win-win-win":
consumers can buy food at low prices that in the past had to go to the store for group buying, the delivery efficiency of riders is improved, and the order volume of merchants is increased. In turn, it shared a wave of in-store group buying traffic.
Another fast food practitioner told "Zihua" that in the past, he basically invested 1,000-2,000 yuan in promotional expenses on Meituan every month, but since the "Pinhaofan" project was launched, he stopped This investment.
This is undoubtedly a defensive move by Meituan
to consolidate the basic base of small and medium-sized fast food merchants.
According to the "2022 China Catering Franchise Industry White Paper", one out of every two catering stores in China is a snack and fast food restaurant. According to specific data, in the distribution of the number of catering category stores in 2021, the number of snack and fast food stores accounts for Reaching 46.8%, among the distribution of chain catering category stores in 2021, the number of snack and fast food stores accounted for 51.7%.
Regardless of the number of restaurants and the overall domestic dining
environment and habits, group buying is still a relatively small scene.
"Only 5-10% of our store's daily turnover comes from group purchases, and more comes from dine-in and takeout." Li Kai told "The Most Talk".
It is precisely because of this that in the past ten years or so, Meituan has used group buying as its entry point, and finally settled on food delivery. It can also be seen from
Meituan’s financial report that in the first quarter of 2023, Meituan’s food delivery achieved revenue of 34.6 billion yuan, accounting for 59% of total revenue, while in-store, hotel and tourism business achieved revenue of 9.7 billion yuan, and group purchase in-store revenue It’s just a component of the 9.7 billion yuan, far less than the size of the food delivery business.
Meituan’s playing style and path have set a clear enough template for Douyin.
Li Kai himself also feels that group buying may be just a stage for Douyin, not a goal. It just hopes to acquire merchants through group buying and then pave the way for takeout business.
