At noon on Wednesday, Qin Wen (pseudonym) took out her mobile phone, skillfully clicked on a certain overlord meal applet, grabbed orders, received meals, posted pictures, praised them, uploaded screenshots, and with the 10 yuan rebate red envelope "Ding Dong" into the account, she "entered the pit" in September, with a cumulative rebate of more than 2,000 yuan.
Like Qin Wen, ordering takeout through the Bawang meal platform, taking rebates of "20 back to 12" and "full 15 back to 10", and even grabbing "full return" meals, has now become a meal choice for many "money-saving youth".
The reporter found that on a social platform, there were more than 60,000 relevant notes. The most popular Overlord Meal tutorial, with thousands of likes and 828 comments, is full of netizens' evaluations of the use of various Overlord Meal platforms.
At present, the marketing methods and recommendation mechanisms of takeaway platforms provide more opportunities for high-quality merchants to "show their faces", while also making the competition between merchants more complicated. As a result, intermediaries like the Bawang Meal Platform came into being - using large rebates to guide consumers to place orders in the corresponding restaurants, and provide stores with transactions and praise with real consumption endorsements. Rebate platforms, consumers, merchants, "overlord meal" zone, who is happy and who is worried?
Free "lunch"?
Recently, whether it is on social platforms or short ** platforms, similar advertisements are often brushed - the information is simple and rude, and I use my own experience of buying takeaway at a low price to teach everyone the skills of wool, saying "A cup of 'raw cheese latte', it is expected to be in hand 2."From 99 yuan", "personal test, less than 5 yuan per takeaway" ......It's exciting.
The reporter clicks on the relevant coupon button to jump to the page of the first area, and scan the code to add a certain overlord meal customer service enterprise WeChat, **a certain overlord meal app, or directly link to a certain overlord meal WeChat applet.
Although the platforms are different, the operation idea is basically the same: grab the store rebate quota first;Then compare the name of the store and place an order on takeaway platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me;After receiving the meal, take a picture to give a good review and take a screenshot;Finally, send the takeaway order number and screenshot back to the Bawang Meal platform, and you can get the cashback if you pass the review. Because the reporter is a "new customer", he also enjoys the benefit of "full return" from any store.
Among them, the payment and evaluation are all completed on the takeaway platform, which is no different from daily ordering. On the Bawang meal platform, the stores settled in, Yuan Ji Yun Dumpling, Nai Xue, Luckin and other brand stores are also among them.
Screenshot of the page of a certain overlord meal platform.
However, "big-name" stores not only have limited places, but also limit the number of times users can enjoy them, "Some stores can only rebate at most once a week." According to user Orange (pseudonym), on the Bawang meal platform, there are more stores that have never heard of the name. Comparing the information on the takeaway platform, it can be found that most of them are newly opened small and medium-sized restaurants.
These stores have different requirements for users - like the store where the reporter placed an order, or came to "increase sales", no evaluation is required, and you can get cash back by uploading the order number. Most stores on the platform clearly require users to "give feedback with words" or "**feedback".
If you want to really enjoy the discount, you need to do a lot of homework. Orange told reporters that on the takeaway platform or recommendation platform, these new stores already have a large full reduction, so they have to convert the rebate to consider the cost performance, "the brain is not enough". In one of her few experiences, every time she finished grabbing, the meal had long since passed.
If you have used the Bawang meal platform, you will know why some takeaway restaurants that are not delicious have monthly sales of 999+, and the comment area is full of beautiful pictures and praise. "Senior user Ashin (pseudonym) used a certain overlord meal app for half a year and returned nearly 8,000 yuan. He told reporters that if you want to get the rebate, you must give a five-star praise, and "if you play four and a half stars, you will be refunded." If there is a refund due to the lack of delivery by the store, the Bawang Meal platform will also deduct the corresponding refund.
A screenshot of a Bawang meal platform (provided by Xiangfu Market Supervision Institute).
The most important thing is that there are a lot of bugs. "On the Bawang meal platform, there are often cases where the store name is similar but inconsistent with the store name on the takeaway platform. "It could be two stores, or it could be a typo in the app, or it could be that it wasn't updated in time. Therefore, Ashin "stepped on the thunder" many times, he said, a little careless, it is easy to be in the audit, the system because the store name does not match the display error, can not get the rebate, "customer service is not smart, feedback is the norm."
Small profits but quick turnover?There are pits everywhere
Lao Li (not his real name) has been a barbecue maker for nearly 10 years and was an opponent of the takeaway business. "It's easy to affect the taste, which affects word of mouth. And for him, who is already middle-aged, there are too many uncontrollable factors, and the profit margin is still compressed.
Forced by the increasingly fierce competition in catering, in February this year, Lao Li's barbecue restaurant was still launched on the takeaway platform, hoping to use online business to make up for the decline in offline revenue.
However, the takeaway business is not diligent and sincere.
For example, on the takeaway platform, one is an 'Internet celebrity' store with hundreds of praises, and the other is a new barbecue restaurant with zero sales and zero reviews. Which one will you choose to place your order?Lao Li said frankly that now, the aroma of wine is also afraid of deep alleys.
In Lao Li's view, for their small and medium-sized restaurants, the success or failure lies not only in the quality, but also in whether they can successfully "fight" to get out of the line when they first enter the takeaway platform, "let people see it first, and then they can generate repeat customers".
But directly paying for streaming on the takeaway platform, "expensive, and the effect is not so good." "A certain has 49 niche coffee takeaway merchants with high scores in stores said that in addition to the 23% commission of the takeaway platform, it costs thousands, and some users are attracted to place orders, but everyone is crowded, and within 100 orders, there will be a few bad reviews that dislike the coffee is too bitter and the picky coffee is too sweet. "Moreover, the average consumer buys it and does not evaluate it after buying. He said frankly that most of the users who gave store reviews were mostly guided by praise and cashback.
There are unguardable bad reviews and no active praise, "the store can only pay money to continue to swipe orders." Sitting in the barbecue restaurant, Lao Li sighed, "It's like an endless loop." ”
In this regard, an industry insider bluntly said that now when doing takeaway, many people will take brushing the Bawang meal to buy praise as the starting operation, "After all, the cost is low, and a single Bawang meal platform will take 1-3 yuan, and now many brands will clearly require new stores to log in to the Bawang meal platform for marketing."
In his opinion, consumers can consider a limited number of merchants before placing an order, and the increase in sales and praise brought by Bawang meals can help new merchants quickly start stores, and then obtain the push of the takeaway platform and the flow of customers into the store, "as long as you can squeeze into the front of the consumer's screen, you can get more chances of survival."
With demand and motivation to pay, the Bawang meal platform has naturally become a business that walks on the edge of the system rules and cannot be put on the table, but it does have room for survival.
I don't brush, but others brush, don't I fall behind?Lao Li sighed with emotion, and the overlord meal has become a kind of food that is difficult to resist by takeaway merchants"**Like the water flowing forward, once the gate is opened, no one can stop. ”
A vicious circle, repeated prohibitions
The Bawang Meal Platform took advantage of the traffic anxiety of new stores to spread out the market, and some small and medium-sized old takeaway stores also frequently used the Bawang Meal Platform to brush up on praise, mostly due to the vicious competition of peers and some "difficult to serve" customers.
Unlike big brands with large sales, a bad review can pull down a few tenths of a store score. A small and medium-sized restaurant said.
Although in this regard, on the side of the takeaway platform, some measures have been put on the agenda. For example, Meituan recruits volunteer "Meituan judges" among ordinary users to determine the disputed orders between consumers and merchants, so as to reduce the impact of vicious negative reviews on merchants.
But there are still many businesses complaining. Recently, a merchant posted a document - the customer remarked to the garlic, and he sent the garlic out for free, but got a bad review, saying that "the merchant slammed the door and sent the garlic small", and applied for a refund of the whole order, "The takeaway platform generally helps users and directly intervenes through it, resulting in losing money and getting bad reviews."
On the one hand, merchants spend money and use third-party platforms to "brush orders", trying to take advantage of the algorithm to jump out of the squeeze of competitors in the same category and push it to target users. On the other hand, the normal market order has been disrupted, and many businesses have fallen in vicious competition.
There are even catering brands that accumulate sales by swiping orders, attract unknown people to join, and make a lot of money in the brand usage fee and ** chain.
The "Boss Hu Run" who is engaged in the egg rice business once posted on Zhihu that the sauce pork rib shop next door is to run the monthly sales to tens of thousands of copies through a large brush, attracting many people to join, "Presumably when the store opens, some franchisees will find that the sales are not good, and they may think it is their own problem."
The flood of overlord meal platforms is also a problem to ensure consumer information security and food safety. An industry insider worried.
These are hidden behind the gray production of the "overlord meal", weaving a false prosperity with proud data, waiting for the next anxious fool to fall into the pit. Diners who brush up on good reviews for small profits, merchants who are anxious in the face of bad reviews, and overlord meal platforms that draw some points from them are all part of this **.
Article 8 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates that business operators shall not make false or misleading commercial promotions about the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, honors, etc., of their goods, so as to deceive or mislead consumers.
Business operators must not help other business operators carry out false or misleading commercial publicity through methods such as organizing false transactions. It is an act of falsely advertising the sales status and user evaluation of its products.
In 2019, Hangzhou has been concerned about this kind of 'unfair competition'. Zhang Wei, deputy director of Xiangfu Market Supervision Institute, told reporters that in April this year, they had imposed an administrative penalty on a company for "swiping orders and speculating on letters" false propaganda and fined 250,000 yuan.
Where are the legal boundaries of Overlord Meal?"In the process of law enforcement, we found that most people don't know whether it is a merchant or a rebate platform, and it is illegal to guide praise. According to Zhang Wei, after their popularization of the law, the penalized company has changed from an illegal overlord meal platform to a legal recommendation platform.
Now that a bully meal platform has fallen, a new one has immediately stood up, so we must solve the problem from the source. Zhang Wei said frankly, "It is imperative to do a good job in popularizing the law." ”
Tide News).