Author丨Zhou Qun.
According to the "Instant Retail Industry Development Report" released by the International Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, instant retail has maintained an average annual growth rate of more than 50%, and the market size will reach 5042 in 20228.6 billion yuan. It is expected that in 2025, the instant retail market will triple the size of 2022, far exceeding market expectations.
Whether in terms of growth rate or scale, instant retail is a track that retailers cannot give up.
In the process of embracing instant retail, retailers are also facing many new problems: online and offline data is not uniform.
First, the data flow between multiple systems and channels is not smooth, it is difficult to upgrade the organization, and it is difficult to analyze the business.
Essentially, these issues are "digital" issues. How to achieve the efficient operation of channels, ecology and models through digital systems is the key "fulcrum" for retailers to do a good job in instant retail.
As a leader in the field of instant retail, Meituan has keenly grasped this demand and launched Meituan Morning Glory to help retailers continue to evolve in the field of instant retail.
How does Meituan Morning Glory help retailers solve the "digital" problem of just-in-time retail?
Multi-channel management:
Simplify complex problems, reduce costs and increase efficiency
Channels are the source of all business, and one more channel is to build one more business growth path. Therefore, whether online or offline, omni-channel operation has always been the consensus of the industry.
The same is true in the instant retail format. Instant retail is not composed of a single channel, but is composed of multiple channel platforms and multiple ecosystems.
For retailers, doing instant business is not simply to do a certain link or a certain platform, but to build a multi-channel marketing and sales position.
The complexity and difficulty of multi-channel management of just-in-time retail is far greater than that of single-channel management.
The first is the problem of managing the differences between channels.
The underlying development path of each instant retail platform is different, some from takeaway, some from e-commerce, and from short-term platforms.
Starting from different starting points, the platform will form unique characteristics and core competitive advantages in the development process.
From the perspective of sales, it is a good thing in itself, based on the differentiation of each platform, retailers can achieve more crowd coverage, so as to achieve higher sales growth.
However, the underlying genes are different, which determines that different instant retail platforms will have differences in business models, user groups and operation strategies.
This also leads to a variety of trivial and complex problems faced by retailers when making efforts in instant retail, such as different commodity management systems, different platform rules, different activity mechanisms, different financial reconciliation rules, etc., which greatly increases the understanding and difficulty of operation of business personnel.
For retailers, in order to do a good job in multi-channel, it is necessary to be familiar with the rules, characteristics and operation methods of each platform, but there is no doubt that this is a great challenge for the operation ability of operators, the adjustment of organizational structure, and the real-time retail business process system and implementation.
In order to solve the pain point of cooperative merchants, the Meituan Morning Glory system not only links the Meituan platform, but also covers a number of instant retail platforms, as well as many public and private domain platforms, so that cooperative merchants can quickly adapt to multi-channel management.
As Mr. He Lei, the head of Meituan's morning glory product, said, the Meituan morning glory system is both a "translator" and an "integrator". On the one hand, it helps retailers to understand the system of each channel more quickly and clearly, and on the other hand, it integrates resources around "goods, services, and **" to help retailers reduce management costs.
The second is the issue of efficiency in multi-channel operations.
Single-channel operation, maybe one person is enough. But once it involves the superposition of multiple channels, it is not as simple as adding people, and the difficulty is increasing exponentially.
This is especially true in two dimensionsOne is low human efficiency, and the other is difficult inventory management.
At the 2023 Meituan Morning Glory Partner Conference, Ms. Liu Xiaoxu, head of online operations of Shanghai Agricultural Industry and Commerce Cloud Business Technology, mentioned that when there is no middle platform system, the agricultural and industrial supermarkets it serves, the way to receive orders is that each partner is responsible for a platform, guarding the mobile phone, and when the order comes, the screenshot is sent to the takeaway group, and then sent to the relevant store, and the store staff starts picking after seeing the screenshot. Not only is it inefficient, but it also has an extremely high error rate.
And once there is a burst of orders, the inventory accuracy is very low, and the inventory of each platform is too late to modify, even if the order is received, it is not available. As a result, as soon as the order bursts during the peak period, the store can only be closed, and there will be no mistake if you don't take the order, but there will definitely be a large loss in sales.
The Meituan Morning Glory system unifies all data into a single middle platform by connecting with different real-time retail platforms, and all platform orders can be centralized on one system. In the past, four or five people took orders, changed inventory, and put goods on and off the shelves, but now one person can complete it. The data shows that the store fulfillment efficiency has been improved by 50%, the human efficiency has been increased by 75%, and the inventory accuracy rate is as high as 99%.
Multi-ecological integration:
Let the merchant use a system
Solve all ecological problems
In the fast-paced business world, the retail industry is both a highly competitive field and one full of details and changes. To stay ahead of the competition, retailers must rely on accurate, comprehensive data analytics to respond quickly to changes in the market.
In the field of instant retail, retailers also need to use effective data analysis to gain insight into market trends, grasp consumer needs, and optimize products and services in a targeted manner to improve sales and consumer satisfaction.
But the difficulty is that single-channel data is already huge and complex, and the multi-channel operation of instant retail means that not only the amount of data has increased exponentially, but the complexity has increased exponentially.
From a financial perspective,Multi-channel data fusion, data messy and messy. Commodity flow, information flow, logistics, cash flow, online and offline, platform and platform, all aspects are hugely different, complex to sort out, and difficult to reconcile.
For example, some brick-and-mortar merchants have differences between online and offline, and the workload of online sales entry POS is large, and the inaccurate amount of goods and discounts will lead to difficulties in financial reconciliation
In addition, the rules of financial bills of various platforms are inconsistent, some platforms have a settlement cycle of T+1, and some have T+3, and they are inconsistent with offline financial rules, and there are accounting differences, which will also lead to confusion about how to deal with financial reconciliation discrepancies.
From the perspective of operation,The data indicators of each channel are different and the positioning is different, which makes data analysis difficult. Single-dimensional data analysis often fails to identify problems quickly.
For example, if the meaning of the data fields of orders in each channel is inconsistent, if you want to unify the analysis data, you also need to unify the data fields of each channel first, and then merge and integrate, which is a cumbersome process and prone to errors.
Finally, from a service perspective,Retailers need a large number of service providers, and when there is a problem, they simply don't know who to turn to to solve it, which seriously affects efficiency.
For example, if there is a problem with inventory, whether to find an ERP system, a middle office SaaS system, or a generation operator, the multi-system collaboration is not smooth, and it is difficult to quickly find the cause of the problem.
In order to solve these "digital" problems and enable cooperative merchants to achieve more efficient operations in instant retail channels, Meituan Morning Glory officially announced the launch of the "Hand in Hand Program" at the Partner Ecosystem Conference.
Together with ERP manufacturers, ISVs, ** chains, distribution platforms, and even agency operators, we provide merchants with a "package" of solutions by building standardized product docking capabilities and services, so that merchants can truly use one system to solve all the ecological problems of instant retail.
It is important to establish an ecosystem, and only by deepening cooperation with ecosystem partners can we provide retailers with more complete, personalized and timely services. Lu Guangyuan, head of Meituan's morning glory business, said.
Multi-mode operation:
You can do a good job in the "old business".
It is also possible to do a good job in "new business".
In the past two years, the "warehouse" format has become a new trend in the evolution of retailers, and many traditional retailers have tested the waters.
The offline business of traditional retailers already has a mature system and process in terms of business mode, product selection, personnel management, etc., butThe location, product selection, and fulfillment of the "warehouse" business are a set of new models that are completely different from those of offline.
In order to feel the difference between the two more intuitively, we can make a comparison from four aspects: model, product, location and fulfillment of traditional convenience stores and lightning warehouses.
First, the business model. The core of traditional convenience stores is how to attract consumers to enter the store offline, and the online instant retail business accounts for only a small part, while the lightning warehouse is a pure instant retail business, and consumers choose products to place orders without entering the store.
Second, commodity structure. The number of products in traditional convenience stores is generally 1000 to 1500 SKUs, and the core is still the FMCG categoryThe area of the lightning warehouse is 150 300m, the number of goods is 4000 5000 SKUs, and the core category is FMCG + department stores, with more medium and long-tail products.
Third, site selection requirements. Traditional convenience store location has strict requirements for **, surrounding facilities, and decoration level, and the rent is very high. There is no façade requirement for lightning warehouses, residential houses, basements, etc.
Moreover, the core of traditional convenience stores covers 3 kilometers around, but the lightning warehouse covers 3 5 kilometers around the periphery, which means that the two cover different groups of people, and the gap in order volume will be very large.
Fourth, compliance. Convenience stores are in-store consumption, consumers are active to take goods after entering the store, store staff need to serve the staff in the store while supporting real-time retail business fulfillment, lightning warehouse is a pure online order, in-store personnel to support fulfillment, the efficiency is greatly improved, and 24 hours of business, not affected by space and time.
The difference between the two models will lead to the fact that when retailers try the "warehouse" format, the original store management logic cannot meet the "warehouse" business.
For example, Jimu used to mainly operate offline convenience store business, but in 2021, it began to try Jimu Lightning Warehouse, and within two months of opening, the number of online orders surpassed that of the old supply stores that operated online and offline at the same time. At this time, it was found that the original ordering logic, commodity management, inventory management and other experiences could not meet the needs of stores in the form of lightning warehouses.
Based on the understanding of the "warehouse" model and instant retail, Meituan Morning Glory not only has its own "warehouse" model solution, but also can well support the "warehouse-store hybrid model" operation.
With the support of Meituan's Morning Glory digital middle platform, Jimu has realized the seamless connection of digital management in the warehouse, online and offline, and optimized in-store processes through digital management tools.
All links have been significantly improved, with the inventory accuracy rate reaching 98% and the out-of-stock refund rate as low as 01%, the stock rate of TOP500 goods is controlled at about 95% (an increase of 18pp), and the inventory turnover days are about 24 days, which further improves consumer satisfaction and loyalty.
Write at the end
There is no doubt that the trillion-dollar instant retail market must be a good business. But to compete for trillions of instant retail, we must first get on the ship of "digitalization" before we can sail further!
The era of exploration in the retail industry has come, and instant retail is a sea of stars, and those who can take the lead in entering this 'sea' are merchants with courage and vision. Lu Guangyuan, head of Meituan's morning glory business, said, "Morning glory hopes to make a ship and sail with all its partners to make the business bigger and stronger." ”