Instant retail has become a must for everyone
2023 is coming to an end, and this year, instant retail is undoubtedly the hottest track.
As a new retail format and consumption model, instant retail has received widespread attention.
At the beginning of this year, the first document clearly proposed for the first time to "vigorously develop new models such as joint distribution and instant retail". In July, the Ministry of Commerce and 13 other departments previously issued the "Three-Year Action Plan for Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of a Quarter-Hour Convenient Living Circle in the City (2023-2025)", which proposed to support the development of online and offline integrated instant retail models, empower physical stores, and expand the service radius.
At the national level, the development of just-in-time retail is encouraged, which brings significant benefits to the industry. The essence of just-in-time retail is retail takeawayInstant retail's efficient supply satisfaction and quick response make it a high-certainty lifestyle and the main channel for consumers to shop.
Instant retail demand has surged, tooHuge market opportunities are emerging。According to the "2023 Instant Retail Development Trend***", instant retail is a new blue ocean in the online and offline market. In 2022, the scale of China's instant retail market will exceed 590 billion yuan, equivalent to 14%；The instant retail market size is expected to increase to 36 trillion yuan, equivalent to 6% of the total retail sales of consumer goods in the same period.
The blue ocean of trillion-dollar market size, coupled with a high growth rate,The major giants continue to increase the real-time retail track
In terms of Meituan, in August this year, it announced that it had reached a cooperation with SF Express, Flash Delivery, and UU errands. In December, Meituan's Meituan Grocery was upgraded to Little Elephant Supermarket, cutting from fresh food to more supermarket categories. In terms of Alibaba, in November, Ele.me announced the launch of the "Double Hundred Plan", working with 100 retail brands to achieve 100% growth in two years. In addition, Alibaba's Hema and Tmall supermarkets have accelerated their layouts. In terms of JD.com, this year, it proposed that instant retail is a big must-win battle, and released a new instant retail SaaS system in September, and in October, it proposed a three-kilometer business model for instant retail.
The market expands, on the other handDouyin is also eyeing it。In October, Douyin launched the "Hourly Delivery" business, which currently involves vegetables and fruits, meat and eggs, dairy products, wine, digital and other categories. In addition, according to Tianyancha, Beijing Word Hop Network Technology has applied for the registration of a number of "Douyin instant retail" and "Douyin hour" trademarks, and the international classification involves advertising sales, transportation and storage, education and entertainment, etc. In addition, there are new players such as Kuaishou entering the game.
Douyin instant retail" and "Douyin Hour" trademark Source: Tianyancha.
The trillion-dollar market cake is very high-level, and this new format is still a giantDeliver clear growth highlights。This year's Double 11, the major platforms still have not announced the battle report, combined with market feedback, consumers' attitude is a little cold. However, platforms have seen rapid growth in the instant retail market.
Among them, on the day of Meituan's flash sale "Double 11", the number of participating products increased by 123% year-on-year, and sales reached a record high. During the "Double 11" period, Meituan flash sales had more than 800,000 offline stores participating.
In terms of JD Daojia, a total of more than 400,000 physical stores participated, and on the day of "Double 11", JD.com's hourly delivery volume increased by 45% year-on-year. During the entire "Double 11" period, the total number of orders delivered by Dada Express reached 200 million.
Jingdong Daojia Double 11 data Source: Dada Group Blackboard News.
The number of participating merchants of Ele.me increased by 50% year-on-year, and on the day of "Double 11", the transaction volume of more than 90% of the cooperative brands exceeded the historical peak, and the turnover of nearly 100 brands increased by more than 100% compared with last year.
Combined with the battle reports released by several platforms, the number of merchant participation, categories, and turnover have all achieved significant growth. AbsolutelyThis is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the rapid growth of instant retail
Market competition is not final
When the online market struggles to find room for growth, giants are looking to the growing instant retail business. In the instant retail market, platforms and self-operated models are blooming, among which the three giants of Meituan, Ele.me, and JD.com occupy most of the market share.
In 2015, JD.com established JD Daojia and was the first to enter the game. In 2017, Meituan flash sales were launched, but latecomers prevailedAt present, Meituan is in a leading position, and has considerable advantages in distribution network, fulfillment capacity and merchant resources.
According to the data, in 2022, Meituan, including Meituan Flash Sale (platform) and Meituan Maicai (self-operated front warehouse), will have a total sales of 160 billion yuan in 2022, ranking first.
Judging from the financial report data, in the third quarter of 2023, Meituan's total order volume for instant delivery reached 6.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 23%. At the same time, the number of Meituan flash sales users and transaction frequency continued to grow, and the peak daily orders exceeded 13 million on the day of Qixi Festival. As an effective supplement to offline supply, Meituan's flash warehouses also exceeded 5,000 in the third quarter.
Starting in 2023, Meituan Flash Sale has established local city teams in 15 key cities across the country to strengthen one-on-one linkage with merchants and help more retail stores operate digitally online.
In addition, Meituan is acceleratingLayout in the field of unmanned distributionAccording to reports, as of the end of August 2023, Meituan has landed a total of 7 business districts and 17 routes in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other cities, which can provide drone delivery services for 14 community office buildings and 4 5A-level scenic spots, and has completed more than 18 user orders40,000 orders.
Meituan drone Source: Meituan's official website.
In September this year, Meituan Flash Sale announced its goal for the next three years: the scale of Meituan Flash Sale will exceed 400 billion by 2026, and by then, 30,000 stores with daily sales of more than 10,000 and 100 brands of 1 billion will be born on Meituan Flash Sale.
Compared with the two main competitors of JD.com and Ele.me, Meituan's biggest advantage is:Platform-based, ecologically mature。Meituan has a strong end-of-line delivery team and has built a tenacious user mentality in instant delivery, but compared with JD.com and Alibaba, Meituan's product richness is not enough, and it still needs to further increase the number of merchants to improve the supply capacity of goods.
Market participants pointed out that Ele.me's traffic scale and operational capabilities are weaker than Meituan's. What Meituan needs to guard against more is JD.com, which was the first to enter the game.
JD.com has been deeply involved in the field of instant retail for a long time, and has formed three core capabilities: digitalization, local chain integration and instant delivery, and its strength cannot be underestimated. In terms of terminal delivery, JD.com's employment cost is relatively high, and it is inferior to Meituan's large-scale distribution team. However, on the merchant network, JD has considerable strength, and JD Retail has been dealing with major brand merchants for a long time under the self-operated model, establishing a more stable relationship network, and has a strong advantage in the quality category.
At present, Meituan occupies the majority of the market, but the market competition in instant retail is not final. In addition to Meituan, JD.com and Ele.me are speeding up their layout and making up for their shortcomings, and it is difficult to say who will become the real boss in the future.
The industry has entered a new stage of quality upgrading
This year, the giants are fighting fiercely in instant retail, and the actions are frequentThe industry has entered a new stage of quality upgrading
Nowadays, consumers can place orders in various ways through e-commerce platforms, live broadcast rooms, short **, etc. From the perspective of consumer goods, instant retail is rapidly expanding from fresh food to daily necessities, digital 3C and other categories, basically covering all the needs of consumers, showing the change of consumption trend of "everything to home".
Nowadays, consumers have higher and higher requirements for delivery timeliness, this year, from hours to minutes, the major platforms have rolled up the distribution efficiency to the extreme, after all, the efficiency and accuracy of distribution is the focus of consumers' concerns, but also the core competitiveness of the hourly delivery service. It is worth mentioning that consumers' demand for online shopping and fast delivery is still increasing, and platforms need to strengthen the upgrade of their own fulfillment capabilities and supporting infrastructure.
Instant retail, the core is still retail, to achieve solid growth, it is necessaryCapture local supply and just-in-time fulfillment。In the current competitive environment of the existing user market, instant retail is constantly evolving and upgrading in terms of speed and category. The next step is to differentiate, perhaps to work on quality and quality.
Under the trend of consumption downgrading, low prices and cost performance have become the focus of consumers' emphasis, for instant retail, users want to be fast and cheap, and the quality of goods cannot be ambiguous. In addition, there are many instant retail participants, and it is necessary toCoordinate the interests of brands, riders, platforms and consumers
In general, instant retail has the imagination of a trillion-dollar market, and it has not yet reached the time of a zero-sum game, which means playersThere is still time to find new opportunities for differentiation and development。When the industry enters a new stage, it will test the comprehensive ability of the platform even more, and it is certain that this battle will continue, and the competition will become more and more cruel.
Author |Li Ying.