Douyin denied acquiring Ele.me and began to shrink its food delivery business
On December 19, there were market rumors that Douyin is currently talking with Ali about the acquisition of Ele.me, and it has reached the stage of negotiations.
As soon as the news came out, the share price of Meituan's Hong Kong stock was **8% on the same day, and finally **5% compared with the previous day**56%。
Market rumors say that Douyin plans to buy Ele.me.
Fortunately, not long after the rumors appeared, Douyin and Ele.me quickly came forward to refute the rumors. Douyin insiders responded: Bloomberg does not have this report, and Douyin does not have this plan;Ele.me insiders responded: The cooperation between the two sides has been steadily advancing, but the so-called "acquisition" is completely nonsense.
Although the news was falsified, the market's reaction to this rumor was quite intriguing - Douyin's acquisition of Ele.me, why did Meituan's stock price fall instead?
As we all know, although the main players in the food delivery market are Meituan and Ele.me, Ele.me has always been slightly inferior in market share. Douyin, which is supported by huge traffic behind it, has now posed a certain threat to Meituan in the local life ** market, and takeaway is a shortcoming.
The current cooperation between Douyin and Ele.me is still at a shallow level, and users can order through the Ele.me mini-program on Douyin, which is not of much help to the development of Douyin takeaway.
But if Douyin acquires Ele.me, it is expected to get the capacity of Hummingbird delivery. This will undoubtedly be a combination of strengths and weaknesses, which can put pressure on Meituan from the front.
Judging from the market reaction this time, Douyin takeaway has obviously received a high degree of attention, and it seems that many people want to see a strong competitor of Meituan appear in the takeaway market.
However, the fact is that Douyin not only has no plans to acquire Ele.me, but may also delay the expansion of the food delivery business.
According to the news of Whip Bull, some regional ** merchants reported that Douyin Takeaway will no longer renew negotiations in some areas: after the contract expires on December 31 this year, many ** merchants will lose their qualifications.
The number of cities that will stop renewing visas is very wide, and only five cities may be retained: Chengdu, Shanghai, Changsha, Shenzhen, and Fuzhou, and other regions will stop attracting investment.
In July this year, Douyin takeaway (** delivery) was introduced"Regional ** business".As a partner of the Douyin life service platform in the designated service area, they help merchants in the service area who are willing to open ** delivery business in Douyin life service, and provide services such as agency operation based on the needs of merchants (excluding the provision of delivery-related services).
Douyin takeaway introduced regional ** business Source: Douyin Life Service Learning Center.
After the two "opening cities" in July and September, Douyin takeaway was covered30 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Nanjing and other first-tier and directly under the central government, provincial capitals, and the introduction of more than 150 regional first-class businessmen.
It is reported that these regional ** merchants are very flexible in terms of charging policies. Not only is the signing rate lower than that of Meituan and Ele.me, but there are even some ** merchants except Douyin Takeaway 2In addition to the 5% technical service fee, there is no additional commission from the merchant, and only the one-time entry fee is charged to make a profit - which also lays a good foundation for the rapid expansion of Douyin takeaway.
However, not long after that, the regional business model was stopped in most cities. A ** businessman said: "I paid hundreds of thousands of takeaway deposits, and now I don't renew the contract, and I have recruited more than 10 employees to expand the takeaway business of Douyin, plus office expenses such as rent, water and electricity, and I have lost more than 2 million this year." ”
What is the reason why Douyin takeaway suddenly slows down the pace of expansion?
Douyin takeaway has suspended its expansion and prioritized its access to core cities
Earlier this year, LatePost reported that Douyin's food delivery business abandoned its 100 billion GMV target at the beginning of the year and shifted its focus to trying to run through business processes in more ways.
For example, the regional first-class business model introduced by it was originally a strategy adopted by Meituan and Ele.me to rapidly expand the supply resources of merchants.
Relying on the regional ** business to "cast a wide net and catch more fish", Douyin takeaway achieved good results at first with only a low cost.
For example, in August this year, it was reported that in the three pilot cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu, Douyin** was delivered at a price of more than 100 yuan, achieving a short-term surpass of Meituan.
For a few days, the peak data has surpassed that of Meituan", a person close to the data of the Douyin platform said at the time, "At the same time that the data is even surpassed, there is also a new supply of merchants on the Douyin takeaway platform, and a new transformation direction of restaurants has also appeared." ”
In addition, a person familiar with the matter revealed: "In Shanghai, a Douyin takeaway business with only three stores and an average customer order of two or three hundred yuan has achieved a single-day revenue of more than 10,000 yuan by receiving more than 50 orders a day on the Douyin platform." ”
Obviously, after focusing on the takeaway business at more than 60 yuan**, and then quickly supplementing the supply of local businesses through regional ** merchants, Douyin takeaway has indeed run some successful cases.
Douyin takeaway is mainly *** Source: Douyin app
However, compared with Meituan and Ele.me, Douyin's traffic system and distribution mechanism are more complex, and there is no doubt about the investment attraction ability of regional ** merchants, but it is not easy to do a good job in Douyin takeaway - if Douyin itself has not been able to run completely in the pilot city, how can we expect the ** business's ability to operate on behalf of the business?
As a result, Douyin stopped its blind expansion after seeing the overall response of the food delivery business. In particular, in November this year, Pu Yanzi, the head of commercialization of Douyin Group, officially served as the head of the life service business, and Zhu Shiyu, the former head of the life service business, was transferred to be in charge of the first-level department "Growth and Business Solutions".
It is understood that Pu Yanzi has been engaged in commercialization and sales-related work for a long time. Insiders say that Pu Yanzi is very pragmatic, good at solving complex problems, and has been dealing with merchants for a long time, which gives her a wealth of experience in handling business relationships.
After she takes over the Douyin life service business, the direction of Douyin takeaway may pay more attention to "quality" rather than "quantity".
A person familiar with the matter said that after the suspension of the renewal of Douyin's regional ** in other cities, it will focus on developing its takeaway business in Chengdu, Changsha, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Fuzhou.
It is not until Douyin has gained enough experience and achievements in these cities that Douyin will further replicate and promote the food delivery business to other cities.
Although cautious, it also gives Douyin takeaway more opportunities for trial and error, so as not to blindly invest in it and get nothing.
It is worth mentioning that Douyin's takeaway choice is the same as Kuaishou's local life business.
Cheng Yixiao, chairman and CEO of Kuaishou, mentioned that one of Kuaishou's main tasks is to complete the team building internally and gradually improve the mature strategy when discussing the local life business at the beginning of this year
"We comprehensively evaluated the advantages in terms of traffic and content supply, combined with the consumption habits of local users, as well as commodity supply resources, and selected core cities as MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) to run through the verification. ”
For content platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, whether it is the ** business of the store or the takeaway business of the home, the most important thing is the penetration rate and efficiency. Only by making it easy for consumers to be guided by short** live content can they get a piece of the local life market.
In order to achieve deep penetration and cultivate user minds, the "model verification" method of core cities may be the most effective, and it can also achieve differentiated operations according to the characteristics of different types of cities - first "depth" and then "breadth".
Catering takeaway, the hardest bone to gnaw in local life
In the third quarter of this year, Meituan's food delivery business continued to maintain a growth trend, with a peak of 78 million orders per day, a record high.
However, at the earnings conference, Meituan CFO Chen Shaohui expressed concern about the performance of the fourth quarter: ".The year-over-year growth rate of food delivery revenue is expected to be slower than in the third quarterThe year-over-year growth rate of flash sale revenue (compared to the third quarter) will be flat, but the average order value of both businesses will decline."
For the "home-to-home" food delivery and instant retail business, even Meituan is struggling to maintain confidence in rapid growth, because this year's consumer life order has been restored, and the demand for the "home-to-home" business is also weakening - according to BOCOM International**, the penetration rate of food and beverage delivery will be around 28% this year, one percentage point lower than last year.
Instant retail penetration rate of food and beverage takeaway** Source: Bank of Communications International.
In the food delivery market, where penetration growth has peaked, even Meituan, which has been deeply cultivated for a long time, did not achieve profitability in its food delivery business until 2019, which is nothing more than a bitter business of "bending down to pick up steel hammers".
For Douyin and Kuaishou, who lack delivery capabilities, catering takeaway is a difficult bone to gnaw. It is much more difficult to cultivate the user's mind than to go to the store**.
Now, after changing the strategy and turning to the core city model verification, the performance pressure of Douyin Takeaway has been reduced a lot, but it still can't avoid the delivery problem.
Even if the acquisition rumors have been debunked, there is still an opportunity for a deeper cooperation between Douyin and Ele.me in the delivery business - and it will be interesting to see what new changes will emerge in the five core cities of Douyin Takeaway.
Author |Li Songyue.