Economic Observer reporter Zhou Yingmei This year, Meituan Instant Retail participated in the Double Eleven in a low-key manner. The categories cover digital 3C, beauty and personal care, supermarket consumption, fresh flowers and fruits.
On October 21, the day of the Meituan Double 11 event, Suning.com launched the first batch of more than 600 stores in 175 cities to launch Meituan Flash Sale, adding a boost to this year’s Meituan Double 11 event. During the Meituan Digital 3C Double Eleven event, Suning Tesco, a new partner with Meituan, has special discounts. Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, Little Genius, Alien and other brands that have already cooperated with Meituan are also on Meituan Double Ten. a list of subsidies. Double Eleven highlights Meituan’s intention to expand the category of digital home appliances and further compete with JD Daojia in this field.
In the domestic instant retail market, the transaction volume of JD Daojia and Meituan flash sales exceeded 120 billion yuan last year and continued to grow this year. Foreign platforms such as Amazon and Uber have also begun to experiment with instant delivery services, and the market potential is being stimulated.
Meituan strikes
This year, Meituan has made frequent attacks in the digital 3C field.
In September of this year, the new iPhone 14 was released, and Meituan Flash Store continued to cooperate with Apple-authorized franchise stores, covering more than 1,110 stores in more than 200 cities across the country. On the day the iPhone 14 was released, a picture of Meituan’s takeaway brother occupying an Apple store was circulated on the Internet.
Sales staff of several Beijing Apple authorized franchise stores told the Economic Observer that overall, orders from instant retail scenarios can reach half of store sales, mainly including online orders from JD Daojia and Meituan. A number of Beijing Apple authorized franchise stores have accumulated more than 1,500 orders on Meituan, and on JD Daojia, they have sold more than 100 orders per month.
However, there are differences between brands. In March of this year, Meituan Flash and Xiaomi reached a cooperation, and more than 3,600 Xiaomi Home stores in 276 cities settled in. Sales staff of several Xiaomi Home stores told reporters that orders from instant retail scenarios are far lower than orders from offline stores.
At present, JD Daojia covers more digital 3C brands, and has cooperated with Apple authorized franchise stores, vivo experience stores, OPPO experience stores, Samsung experience stores, Huawei stores, Honor franchise stores, Xiaomi Home, Little Genius, XGIMI, Nintendo NS Specialty stores, HP Experience Stores, Global Digital, Youhangku, Dixintong, Wangxintong and other brands and channel providers have reached cooperation.
A Xiaomi Home salesperson told reporters that JD Daojia covers a wider distribution range, covering less than 10 kilometers. At present, instant shopping relies on local stores and mainly serves consumers within 5 kilometers around.
Last year, JD.com officially released the instant retail brand “Hourly Purchase”, which integrates JD Daojia and JD Fresh Food, and launched the JD APP at the entrance. This year’s Double Eleven, JD.com also covers mobile digital, supermarkets, convenience stores, beauty furniture stores, etc., with more than 200,000 stores. During the Double Eleven period, JD Daojia and JD Hourly Shopping offered consumers 199-80 discount coupons, “one penny to buy food” and other activities; Meituan’s discounts included 99-30 discount for beauty products, digital 3C full 399 minus 60 and so on.
After the cooperation with Suning, in the field of digital 3C, Meituan Flash Sale covers nearly 3,000 SKUs. “The entry of Suning.com can quickly enrich the supply of digital home appliances for Meituan Flash, and it can also continue to attract the attention of more digital 3C leading brands, accelerating the supply coverage of Meituan Flash’s digital home appliances.” The relevant person in charge of the digital home appliance category of Meituan flash sale said.
Electronic products take the road of takeaway
The sales staff of Beijing Xiaocai Heshenghui store told reporters that consumers who are more familiar with digital products are more likely to choose online orders, while consumers who experience products for the first time prefer to choose stores. The distribution range is mainly within 5 kilometers of the surrounding area, and the same city express can be sent further away.
For merchants, new channels mean an increase. The above-mentioned Beijing Xiaocai Heshenghui store salesperson said that instant retail online sales are an increase for the store, and selling one more product is the icing on the cake for the store. On the other hand, because of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, online selection and ordering are more convenient for consumers. She said that the recent epidemic situation has been unstable, and people like Hopson Hui are usually in the front row in Beijing shopping malls, and there are not many people recently.
Cui Lili, a professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and director of the E-Commerce Research Institute, told reporters that due to the control of the epidemic and the increasingly “housed” living habits of young consumers, some 3C well-known brands have high-quality products with sufficient market information. For products, it is easier to realize consumption through online selection, price comparison, and offline instant purchase. This consumption scenario should have greater market potential among young groups.
“Now that the prices of products on the whole platform are unified, the main reason for choosing hourly shopping is that it is fast, and going to a physical store is because it can be seen and touched. Online shopping generally requires waiting. Now the instant retail model is between physical stores and online stores. , don’t wait.” The above-mentioned Beijing Xiaocai Heshenghui store salesperson said.
Liang Zhenpeng, a senior industrial economic observer, told the Economic Observer that categories such as mobile phones, computers, and small household appliances can be purchased instantly, but the installation of large items is more complicated. Compared with daily necessities, digital 3C has a higher unit price and can promote platform sales. . However, the efficiency of instant purchase supply relies heavily on local stores. Under the category expansion, the platform needs more store expansion.
Express logistics expert and CEO of Guanshuo Capital, Zhao Xiaomin, told the Economic Observer reporter that digital 3C delivery has just begun, and the current demand is still concentrated for accessories for digital home appliances. , there is considerable room for improvement. He said that the current platform also has a tendency to expand to a larger range, but the boundary of more than five kilometers is very limited, and traditional channels such as e-commerce are still the mainstream.
Small market to big market
Instant retail is no longer a small market.
Compared with traditional e-commerce and food delivery and other businesses, the instant retail market is also one of the fastest growing businesses on the platform this year. Dada Group’s second-quarter financial report shows that in the 12 months ended June 30, 2022, the total transaction volume (GMV) of JD Daojia was 54.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.9%. The average daily order volume of Meituan Flash Sales in the second quarter was 4.3 million. Previously, Wang Xing of Meituan said that the daily order volume of Meituan Flash Sales may exceed 10 million in the future.
Last year, the total transaction value (GMV) of Meituan’s flash sales reached 12% of the total transaction value of food delivery, which is 84.2 billion yuan; JD Daojia’s total platform transaction value (GMV) in 2021 reached 43.1 billion yuan.
Not only domestic, but also foreign supermarkets and platforms have begun to explore the model of instant retail. On October 14, Uber announced that it has reached a cooperation with Boots, a large British cosmetics supermarket chain, in instant retailing. Uber will connect 14 Boots stores to the instant delivery network, providing consumers with 30-minute delivery services. In September of this year, Amazon announced the acquisition of Cloostermans, a Belgian warehouse robotics company. Amazon also launched the fourth-generation air delivery drone MK27-2, which provides consumers with extremely fast services to deliver goods within 30 minutes.
As the two largest platforms in the domestic instant retail scene, Meituan Flash Shopping and JD Daojia previously mainly covered offline stores such as supermarkets and convenience stores, but now they have expanded to mother and baby, flowers, beauty, medicine, clothing, digital home appliances, etc. Various categories. In terms of clothing, this year, JD Daojia has also reached a cooperation with Decathlon, and has previously cooperated with Heilan Home and Shengdao Sports.
Xiaocai has stores in Meituan Flash and JD Daojia. The sales staff of the above-mentioned Beijing Xiaocai Heshenghui store told reporters that because the subsidy stages of different platforms are different, the stage sales of different platforms will also have an impact. She mentioned that in terms of store push, JD’s big data will do better. As long as you have browsed Xiaocai’s stores, as long as there is an event, the JD Daojia platform will push more frequently than Meituan.
In addition, the Xiaocai store will also broadcast live on JD Daojia. Many consumers do not understand the product and need further explanation from the staff. “Through live broadcast, there are both direct and indirect effects. In addition to increasing sales, you can also accumulate some prospective customers by introducing products. Unlike physical stores, the accumulation of prospective customers in physical stores is too slow. There are not many people a day. The speed is faster.” The above-mentioned Beijing Xiaocai Heshenghui store salesperson told reporters.
A report from China Merchants Securities shows that instant retail will reach a scale of around one trillion yuan in 2026, with an industry CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 30-40%. It is expected that the platform model will become the mainstream model with stronger traffic advantages and profitability. , reaching a scale of about 800 billion yuan in 2026.