The author | Gu Twenty
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Takeaway, as a hot search topic almost half a year in the past two years, almost contracts all the attention of the national consumer economy.
Behind the unprecedented attention is that in the context of the repeated impact of the epidemic on offline dine-in, the main scenes of catering operations have begun to change: from the pre-epidemic dine-in as the mainstay, takeaway as a supplement has gradually evolved into a post-epidemic business scenario of takeaway-based and dine-in supplemented.
The changes in the catering business scene have made the status of dine-in and takeaway interchangeable, and online catering consumption has become the main source of business, but also made the takeaway commission once become one of the focal points of the cost dispute in the catering industry.
One of the core issues of controversy is: How high are the takeaway commissions?
Small and medium-sized catering merchants understand the commission often refers to the platform commission, from the financial report data, in 2020, the Meituan takeaway commission is only 13.6%, and 70% is used to pay the rider's fee.
So in a takeaway order transaction, how much is the actual commission that belongs to the platform? As a platform, Meituan mainly plays an information matching role in merchants' meals and consumer demand, in the information matching link, the commercial nature of takeaway is basically the same as that of the e-commerce platform, providing trading venues, matching transactions, and charging certain technical usage fees accordingly.
According to the report of Zhongtai Securities, according to the average commission amount, the average commission of Meituan is significantly lower than that of Tmall, and it is at the same level as Pinduoduo, with a fee rate of only about 2%.
So why is there so little controversy over commissions in the e-commerce industry, but so many controversies in the takeaway industry? On the one hand, compared with the penetration rate of nearly 30% of the e-commerce economy in the retail field, the takeaway economy, which has a penetration rate of only about 2% in the catering industry, is still in the early stage of industry development, and the relationship between merchants, platforms and consumers is still in the exploration and run-in period. Different from the specialization and professionalization of e-commerce practitioners, most of the takeaway practitioners who are still in the early stage of development are concentrated in the growth and learning period, which inevitably leads to business misunderstandings and controversies.
On the other hand, in the two years of repeated epidemics, subject to the large environmental impact, small and medium-sized businesses in the main body of the takeaway economy have become the main stressors. According to the data of Aurora JIGUANG's "2021 Catering Takeaway Merchant Research Report", during 2020, the overall revenue of the catering industry fell by 16.6% year-on-year, and the epidemic factor made the catering industry decline for the first time in nearly eight years. Faced with empirical pressure, most of the small and medium-sized merchants with poor anti-risk ability will transfer the operational pressure to the platform service provider, resulting in commission misunderstandings.
For the platform, as the hub linking all parties in the takeaway ecology, it is natural to consider the development status of various ecological stakeholders and tide over the difficulties with them. 10 days after the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Several Policies on Promoting the Recovery and Development of Difficult Industries in the Service Industry Sector", Meituan gave a support measure for difficult businesses.
On March 1, Meituan said through its WeChat public account that it will launch six support measures to help small and medium-sized merchants affected by the epidemic from two aspects: cost reduction and income increase.
Among them, in terms of cost reduction, Meituan proposed measures such as halving the commission for small and medium-sized merchants affected by the epidemic to reduce the pressure on merchants, and further promote the scope of rate transparency to achieve throttlement and pain relief.
In terms of increasing revenue, it will provide free "takeaway butler services" for difficult merchants with insufficient online business capabilities, as well as take-out order receiving equipment such as cloud printers and food treasures, and will hold 100 merchant earnest talks to continuously improve the open source hematopoietic business capabilities for merchants.
Out of the commission misunderstanding, how to seize the preferential commission policy of this platform, after relieving pain, rapid hematopoiesis is obviously a compulsory course in catering operations.
01 Cost-lowering throttling is only analgesic
In terms of cost reduction and cost reduction, Meituan mainly launched two measures: the commission of difficult merchants in the epidemic area was halved and capped at 1 yuan per single; and the commission of small and medium-sized merchants with operating difficulties was capped at 5%. Observing the specific scope and object of implementation of the measures, it can be found that it is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized merchants affected by the epidemic and have operational difficulties, and the flexible operating costs are reduced within the effective time.
Different from the three high costs of "rent, manpower and ingredients" in the traditional catering format, takeaway did not have a clear effective operating cost before. In May 2021, Meituan Takeaway launched a reform of rate transparency, which greatly improved the clarity of takeaway operating costs.
The fees paid by merchants to the platform are clearly technical service fees and performance service fees, of which the technical service fees are platform revenues, that is, the actual platform commissions. The fulfillment service fee is mainly for the rider delivery service fee, which is mainly used to pay for the delivery cost, and only if the merchant chooses the platform delivery, this part of the cost will be incurred, which improves the flexibility of the operating cost.
First of all, transparency allows merchants to clarify the cost structure of each takeaway order, know where the money is spent, and resolve the commission misunderstanding. For example, in the view of Mr. Xiong, a Shaoguan merchant who runs a double-hand toast shop, a Doublemays big wave puff shop, and a 24-flavor coffee shop in the world: "We also found that the delivery costs of many orders to riders account for almost the vast majority of the overall cost, and each order actually charged by the platform is often a few cents. ”
Secondly, after the rate reform, for Mr. Xiong, the overall service fee expenditure has been reduced a lot on the previous basis. According to the data, in the survey of takeaway merchants who have completed the reform of rate transparency, 85% of merchants believe that the rate reform can bring a positive effect to the catering industry; more than 50% of merchants say that they can actually perceive the benefits from it; 35% of merchants say that they will increase the proportion of investment in takeaway business in the future.
In addition, unlike the rent that occupies the main operating cost of a store, which is a fixed cost expenditure, the commission in the takeaway operation is often closely related to the order, and there is no commission without the order, and the commission is the flexible expenditure in the operating cost. The essence is based on the digital economy of pay-as-you-go, but also greatly improve the effectiveness of operating costs.
Not only that, but the level of traditional operating costs often comes from the maintenance of human relationships. Take the main operating cost rent as an example, because there is no clear regulatory approach, it is often easy to rise.
For example, for the northeast large stuffed dumpling merchants in the Nanchang area, a store in Wuhan signed a contract for 3800 yuan for a year when it was signed half a year ago. As a result, after half a year of operation, the landlord saw that the business was good, asked for a price increase to 4200 yuan, and at the end of the year, it rose to 4500 yuan, and in just one year, it rose by 20%, making it have the idea of moving away.
In contrast, the cost of takeaway operation is obviously clear and effective, and each commission cost corresponds to the relevant service. For example, the takeaway platform provides consumers with a review mode for catering, delivery speed, service, etc., and catering enterprises can clearly position consumers' needs and tastes according to consumers' comments and transaction volume. At the same time, according to the consumption trend, restaurants can innovate dishes more targetedly, increase user experience, and improve consumers' loyalty and dependence on catering stores.
Unlike the traditional catering format, which often has a relationship with the lessee limited to the use of physical space, relying on the maintenance of human relationships, and even generating high price increases, for the takeaway catering format, merchants, riders, users and platforms are based on the closely related interest community of the digital industry.
For example, the preferential commission policy for small and medium-sized businesses with operational difficulties is that in the relevant business process, as a digital economy platform, Meituan has played the role of participant and service provider, highlighting the sense of social responsibility.
However, despite this, but the cost reduction and hemostasis can only alleviate the difficulties of small and medium-sized businesses, for businesses, the substantive problem of business difficulties still exists, the direct impact of the decline in passenger flow under the epidemic, and the indirect impact of the income reduction brought about by the economic downturn. Obviously, as a merchant, thinking about how to based on the takeaway digital economy platform, better open source and efficiency is the main backbone.
02 Open source efficiency is a compulsory course
As a digital economy platform, in addition to helping merchants relieve pain, Meituan still takes the lead in helping merchants adapt to the changes and transformation of post-epidemic consumption scenarios.
Specifically, it is mainly divided into two parts: software services and intelligent hardware facilities. In terms of software services, the "takeaway butler service" launched last year mainly includes door-to-door service, giving optimization suggestions from online store design, business status analysis, takeaway meal development, marketing activity planning, etc., and teaching merchants to open online stores by hand.
According to the 2021 data, merchants who have used the "takeaway butler service" have an average monthly increase in transaction volume by 79%, while their anti-risk ability has been significantly enhanced, and the survival rate is 39% higher than that of merchants who have not used the butler service.
Based on the advantages of software services, among the six measures, Meituan said that in 2022, it will expand the scope of takeaway butler services, continue to invest in special subsidies, and provide 100,000 "takeaway butler service" places for small and medium-sized merchants in difficulty for free, helping merchants quickly improve their online operation capabilities, open takeaway stores, and increase revenue.
If the "takeaway butler service" is a digital tool to help merchants transform from the perspective of thinking and business philosophy, then the intelligent hardware facilities are to help small and medium-sized business operators achieve refined management from the level of store intelligence.
Digital hardware facilities are mainly divided into two categories: cloud printers and meal treasures, the former is a takeaway order printer that automatically receives orders and realizes the effective management of peak burst orders; the latter is an intelligent scanning code dining equipment, improving the docking efficiency of meals and riders, and realizing the refined management of the food process by merchants as a whole.
In terms of smart hardware, Meituan said that it will provide free takeaway cloud printers to small and medium-sized merchants in high-risk areas of the epidemic, and give 30,000 sets of meal treasures to small and medium-sized merchants with difficulties in operation across the country, helping merchants bring more orders and improve operational efficiency. The measure is effective from the date when the local area is classified as a medium- and high-risk area until one month after the closure is lifted.
In addition to software services and hardware facilities, in terms of open source, Meituan will also give special traffic support to newly launched small and medium-sized merchants to help inexperienced merchants quickly realize the maturity of takeaway operations.
In addition to substantially helping merchants improve the operating capacity of the takeaway economy, improving the full communication and transparency of platforms and merchants is also part of the open source operation. For example, the previous commission misunderstanding of small and medium-sized merchants came from the low full communication between the platform and the merchant to a certain extent.
Whether it is cost reduction and throttling, or open source and efficiency, the premise of both is the soil for full communication, and only full communication can establish a good community of interests. Based on this, Meituan proposed to accelerate the transparent coverage of fees and 100 merchant earnest talks across the country to improve service levels and solve the problem of practical results.
For every participant, service provider, and operator in the takeaway economy, open source efficiency improvement is the core to improve the effectiveness of operation and management, and get more benefits in the takeaway digital economy industry. It is not only the original intention of local life dominated by meituan, but also a compulsory course for small and medium-sized businesses in the face of the digital economy.