Online supermarket war: Douyin ignition Maochao, Meituan, and Jingdong take over

Cai Lian News|New Consumption Daily, April 6 (Reporter Liang Youyun Li Danyu) In 2023, the dispute between Internet giants and supermarkets will gradually surface.

Recently, Tmall Supermarket announced the launch of the "half-day delivery" service in Hangzhou. The reporter of New Consumption Daily learned from Tmall supermarket that by the end of this year, Tmall supermarket "half-day delivery" is expected to cover 20 cities across the country, of which the coverage rate of cities with a population of more than 10 million has reached 100%, and Shanghai and Beijing are in the first batch of 20 cities in the plan.

With the launch of the "half-day delivery" service on Tmall Supermarket, the competition between Jingdong Supermarket Hourly Shopping, Meituan Tomorrow Delivery Supermarket, and Douyin Supermarket has gradually upgraded from the roll category to the roll timeliness and delivery performance capabilities.

"The entry of Douyin supermarket has indeed rejuvenated the entire industry, but from the perspective of distribution and warehousing, Douyin cannot be compared with the other three, and the competition in the industry will still be concentrated between Ali, Meituan, and JD.com." Retail industry analyst Ling Feiyu told reporters.

Tmall Supermarket continues to make efforts to deliver half-day

"Currently, more than half of the orders placed by consumers in the morning are delivered by 6 p.m., and more than half of the orders placed in the evening and late at night are delivered in the morning." Shuai Yong, vice president of Cainiao Logistics and president of Cainiao's domestic supply chain division, said, "Some consumers place orders late at night and regret that they want to return the order when they wake up in the morning, but the express brother is already at the door."

According to the communication between Tmall, Cainiao and various consumer brands after the "half-day delivery" press conference, after Hangzhou, the "half-day delivery" will expand rapidly and become one of the key points of growth this year.

"After the end of April, it will be settled in Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan... The first batch of 20 cities will be online for half-day delivery this year, and the pace of opening is expected to accelerate. Tmall supermarket staff believe that the "middle class economic circle" composed of 20 core first-tier cities has strong regional consumption potential.

In addition, not only mature high-tier cities, but also third- and fourth-tier cities are also in the future planning of "half-day delivery", which may be the second batch of "half-day" cities after 2023.

Tmall Supermarket "Half-Day Delivery" launched a promotional page in Hangzhou

So what is the essential difference between Tmall Supermarket's "half-day delivery" and offline supermarkets and group buying such as Hema and RT-Mart?

"Plastic bags and express delivery are still two logics," Liu Yiman, vice president of Alibaba's B2C retail business group and general manager of Tmall Supermarket, told the New Consumption Daily reporter, plastic bags are difficult to make large goods, such as large barrels of oil, pet food, etc., so offline supermarkets mainly do small and medium-sized items, express delivery can solve large goods. At the same time, Tmall supermarket consumers are concentrated in young and middle-aged families, who need exquisite retail goods from around the world, while the supermarket community focuses on silver-haired people and more fresh food categories.

At the same time, Shuai Yong revealed in an interview that "half-day delivery" has reached the "physical limit" of the logistics industry, and this process suddenly includes time for picking goods out of the warehouse and point-to-point delivery. "If we want to be fast, I look forward to the advancement of technology, such as the fact that we can build the entire link of the unmanned distribution system."

As for the core cost issue, Liu Yiman directly said: "We have not given the cost to the business, which is our commitment today." At the same time, she also believes that Tmall supermarket can in turn provide supporting facilities for merchants to deepen their cultivation in a certain region and city.

In communication with merchants, Liu Yiman once again stressed that the cost will not be passed on, and revealed that most of the logistics cost has been borne by Cainiao, and Tmall Supermarket has also shared part of it.

When asked about the competition and investment situation of Tmall Express with JD.com and Meituan's next-day delivery after speeding up, Liu Yiman said frankly: "If the price is particularly low, I don't recommend making Tmall supermarket." ”

Although the operating costs of Tmall supermarkets cannot be minimal, and low-price promotions are also welcome, bad reviews are also one of the assessment criteria. Liu Yiman believes that the positioning of Tmall Supermarket is to serve the brand and provide better services for consumers.

It is reported that Tmall Supermarket will be a double-digit growth in 2022, and it has also carried out a lot of "cost reduction and efficiency increase" transformation, and this year's goal will also be double-digit growth.

"The first is that it must grow, and if the platform does not lose so much money, but the business does not grow, then there is no need to do it." Liu Yiman also revealed that this year's internal keyword of Tmall Supermarket was set as "Endeavor".

Douyin stirs up industry competition Ali, Meituan, and JD.com add code

In October last year, Meituan adjusted its community group buying brand Meituan Preferred to "Tomorrow Supermarket". At that time, after the Tuanhao Goods Division was transferred to Meituan Preferred, it further expanded the SKU for "Tomorrow to the Supermarket", which became a supplement to Meituan's instant retail business.

In 2023, Meituan Youxuan further lowered the starting price of home delivery, from 30 yuan to 10 yuan, becoming the platform with the lowest starting price in the "supermarket war".

But what really stirs up the competition in the industry is still Douyin.

Kaiyuan Securities said in the research report that the number of daily active users of Douyin has exceeded 600 million, and the huge user traffic with wide distribution and different portraits is an important advantage for its development of online supermarkets.

At present, the reserve price of free shipping in Tmall Supermarket, Douyin Supermarket and Jingdong Supermarket is about 80 yuan, but in the promotion stage, Douyin has launched a preferential gift package "Newcomer Three Single Gifts", the first free shipping and three consecutive orders to give away 6 yuan coupons.

According to one supplier, Douyin uses a directional access method to introduce suppliers, that is, it first receives initial consultation from suppliers of specific brands or categories of goods, and then formally introduces them after assessing that they meet the requirements. "Compared with JD.com, Douyin supermarket is less difficult to introduce, which may be related to the fact that it is in the expansion stage and is eager to supplement the commodity category."

However, from the perspective of timeliness, most products in Douyin supermarkets show "payment before 16:00, same day delivery", the actual receipt time is mostly "next-day delivery" or "next-day delivery", and remote areas may be "multi-day delivery", which is not as good as Meituan's "tomorrow's delivery" and the "hourly delivery" or "half-day delivery" provided by Jingdong Supermarket and Tmall Supermarket.

Guoyuan International analysts believe that in the current environment, supermarket distribution is the core factor affecting user experience, with a high competition threshold, and whether the platform can achieve a positive cycle depends entirely on the efficiency of commodity fulfillment, scale effect and coverage area.

"Therefore, we believe that Douyin Supermarket is still in the construction stage, and needs to cultivate user habits through cash incentive policies, and Douyin Supermarket does not have its own team of riders." While Meituan has a delivery team of about 5 million, JD.com relies on Dada Group to achieve good capacity, which will take time to verify in the future. ”

In other words, the delivery fulfillment capability has become the main barrier between Alibaba, JD.com, Meituan and Douyin.

Shuai Yong, president of Cainiao's domestic supply chain division, also said that "half-day delivery almost reaches the time limit of the express logistics industry".

As the supermarket dispute between Ali, JD.com and Meituan enters the scope of "half-day delivery", whether Douyin supermarkets can break the competitive pattern with the help of traffic advantages and subsidies will become the focus of the market.

(Cai Lian News Agency reporter Li Danyu Liang Youyun)