From twenty-five minutes to fifteen minutes
The food was not served, and the wine arrived first
This is undoubtedly the highest rating for instant liquor retailing
As long as it's fast, it's enough?
Recently, friends in Hangzhou opened the Meituan APP, and they may all find that there is a "crooked horse to send wine" service column on the homepage. In April this year, Meituan opened the wine to many cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in a month's time, and based on the development of the past two years, the expansion rate has only increased, which is determined to eat a piece of the "cake" in the instant wine retail market.
Instant retail, only fast and not broken? Efficiency is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition. SKU richness, wine quality, consumer repurchase rate, etc., all affect the profitability of the store to a certain extent. In the end, who can grab the top spot of this trillion-dollar track first?
In the past two years, Crooked Horse has opened a new store in an average of 1.8 days. Starting from 2023, it will go out of Guangdong Province, successively winning Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi'an, Beijing, Changsha, and many cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in April this year, reaching 500+ stores so far. "In 2022, the order volume of Crooked Horse Delivery will increase by more than 1,500% year-on-year." "The full-year transaction volume for 2023 increased by 600% year-on-year." It seems that the results of Crooked Horse Wine Delivery have demonstrated the potential of the instant retail format.
At the end of last year, An Zhongjie, general manager of the wine delivery channel business, said in a speech that the entire Meituan flash sale has reached 175 billion in the past four quarters, and it is expected that the scale of instant retail will reach one trillion in 2026, and the Meituan flash sale platform will almost reach 400 billion. At the same time, Meituan Flash Sale also released a forecast that in 2023, the instant retail penetration rate of alcohol will be 1%, nearly 20 billion. By 2027, it is expected to penetrate 6%, with a scale of about 100 billion.
There are traces of the instant retail explosion including alcohol, from "you need to order alcohol temporarily for dinner parties", to "it is more convenient to buy alcohol for takeout", to "you can drink alcohol without thinking about going out", from solving urgent needs to active consumption desires, in the final analysis, it conforms to the people's growing demand for a better life. According to the latest "2023 Instant Retail Liquor White Paper", from 2020 to 2022, the scale of the instant retail market will increase by 83% for beer, 628% for foreign liquor, and 554% for liquor.
The reason why crooked horses can become dark horses is that they have invested heavily in the word "namely". Meituan Takeaway and Xiaoxiang's self-operated supermarkets both take "the fastest delivery in 30 minutes" as their self-requirements, while Crooked Horse Wine Delivery is even more desperate, shouting the slogan of "an average of 15 minutes, slow must pay". Cooperate with brands and distributors to unify the self-operated supply chain, and it is understood that the current front warehouse SKU can reach about 800. Under the city, it is equipped with a front-end warehouse mode, and self-distribution is arranged nearby. In April this year, the front warehouse of Crooked Horse Wine Delivery has just been laid out in Hangzhou, and it can be seen on many social platforms that you can recruit part-time store assistants, who can get delivery fees and famous wine commissions at the same time.
It is reported that most of the old Guangdong stores that have been open for two years have made a profit. Can Meituan's flash sale, which is advertised as "fast, more, true and cheap", stand the test of consumers?
At present, there is no independent APP for Crooked Horse Delivery, and there is only an entrance in the Meituan APP. Hangzhou users can enjoy the activity of "opening carnival", and newcomers can enjoy a full discount of "20 minus 10, 89 minus 15, 119 minus 18, and 199 minus 29". At 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day, there are a limited number of types of wines, and the number of products is about 30. However, in the name of the discount time-limited rush purchase, the actual discount is mediocre, and the price is basically 8-9% off the original price, and one of the snap purchases "Dry Dew Red Devil Chardonnay Dry White" is 7.6% off, which is already the most powerful.
If it is the first time to use the crooked horse to send wine to the new user, you can still get wool, such as "Luson Riesling" 79 yuan/bottle (750 ml, the same below), "Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc" 108 yuan/bottle, "Martini Asti" 78 yuan/bottle, basically the lowest price on the whole network. However, there are also some wines that are not attractive for newcomers, such as "Sauvignon Blanc in Cloud Bay" at 225 yuan per bottle, which is higher than the inactive price of other online shopping platforms. However, on the whole, the price of wine delivery has become more competitive than that of real-time retail old-timers such as "Wine Convenience" and "1919".
Crooked horse wine has also launched a membership card mechanism, the quarterly card is divided into 17.9 yuan light version and 49.9 yuan two grades, the annual card is 169.9 yuan, the high-priced season card and the annual card can be free of charge, the season card can receive RIO, Budweiser, Orlan Little Red Riding Hood and other brand products of about dozens of yuan. The annual card can be Lingye Ge, Lafite Legend, Mei Mi, liquor and whiskey for about 100 yuan, etc. At the same time, the membership card can also enjoy the membership price, such as the "Basque Selection Cabernet Sauvignon" membership price of 199 yuan / bottle, which is equivalent to 6.6% off the original price, but the membership price of most products is about 20% off.
As far as wine is concerned, the two elements of "low price" and "no trouble to drink" are met in order to become instant wines, and these simple wines have the opportunity to penetrate into a wider market. Regardless of the retail platform, it is difficult to provide a decanting service, but it is still possible to provide an ice service.
Interestingly, the evaluation area of Crooked Horse Wine has been renamed "Wine Friend Scoring", and you can see that consumers who have drunk this wine will give reasons for recommending or not recommending, and when the number of reviews is greater than 20, the corresponding score will be displayed on the wine page.
At present, it seems that only wine is not supported by famous wines in the wine list of Crooked Horse, Baijiu has Feitian Moutai and Dream Blue M9 for sale, foreign wines have Martell and Hennessy XO cognac, whiskey has Yamazaki 12 years, Macallan 15 years, and sake has Dassai, it seems that we still have to work hard to win Kanti, Dijin, Howling Eagle and the like.
Although just-in-time retail is considered a market that can bring new growth to alcoholic goods, it is not so easy to make money in this channel full of potential. It can be seen from the crooked horse to send wine that at present, Hangzhou is not a 24-hour full-time distribution, nor is it a city-wide distribution, only in the previous warehouse as the center of the fixed range can be sent, Xiaobian according to the actual order address to estimate that it is within 3 kilometers. It is undeniable that distance is the decisive factor in determining the delivery time, and how to get through the last mile is a difficult problem faced by every instant retailer.
On the other hand, consumers usually choose instant retail platforms to buy more familiar products, for example, in the alcohol category, beer is more prominent in the instant retail channel, because the brands that drink often are more common and have clear purchase goals. For wine, it is not dominant, except for a few brands that have a certain reputation in the consumer market and are affordable and easy to drink, there are more wines that are not well-known and need to be savored, so wine needs to be more prominent in the appearance of the characteristics, as accurate as possible in the description of taste and aroma, etc., in order to catch the attention of consumers among the competitors.
Just-in-time retail caters to just-in-time gratification, and brands can tap into this channel to enrich the minds of consumers. But from another point of view, there are many brands in the wine market that deliberately maintain a rare tonality, which also makes this type of wine not suitable for the mass market, after all, the price of a good wine must be tasted before anyone is willing to order.
In the end, in this promising blue ocean track of instant retail, who can handle the details of rider delivery and in-store stocking, and who can control the balance of SKU types, prices and profits, some people say that the ceiling of instant retail is very low and will soon be saturated, but Xiaole wants to say that the road to instant retail is very long, and for consumers, there is no most satisfaction, only more satisfaction.