Author: Feng Qing
Source: E-commerce Headlines (id: ecxinwen)
Hungry Abeaver, the new cause of the US group!
Fined 3.4 billion, meituan still worked silently.
Recently, there are media reports that the US group personally opened a restaurant. It is reported that Meituan tested the water in Zhengzhou and Beijing, the brand name is "Hungry Beaver", the main business is spicy pot.
According to public information, the business company of "Hungry Ahu" is Beijing Shifeng Catering Management Co., Ltd., the legal representative is Kang Kai, and Kang Kai is the general manager of the Meituan Takeaway Innovation Business Department. In addition, the trademark "Hungry Ahu" was applied for registration by Beijing Sankuai Technology Co., Ltd., and the company's suspected actual controller was Wang Xing.
From the above clues, it can be inferred that meituan does intend to personally go down and enter the catering industry.
In order to find out, the author opened the Meituan app.
According to the Zhengzhou area, there are two spicy pot shops, namely Jinshui Store and Daxue Road Store. In terms of sales, the business of the two stores is quite depressed. One of the stores had 5 reviews, all posted in 2020, with an overall rating of 4.1.
Beijing is expected to be a store in Beijing, and there are only 6 reviews in pieces, all released in the first half of this year.
Judging from the takeaway performance of these three stores, The Fox does not seem to be successful.
However, as far as the evaluation content sent by netizens can be found, unlike the general street shops, the fox has a unified packaging, all printed with the text and brand logo of the fox.
This also means that the hungry fox is taking the restaurant self-operated chain model.
It is worth noting that the US group personally went down to do catering, and it was not the first time. As early as 2019, Meituan opened a Sichuan restaurant called "Meixiang Little Chef" in Beijing and launched the milk tea brand "Meixiang Milk Tea".
From the Meixiang Kitchen in 2019 to the Hungry Beaver launched in 2020, the splash is not large, but it also implies the attempt of the US group to enter the catering industry.
However, the US group's entry into catering is quite low-key. The reason for this may be that meituan does not want to put pressure on platform merchants, so it has not publicized it with great fanfare.
According to meituan's financial report, as of the end of 2020, the number of active merchants in Meituan was 6.8 million, an increase of 10 percentage points against the trend, a new record high.
For these 6.8 million merchants, Meituan's personal opening of stores may be a potential threat, but as far as the current situation is concerned, merchants are an important source for Meituan.
In addition, the success of these brands does not affect meituan's main business. Even if the investment of two or three years has not aroused a little splash, the US group is still calm!
Nugget catering, capital carnival!
The wheels of the times rolled forward, crushing the traces of the broken moon.
More than a decade ago, we could eat at a small street shop without a name and drink a simple version of milk tea without any brand logo.
But today, our food and beverage choices have changed dramatically. Instead, there are chain brands such as Haidilao, Xiaolongkan, Hefu Lao noodles, Tai'er, Tanyu, Little Point, Mixue Ice City, Xicha, and Chabaidao.
Chaining and branding are becoming a new trend in the entire catering industry.
"Meituan University School of Catering" once published a ranking, from 2018 to 2020, the highest rate of chaining of food and beverage categories are drinks, bread desserts, Western food. Among them, the chain rate of drinks reached 36% in 2020, and hot pot reached 19%.
Compared with the traditional nameless small shops, chain stores mean greater investment, longer line, comprehensive market strategy, so the requirements for capital investment have also increased.
As a result, behind the chain of restaurants, the capital forces have all appeared.
According to the "Prospective Industry Research Institute", as of August this year, the investment amount of the catering industry reached 43.9 billion yuan. Compared with the highest result of the past decade, 46.7 billion in 2018, there is only a gap of 2.8 billion. Coupled with the 4 months at the end of the year, it is bound to exceed this record.
It is worth noting that in addition to the traditional catering giants, some new faces have also begun to enter the catering.
In May this year, some media reported that Lu Zhengyao, the founder of the original Luckin, officially entered the noodle industry, the brand name was "Small Noodle Diary", and set a small goal, first open 500 and then say. However, from coffee to noodle restaurants, they belong to the same catering industry, and there are many similar business logics.
In stark contrast, there is the catering layout of a number of Internet companies. Relevant statistics show that Tencent, Byte, and Station B have all bet on the catering industry.
In terms of Tencent, it has invested in tims coffee, Sheng Xiang Ting, Hefu Noodles, and Xi Tea. In terms of bytes, it has invested in lemon tea brands Lemon Season, Manner Coffee, Shark Fit, Houxue Liquor, and Lazy Bear Hot Pot. In terms of station b, it invested in Eagle Set Coffee and Pink Burger. Two days ago, it was reported that Tencent Xiaomi indirectly held shares in Cha Yan Yue.
From star brands to catering rookies, they have begun to have the figure of Internet giants.
You may wonder, if the good Internet industry does not do it, why should it enter the fierce competition and the profit is not as good as the Internet industry??
In this regard, you need to understand a simple and straightforward truth - the main purpose of Internet giants to do catering is not money. They are not short of money, but want to gain a foothold in popular markets. More precisely, Internet companies with deep pockets hope to reach a larger market and consumers in a close and all-round way.
As the saying goes, the people take food as heaven. The catering industry is the most convenient entrance for Internet giants to get close to consumers.
To the store, to the home, home to do, one can not be less!
I once saw a sentence on the Internet: "No matter what industry you are in, the opponent who really poses the greatest threat to you must not be the opponent in the industry now, but the competitors outside the industry that you can't see." ”
Subverting Meituan is certainly not another takeaway platform!
In the field of local life, Meitu has firmly taken the first place. But for Wang Xing, this is far from realizing his theory of no boundaries.
In addition to takeaway, Meituan has also been actively exploring new business segments, such as sharing bicycles, online car-hailing, and sharing charging treasures. However, these new businesses did not bring substantial gains, but rather increasing losses.
In May this year, Meituan released its first quarter financial report. The data shows that the loss in the first quarter of this year was 8.044 billion, a year-on-year increase of 489.9%. At the end of April, Meituan also issued an announcement to raise $10 billion.
The outside world speculates that the new business development of the US group is not smooth, so it will face a loss dilemma.
However, the US group is not blindly expanding. Taking community group buying as an example, the main purpose of Meituan is to win another high-frequency market. Under normal circumstances, there are three forms of eating: going to the store, going home, and doing it yourself. The rise of takeaway has replaced the two models of going to the store and doing it yourself, but the objective demand has not disappeared.
Essentially, these three models are mutually exclusive, and you won't order takeout when you cook your own meals. Meituan's takeaway business only covers one kind of eating scene, so Meituan will actively infiltrate into the community group purchase. In the past two years, I have personally opened a store, also to cover the scene of arriving at the store.
And all these attempts and cross-borders just respond to Wang Xing's words: "All things actually have no simple boundaries, so I don't think we have to set limits for ourselves." As long as the core is clear – who do we really serve? What services are provided to them? We will continue to try all kinds of businesses. ”