Chapter 247 The takeaway subsidy war that broke out in advance

“By the way, boss, there is one more thing that Meituan and Are You Hungry contacted us before, wanting to buy advertisements on Daily Toutiao and Neihan Duanzi.” Gao Meng said.

“Buy an ad? Why did they suddenly remember to buy an ad?”

“It seems that Meituan has begun to enter the food delivery industry.” Qin Beibei said.

“Huh? Sister Qin, how did you know?” Gao Meng asked in a daze.

“My hometown is not from Hebei! My parents told me last month that Meituan riders in yellow clothes can often be seen in SJZ walking around the city.

I asked my brother later, and my brother said that it was indeed Meituan that started to do takeaways. Just download Meituan Takeaway and you can get coupons. You usually go to a restaurant for 2.30 meals, and you can spend a few dollars on Meituan. Eat it, and you don’t have to go out, they will deliver it. ” Qin Beibei explained.

After listening to Qin Beibei’s words, Luo Fan was a little surprised. In his impression, did the takeaway subsidy war only started in late 2013 and early 2014? How did this start in early ’13?

The so-called takeaway subsidy war refers to a staged marketing method that began in 2014, Meituan, Are you hungry, and Baidu Takeaway in order to compete for the market and gain more customers.

Meituan and Are You Hungry are among the top two, and Baidu entered in May 2014.

At that time, Penguin and Ali took the lead in the transformation of the mobile Internet, one completed a monopoly in the field of payment, and the other took the lead in the field of mobile social networking.

Baidu has even lost a lot of its own basic search engine. In order to reverse the decline, Baidu turned its attention to the O2O field. At that time, Baidu President Li publicly stated that he would invest 20 billion in the O2O field.

In January 2014, Baidu launched Baidu Nuomi to lay out the O2O market. In May of the same year, Baidu Takeaway was launched.

But unlike Meituan and Are You Hungry, Baidu Takeaway was initially positioned in the mid-to-high-end white-collar market.

At that time, the food delivery battlefield was full of gunpowder smoke. Ele.me and Meituan completed the D and C rounds of financing respectively, occupying half of the food delivery market share.

Baidu Takeaway started half a year later than them, and did not want to confront them head-on, so they chose to take a different approach.

In the beginning, Baidu Takeaway did do a good job. With sufficient operating funds and high unit price per customer, it once held the top spot in the white-collar market, and its share in the entire takeaway market has gradually risen to the third position.

But later, Baidu Takeout failed, and was eventually acquired by Ele.me.

In Luo Fan’s view, the failure of Baidu Waimai is mostly blamed on three strategic mistakes.

First of all, in 2015, when competitors were expanding wildly, Baidu Takeaway did the opposite, focusing on the construction of takeaway ecosystems such as fresh food, food supply, and central kitchen, and reduced subsidies to users. , resulting in a decline in market share.

At the same time, Meituan and Dianping announced the merger, and the pattern of the food delivery market became clearer. Meituan Dianping belongs to the Penguin camp, and Ele.me represents Ali’s lineup. Penguin and Ali’s end is tantamount to a dimensionality reduction attack for Baidu.

At that time, wx was in full swing, and Alipay was also very popular. With these two apps to divert traffic, Baidu Takeaway became more and more disadvantaged.

At this time, Baidu Takeaway was actually on the verge of life and death, but they did an even more stupid thing.

During the Spring Festival in 2016, in order to save the high subsidies for riders during the holidays, Baidu Takeout chose to give riders a holiday. This wrong choice resulted in a shortage of takeaway riders for a long time before and after the Spring Festival, and the number of orders dropped sharply.

After these two blows, Baidu Takeaway’s market share once fell to around 15%.

In October 2016, to make matters worse, Mr. Li, who said a year ago that he would spend 20 billion to support O2O, announced that he would no longer provide financial subsidies to Baidu Takeaway.

In order to make profits as soon as possible, Baidu Waimai, which is self-financing, immediately took simple and rude measures: increasing the delivery fee, reducing subsidies, and increasing the commission ratio, causing merchants and consumers to transfer platforms one after another, and Baidu Waimai’s market share plummeted.

The market share was dwindling, and new financing could not be found, and the valuation of Baidu Waimai declined. The Waterloo of Baidu Waimai also made Baidu lose its enthusiasm for O2O at this time.

In July 2017, Baidu announced artificial intelligence as a new strategic goal. On August 24 of the same year, Baidu Waimai was acquired by Ele.me, with a valuation of only a pitiful US$500 million, which is about two-fifths of Baidu’s initial investment.

With the collapse of Baidu Takeaway, the domestic takeaway market has basically stabilized, and the takeaway industry has matured.

When an industry develops and matures, users’ usage habits and loyalty to the platform have been developed, and the effect of subsidy methods will be greatly reduced.

Meituan and Are You Hungry both stopped the takeaway subsidies, and this four-year subsidy war has come to an end.

Originally, Luo Fan thought that the food delivery subsidy would still start at the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, as in the previous life, but according to Qin Beibei, when Xingyuan headquarters moved last month, Meituan began to provide food delivery subsidies, which made Luo Fan was a little caught off guard.

“Mr. Gao, what types of advertisements do these two companies buy?” Luo Fan asked.

“Are you hungry? The ads you want to buy are related to food delivery, and Meituan’s ads are about group buying.” Gao Meng replied.

“From the advertisements, it seems that Meituan has no intention of entering the food delivery industry.”

“Does the boss want me to check?”

“Well, let’s find out what Meituan is doing as soon as possible!”

Gao Meng nodded and turned to leave.

“Then boss, I’m going back to work too.” Qin Beibei followed.

“Well, let’s go!”

……

Then Gao Meng used the relationship to investigate the takeaway subsidy.

According to the results of her investigation, Meituan is indeed entering the food delivery industry, and the reason is also related to Penguin.

Penguin suffered a loss because of Xingchao’s Happy Farm. Originally, Penguin wanted to invest in taxi software and rely on taxi software to attract traffic to each other to increase wx’s users and influence.

However, after examining the taxi software market, Penguin felt that it was too early to enter the taxi software industry.

So Penguin decided to invest in the food delivery industry instead. Are you hungry? They have seen the steady development in Shanghai and several surrounding cities. Entering the food delivery market at this time should be a good choice.

It’s just that Penguin didn’t directly choose to go head-to-head with Hungry, but supported Meituan and let them develop in the imperial capital and its surrounding cities.

Meituan originally planned to enter the food delivery industry. When Penguin came, the funds were available. They immediately established Meituan Food Delivery, and Penguin’s funds were regarded as angel round financing.

With the money in place, the natural next step is to expand.

For Meituan Takeaway, the current takeaway market is a rival in Shanghai.

Before, Meituan and Dianping came to a north-south division.

Now Meituan also wants to occupy the northern market of China first. To occupy the market, the most effective way is to adopt the strategy of the initial stage of the group buying website, expand with all-out efforts, and first obtain a big city to form a good team, so that even if it burns money in the future, it will be There will be certain advantages.

So on December 15, 2012, Meituan began to subsidize takeaways in the imperial capital and several prefecture-level cities in Hebei.

In the past few weeks, the subsidy of the imperial capital has continued. At the most exaggerated time, many lucky people can pay a dollar to get a takeaway worth 20 yuan.

The initial expansion of Meituan was the same as Are You Hungry? The first wave of welfare was also milk tea.

However, Meituan is different from Are You Hungry. When you start subsidizing, it is still summer. In summer, you don’t need to consider the insulation of milk tea. The only thing you need to worry about is that the iced milk tea returns to normal temperature.

What Meituan needs to consider is insulation. No one wants the milk tea delivered to be cold, right?

In fact, Meituan is indeed working on solving this problem.

According to Gao Meng’s information, Meituan’s current solution is to add thermal insulation cotton to the back seat of the battery car and put a high-power warmer at the same time.

However, this method is too cumbersome. It takes too long to charge the baby warmer, and the heat itself is insufficient and uneven. It needs to be replaced in a fixed place, and it will take up space in the trunk.

Meituan is currently looking for new solutions.

Luo Fan’s eyes lit up when he knew this. Isn’t this an opportunity to break into the enemy’s interior?

So Luo Fan directly asked Cao Shuai to invite some Shanghai electric car manufacturers who are good at making electric cars, and asked them to help design a battery car that can be heated by a switch in the back seat.

This method is very simple to think of, but before it came up, no one could solve this problem.

Before the method of the previous life appeared, the food delivery riders used the previous method.

And this method is the idea of ​​an Ele.me takeaway brother in 2015, and he obtained a patent after modifying the battery car, which caused the study of takeaway giants and battery car manufacturers.

Later, were you hungry and spent money to buy this patent, and Meituan also knew that as a competitor, it was impossible to license this patent to them, so Meituan directly chose to bypass this patent and launched a similar thermal insulation method .

The follow-up Baidu Takeout is similar.

Luo Fan has come up with this patent now, and the purpose is to sell it to Meituan and Hungry. However, this patent has no technical content, and it is not difficult for them to bypass it.

But at this stage, both Meituan and Are You Hungry need Xingyuan’s advertisements to help promote it, and Luo Fan thinks they won’t buy it.

Under Cao Shuai’s personal supervision, a week later, a battery car with an automatic heating incubator was completed, and the patent was registered.

Later, Luo Fan asked Cao Shuai to contact Meituan and Hungry, and “send” this electric car out. It doesn’t matter whether the money is money or not, the important thing is to let them receive the love.

Cao Shuai also understood what Luo Fan meant. He came up with this electric car not for money, but to sell favors. Sometimes favors are more important than money.

According to Luo Fan’s order, Cao Shuai contacted Meituan and the boss of Are You Hungry.

Xingyuan itself is a shareholder of these two companies. After Cao Shuai told them about the idea of ​​a battery car with an automatic heating incubator, the two responded very similarly.

Meituan’s Wang always felt that with this kind of battery car, although the cost has increased, the service will be more attentive, and if you are hungry or other food delivery platforms want to keep up, you will also have to spend more money.

Are you hungry? That’s what I thought too.

Therefore, both parties thanked them greatly and bought the patent right to use this battery car.

Cao Shuai gave a lifetime authorization for a friendship price of 5 million, and neither of them agreed without any hesitation.

However, this kind of battery car is impossible to match now, and it will be a year later, and there is only half a month left before the Chinese New Year, and no manufacturer will take over the big job.

During this period, Meituan expanded very smoothly in the imperial capital and some provinces in Hebei.

The cost of acquiring users is lowest when there are no competitors.

Meituan only spent 20 million US dollars before and after, and after multiple rounds of subsidies every day, it has gained more than 3 million users in two provinces and joined more than 40,000 restaurants.

The main reason for such a fast speed is the outsourcing model of the offline team. Penguin helped to find the team. After the assessment, Meituan chose this team for expansion.

With the help of such a team, Meituan itself only needs to pay attention to the safety of the takeaways offline and not have a high turnover rate.

The main energy of Meituan can also be logically placed on the collection of online data, subsidized according to the situation, and at the same time, through the route data, it can obtain more accurate routes than Baidu Maps, and optimize the delivery routes.

Seeing that Meituan is slowly gaining a firm foothold in the Imperial Capital and its surroundings, are you hungry?

There is no big capital like Penguin behind them, and they will definitely suffer in this way.

Once Meituan occupies the northern market and starts to move to the south, the subsidy and money-burning war will completely kick off.

So are you hungry? Start to rush to seek financing from big capital.

At the beginning, the first target that came to mind was Xingyuan. First of all, Xingyuan already had shares in Hungry, which showed that they had a certain understanding and recognition of the food delivery market.

Secondly, Xingyuan has a lot of propaganda resources at hand. If Xingyuan can pull Xingyuan into the water, Meituan will be at a disadvantage in terms of publicity.

So the hungry team found Xingyuan when there was still a week before the Chinese New Year.

Luo Fan asked Cao Shuai to take charge of the reception.

Xingyuan’s executives all know that Luo Fan has signed a cooperation agreement with Baidu, and Baidu will also do takeaways in the future, and Baidu’s takeaway is also linked to Xingyuan’s mobile payment. Xingyuan is unlikely to invest in other food delivery companies at this time. .

In business, poor information is very important. Are you hungry? You don’t know Xingyuan’s later plans, and it is impossible for Cao Shuai to let them know.

In this way, after some discussions, the two sides did not reach an agreement on some issues.

Although Xingyuan showed a strong interest in the food delivery industry, it did not give in on these issues.

In the end, the two sides could not reach an agreement, and in desperation, the hungry people had to leave.

Are you hungry? Seeking Xingyuan to inject capital, they naturally found another shareholder, Ali.

President Ma was very angry at the “betrayal” behavior of President Wang of Meituan, and the team of Are You Hungry came to find out what President Ma wanted.