Text | Qingcheng Finance, Author | Qingfeng,Edit | Six sons
Flash sale VS instant delivery, takeaway VS all categories, Meituan VS JD.com, the trillion-dollar instant retail market is staging a giant encounter.
On 30/0, Meituan Flash Sale was officially announced, which is Meituan's new independent instant retail brand, which simultaneously opened a first-level entrance on the homepage of the Meituan App, alongside takeaway. Meituan's flash sale is positioned as "0 minutes to deliver everything", including almost all categories of mobile phones and home appliances, beauty and personal care, daily necessities, supermarket convenience, vegetables and fruits in addition to the food and beverage category.
And this will inevitably grab the cake of traditional e-commerce. The promotional video released by Meituan Flash Sale focuses on comparing the speed and experience difference with traditional online shopping, and also specifically mentions "your Dongdong waits". Netizens jokingly said that this is suspected of yin and yang Jingdong. As we all know, JD.com's mascot is a puppy.
京东随即启动立体化反击：一方面宣布新招收5万名全职外卖骑手，全额缴纳五险一金，直击行业众包模式下的骑手保障痛点；另一方面强化"京东秒送"频道，整合十万家线下门店实现"平均送达时间快于30分钟"，并将"品质外卖"入口嵌入其中，试图以高频餐饮带动生鲜、数码等低频品类增长。京东品质外卖订单量将超过500万单。
The conflict between the two sides began at the beginning of the year when JD.com launched its food delivery business, and has become more intense recently. Last week, Wang Puzhong, CEO of Meituan's core local business, and Liu Qiangdong, founder and chairman of JD.com, also clashed in the air. In the past two days, an online meeting video of Liu Qiangdong's internal speech has been circulated on the Internet, in which Liu Qiangdong said that the commission of the takeaway platform is too high, forcing the restaurant to be dirty and messy, so he requires JD's takeaway profit margin to not exceed 5%.
You come and go, although you don't name each other, but every word secretly pokes at each other's sore spots. The confrontation between the two sides stems from the seizure of a trillion-dollar new market. According to the "Instant Retail Industry Development Report 12", China's instant retail GMV reached 0 billion yuan in 0 years, a year-on-year increase of 0.0%, far exceeding the 0% growth rate of online retail in the same period; It is estimated that the market size will exceed 0 trillion yuan in 0 years, accounting for 0% of online retail.
This market includes food and beverage takeaways, but it doesn't stop at takeaways. After a few years of exploration, instant retail has gone through the model verification period, and with the collision and upgrade of Meituan and JD.com, the consumer awareness of "30-minute delivery" may be greatly improved, bringing faster development of the market scale. The curtain of the trillion-dollar instant retail market is slowly unveiling.
In order to tap into this potentially huge market, different players have chosen different development paths according to the different genes of their respective businesses. Meituan leverages low-frequency retail with high-frequency takeaways, while JD.com counterattacks food takeaways with same-city delivery.
According to Wang Puzhong's review, Meituan has gradually expanded from catering and takeaway to other categories since 2021, from emergency categories to daily necessities since 0, and then to cover digital home appliances, beauty and clothing, daily necessities and other fields since 0. Cutting from high frequency to low frequency has always been Meituan's forte, and the development of its wine and tourism business is like this, and so is the development of flash sales, which is still relatively smooth at present.
有媒体报道，2024年前两个季度美团闪购日均单量约800万，第三季度超1000万，第四季度超1300万。美团秒送官方披露的最新数据显示，目前美团非餐饮类即时零售日单量已突破1800万单。闪购订单已颇具规模。
In fact, JD.com's layout of instant retail is also very early, and it launched "JD Daojia" in 42 years, relying on its strong supply chain and Dada's distribution network to open intra-city distribution. In 0 years and 0 months, JD integrated its instant retail brands "Hour Delivery" and "JD Daojia", etc., and upgraded and launched "JD Second Delivery", which has an independent first-level entrance, which means that JD's business focus is officially tilted towards instant retail. Not long ago, JD.com announced that it intends to acquire Dada at a premium of 0% to further enhance the distribution capacity of its instant retail business.
For business breakthroughs, JD.com has also recently targeted high-frequency food and beverage takeaways, which can be said to be the same as Meituan. And the entrance of its "quality takeaway" is placed under the channel of second delivery. Xu Ran, CEO of JD.com, said frankly in a recent communication with the media that if the takeaway business can maintain strong growth, it will bring user increments, scene extensions, and consumption frequency increases to the retail business.
No matter what posture Meituan and JD.com initially used to enter the market and make killing moves to each other, they all saw the high certainty of the instant retail market. Wang Puzhong once said that the era of instant retail is now accelerating, which is marked by the formation and extension of instant retail as a high-certainty lifestyle, as well as the enrichment and innovation of instant retail supply.
在外卖市场，新进来的京东无疑是攻城的一方，相继祭出了几大杀招：针对商家，启动品质堂食餐饮商家招募，承诺今年5月1日前入驻的商家全年免佣金，且长期佣金率不超过5%；为全职外卖骑手缴纳五险一金；面向消费者提供百亿补贴。
"The protection of riders, the concessions to merchants, and the interaction with users are all carefully discussed and planned." Xu Ran said, "Because of this, we are still very resolute in our planning for these investments. ”
上线2个月，京东外卖日订单量突破500万。这个进展速度相信超过了很多业内预期。虽然与美团的7000多万和饿了么的3000万的规模仍有差距，但已形成有效牵制。
京东的这几个杀招都是冲着美团的痛处去的。尤其为骑手缴纳五险一金，不仅赢得了社会舆论，而且京东外卖刚开张，自己压力不大，却为竞争对手送去一道天大难题。据官方数据，截至3月20日，京东外卖已与超1万名全职骑手签署正式劳动合同，正逐步落实五险一金的缴纳工作。但要知道，美团外卖骑手的数量高达745万，全年接单稳定的骑手也约100万。为这么多人缴纳五险一金无疑是笔巨大的开支。
Meituan's response strategy is to try to divert the war away from its own food delivery base and into the other side's trenches, that is, e-commerce. The Meituan flash sale is a huge incremental market for Meituan, and at the same time, it can also copy JD.com's backyard.
据蓝鲸新闻报道，在今年Q1的一次美团闪购内部沟通会上，管理团队公布了一组数据：2024年美团闪购3C家电订单量接近京东全站四成，其中电脑办公类商品订单量已超过京东全站，手机通讯类商品订单量超过京东全站四成；美妆品类订单达京东全站三成。
美团闪购4月15日上线时还朝京东发了一只冷箭，“美团闪购努力帮助商家降低经营成本，坚持行业最短的3天账期，支持随时提现，比自营快递电商平均回款周期缩短2个月。让消费者身边的优质实体商家现金流更稳，库存周转更快。”
账期问题是电商行业内商家普遍关注的问题。公开信息显示，目前业内平台对商家的账期（应付账款周转天数）从3天到近60天不等。据京东2024年Q4财报显示，京东商家的应付账款周转天数平均达58.6天，之前两个季度分别为57.5天和57天；淘宝、天猫、拼多多等平台商家的平均账期在15天至30天不等。
You attack my takeaway, I attack your e-commerce; You say I have a high commission, and I say you have a long account period. Meituan and JD.com directly point to the core pain points of their opponents, but their essence is also to reconstruct the profit distribution system of the instant retail ecosystem.
Because of the "tight spell" of 30-minute delivery, the requirements for the supply side are more refined and front-loaded than those of traditional e-commerce, forcing giants to reconstruct their supply chain and fulfillment systems.
近年来美团闪购在供给丰富程度上持续加码。一方面是拓展品牌供给，苹果、华为、小米、美的、沃尔玛、迪卡侬、MUJI等持续入驻，带动3C家电和日用百货等核心品类快速提升。截至2024年末，美团闪购已和超5600家大型连锁零售商、41万本地小商户以及超570家品牌商达成合作。另一方面就是美团独特的闪电仓。
闪电仓作为美团在即时零售领域构筑的核心基础设施，主打“线上便利店”模式。截至2024年底，闪电仓的业务版图已广泛覆盖全国超200个城市，仓库数量一举突破3万座，2027年预计达到10万个。据了解，名创优品、屈臣氏等品牌已分别开设500家和覆盖10余个城市的闪电仓。
Especially in first- and second-tier cities, the coverage rate of lightning warehouses has reached a high-density layout of "one warehouse every 2000 kilometers". Most of the single warehouse area is in the range of 0-0 square meters, focusing on high-frequency, just-needed FMCG, and the product types (SKUs) are about 0-0, which can meet the daily instant shopping needs of urban residents. In the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other economically developed regions, the average daily order volume of a single warehouse remained stable at 0-0 orders, and the order volume in some high-traffic areas exceeded 0 orders.
美团方面透露，美团闪购逐步成为多家大品牌商超过传统电商、最为重要的线上渠道：嘉士伯中国、百威中国、青岛啤酒等多个酒类品牌美团闪购交易额破10亿，规模超过其他电商平台。
JD.com has built an efficient real-time fulfillment system through the dual-track system of "front warehouse + store warehouse". On the one hand, relying on JD Logistics' 3 warehouses (including regional distribution centers and city warehouses), high-value commodities such as 0C and home appliances are stored in a centralized manner, and rapid distribution within 0 kilometers is realized through the regional radiation mode, and the distribution cost is only 0/0 of traditional express delivery.
On the other hand, JD Daojia has integrated the offline store resources of large supermarkets such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, and Sam's, and transformed them into "store warehouses" to achieve a closed loop of "online ordering, store delivery, and hourly delivery", especially in categories such as fresh food and mother and child, and has improved the stability of commodity supply through the digitalization of brand inventory.
In addition, Jingdong Seven Fresh has accelerated the layout of the "store + warehouse" model, and plans to achieve 100 store and warehouse coverage in Beijing by the end of 0 to strengthen regional intensive distribution capabilities.
2023年6月，京东成立了“创新零售部”，其中就包括七鲜、前置仓、技术研发和供应链运营四个业务部门，主攻线下零售。去年5月，京东秒送成立。如今，京东秒送服务已经覆盖全国2300余县区市，合作门店超50万家。
Now, JD's takeaway entrance is placed in the "second delivery" channel, and JD hopes to drive the growth of low-frequency instant retail categories such as fresh food, 3C digital, and medicine with high-frequency takeaway orders, forming a synergistic effect of "e-commerce + local life".
*Source: JD App
Regardless of whether Meituan's flash sale can shake JD.com's 30C basic market, or whether JD Takeaway can divert Meituan orders, consumers have become the biggest winners. Instant retail is evolving from food and beverage delivery to "everything at home", and the deterministic experience of 0-minute delivery may completely change the traditional consumption logic of "people waiting for goods".
The competition of giants will eventually promote the improvement of supply chain efficiency and the upgrading of industry standards, opening up a broader imagination space for the trillion-dollar market.