News on November 13th, a few days ago, Meituan's fresh retail supermarket Xiaoxiang Fresh issued an announcement saying that from October 29, 2020, the online service of Xiaoxiang Fresh will be migrated to the Meituan Maicai APP, and its name will be changed. To continue to provide services for the "Meituan Shopping Life Supermarket", the original Xiaoxiang Fresh App will be discontinued. Z2z
Bailue found that the products of the current Xiaoxiang Fresh App are displayed in the "Replenishment". The person in charge of
previously stated that, relying on Meituan’s capabilities in real-time distribution, precise traffic, big data, and R&D technology, Xiaoxiang Fresh brings consumers a "faster, fresher" fresh consumption experience. . However, as competition intensified, Meituan has closed all Xiaoxiang Fresh Stores outside of Beijing in 2019. On September 7 this year, Xiaoxiang Fresh announced its Fangzhuang store closure announcement on the mini program, stating that the Fangzhuang store will be closed at 9 Operations will cease on September 9.
Today, the Xiaoxiang Fresh App will be migrated to the Meituan Maicai APP and will be renamed, which to a certain extent means that Meituan’s community group buying is gradually accelerating.
Little Elephant Fresh was abandoned
In 2018, the first Little Elephant Fresh opened in Beijing. The biggest difference from traditional supermarkets is that Baby Elephant Fresh has a strong Internet attribute. Users can place orders in the App and deliver in stores. Vegetables are sold not by catty but by portion, and the proportion of fresh food is very high.
was at the time of the domestic "new retail" concept wave, and Internet companies wanted to use technological means to reform traditional retail. At that time, Meituan set itself the goal of opening 20 stores in 2018 and 50 stores in 2019.
However, the result was contrary to it. In July 2018, Baby Elephant Fresh entered Wuxi and opened two branches; in October 2018, Baby Elephant Fresh entered Changzhou, and three stores were opened together in just 5 months. Elephant Fresh has opened 7 stores in 3 cities across the country. But so is Meituan's expansion plan.
In April 2019, in less than two years, Meituan also closed 5 stores in Wuxi and Changzhou, leaving only 2 stores in Beijing. None of these 5 stores have survived a year. The reason for the shutdown was also due to the high-level personnel changes within Meituan and the frequent changes in the layout of the fresh food field.
In October 2018, Chen Liang, senior vice president of Meituan, was transferred to the head of the Elephant Division. After Chen Liang took over, Xiaoxiang Fresh changed its strategy, adjusted from expansion to retention, from the asset-heavy fresh food supermarket business to a lighter fresh food model, and finally hatched Meituan Buying. Throughout 2019, baby elephant fresh food is in a tight state.
In July 2020, Meituan established the "Preferred Division" and entered the community group buying track. At the same time, the Elephant Division was renamed the "Grocery Department". From this point of view, the closure of Xiaoxiang's fresh offline stores and the closure of Xiaoxiang The inclusion of the Fresh Food app into the Meituan Maicai app seems to be expected.
Meituan is deeply trapped in "multi-country killing"
community group buying is essentially selling fresh food on the Internet, that is, fresh food e-commerce.
From a basic perspective, fresh food e-commerce is a form between the retail industry and the service industry. It needs the supply chain capabilities of retail e-commerce, such as Ali products, and labor for serving e-commerce, such as Meituan's takeaway brother. So for Meituan, what is missing compared with retail e-commerce is its ability in the supply chain.
What is interesting is that just because fresh food e-commerce is a new form between retail e-commerce and service e-commerce, it will cause companies in both industries to want to get a share.
In March of this year, Pinduoduo announced the launch of the group buying tool "Quick Tuan Tuan", cutting into the community group buying market in the form of a tool. In August, Pinduoduo announced that it would spend 1 billion yuan in subsidies and launch the community group buying project "Buy Duoduo", and the person in charge of the project will directly report to the CEO of Pinduoduo.
Ali invested in Yiguo in his early years and entered the fresh food field. Later, he made hema and vegetables by himself. This year, we will cooperate with the G-end to open the farmer's market, let its Keruyun POS enter the fresh store market, invest twice in Shihui Group, and incubate multiple community group buying projects internally.
Jingdong launched "Jingxuan Good Fruit" to provide mom-and-pop shops with a series of service support such as purchasing and distribution, helping to transform the image, and adopting the method of "collection" to develop fresh food e-commerce.
Pinduoduo first started as a fruit maker. It started from social e-commerce and focused on agricultural products. Community group buying is not only a familiar way, but also a strategic choice.
even Didi, which is in the field of travel, has launched the Orange Heart Selection.Through the WeChat group to spread and promote, the main spike products below the market price, including fruits, snacks, daily necessities and so on.
is not difficult to see that now the major giants have begun to continue to make efforts in the community group buying field to compete for the early stage market, and Meituan has to face too much to win in this new round of "Hundred Regiments". Whether it can break through this "multi-country killing" still needs time to verify.
