The phone rang, "The meal is downstairs, please come and pick it up!"
The weather is hot and I don’t want to cook. I touch the screen of my mobile phone to order a meal. Soon, the call to pick up the meal is called – ordering takeout has become an indispensable part of contemporary urban life. The "China Takeaway Industry Development Report for the First Half of 2019 and 2020" recently released by the China Hotel Association and Meituan Research Institute shows that the scale of the domestic catering takeaway industry has gradually expanded in recent years, and it is expected that online catering will account for more than 20% of the entire catering industry in 2020.
The food delivery market is still not saturated
Under the wave of "Internet +", a variety of life service formats are undergoing subversive changes, and the booming development of food delivery is particularly noticeable.
According to iResearch survey data, the scale of China’s catering takeaway industry in 2019 was 653.60 billion yuan, an increase of 39.3% compared with 2018. By the end of 2019, the number of takeaway consumers among China’s 900 million netizens was about 460 million, an increase of 12.7% year-on-year. Orders and transaction amounts also maintained rapid growth.
Under the impact of the epidemic this year, food delivery is even more critical to the catering industry. The epidemic has a wide range and long duration, and the prevention and control measures are strict. Consumers are "home", and the dine-in business of the catering industry has been greatly impacted. In this context, the habit of more users ordering takeout has also been cultivated and strengthened, and takeout has become the most important source of revenue for many merchants.
Zhao Ping, director of the International Trade Research Department of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said that the contribution rate of catering takeout to total revenue has increased year by year, which is changing the profit pattern of catering enterprises, enabling catering enterprises to create a new profit growth engine in addition to dine-in.
Some experts also pointed out that the current market situation of China’s catering takeaway industry is stabilizing, but the market is still not saturated. The takeaway industry is expected to develop into a trillion-dollar market in the next 1-3 years.
Healthy takeout is gaining popularity
The demand for takeaway mainly comes from residential areas, corporate office buildings, schools and other scenes. Among them, "post-80s", "post-90s" and even "post-00s" have a higher acceptance of online consumption. As the main consumer, they have created a more diverse consumer demand. Breakfast, lunch, and evening meals can no longer meet the increasingly fragmented dining needs. Extra meals have become an important part of food takeaway. Meituan data shows that 20% of users will choose afternoon tea and supper outside of dinner.
In recent years, policies such as the "Healthy China 2030" Plan Outline have been introduced one after another, and consumers’ health awareness has been continuously improved. With the continuous expansion of takeaway boundaries and the continuous enhancement of delivery capabilities, food flavors can be better preserved, and more categories of products and OurHours delivery have become a reality. In this context, many users have long gone beyond the simple needs of food, and ordering takeout is no longer synonymous with living, but pays attention to reasonable matching and rich nutrition like dining in a restaurant.
For merchants, the competition model of takeaway has changed from "dividend-driven" to "efficiency-driven" and "quality-driven". That is to say, under the premise that it has been accepted by more people, retaining customers is more important than obtaining traffic. Takeaway has grown from the early stage of red envelope subsidies to a more mature stage of competing for delivery efficiency and food quality.
At this stage, the ability to provide consumers with better quality products and more timely delivery will be more tested, rather than the simple and crude "burning money" ability. The new trends of "explosion", "quality", "chain" and "health" presented by food and beverage takeout are the latest response to consumer demand.
Some experts said that since the competition in the industry, the Internet catering takeaway industry needs to jump out of the limitation of "catering takeaway", focus more on the deployment of the ecosystem, and make more efforts in the coordination of local life service full scene business lines, the digitalization of merchants, and the improvement of distribution logistics networks.
Join forces to provide quality service
At present, there are about 9 million restaurants in China. In April this year, a survey of merchants by Meituan Research Institute showed that nearly 80% of the surveyed catering enterprises are or will carry out takeaway business. However, most of these merchants operate on a small scale, lack self-innovation awareness, cannot effectively link people, money, things and customers, and operate inefficiently.
Compared with the fragmentation of catering supply enterprises, food delivery platforms are highly concentrated "two worlds". According to iiMedia consulting data, Meituan and Ele.me two giants occupy more than 90% of the food delivery market share in first- and second-tier cities. The industry barriers are high, and the competition between the two is becoming increasingly intense. For the platform side, it is crucial to improve the stickiness and active level of merchants and users.
On the basis of the platform, the food and beverage takeaway market has formed a complete ecosystem that connects users, merchants, and distributors, radiating supply chains, shared kitchens, and takeaway operations. The industrial development has risen from the primary stage to a more mature stage, but the ecosystem still needs to be improved. Issues such as platform overlord terms, malicious fines for delivery riders, delivery timeouts, food safety, and refund difficulties need to be addressed urgently.
In terms of food safety, some places have already made useful explorations. In July this year, the Nanjing Municipal Market Supervision Bureau of Jiangsu Province issued a local standard "Specification for the use of one-time sealing labels for catering takeaways". The sealing labels are made of special materials. Once the sealing labels are opened or the outer packaging is damaged, they cannot be restored to their original state, reducing the possibility of pollution during the delivery process. The standards were first issued in the province, and detailed regulations were made in four aspects: classification, material, information and use.
The overlord clause forces merchants to choose one of the two, and high commissions are also very troublesome for merchants. In April this year, with the intervention of relevant departments, Meituan Takeaway decided to increase the rebate ratio to 3% -6% for high-quality catering takeaway merchants in Guangdong to expand its coverage. It also said that it respects the independent choice of online platforms by catering merchants and supports the multi-channel development of private domain traffic by catering merchants. Meituan will fully open the delivery platform services to connect.
The relevant person pointed out that the takeaway platform and the catering industry have formed a symbiotic relationship, and will strengthen cooperation in the future to jointly provide consumers with better services.Reporter, Kang Park)
