We want to be the Alibaba of the restaurant world.

This is the vision of Zhang Xuhao, the founder of Hungry Mansions, in a public interview in 2015. At this time, Hungry Mou has just received $350 million in financing from Tencent, Jingdong, Sequoia Capital and others.

For Zhang Xuhao, seven years ago in the dormitory when he founded Hungry Mou, certainly did not think that one day with Alibaba benchmarks; more did not think that three years later, Hungry Mou will be categorized under Alibaba.

The oligarchy is emerging

Born on the campus of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Hungry Mansome focused on the college market in the early days. In 2010, the hungry one out of Shanghai, into Beijing, Hangzhou and other cities; to 2015 has covered more than 260 cities across the country, nearly 200,000 merchants to join.

A single-minded approach to takeout hungry, obviously underestimated the degree of competition in the market. In the "thousand group war" in the breakthrough of the United States in the end of 2013 quickly into the takeaway market, Taobao launched a mobile dining platform Taodotou point at the same time is to destroy the momentum of stirring the market.

Around 2015, it was an important inflection point for takeout platforms.

On the one hand, all kinds of capital have been killing. Ali system in Taodot point after the line of the new takeaway platform word of mouth; Baidu can not resist their own advantage in the algorithm, with Baidu takeaway strong entry; Tencent in the share of VWDianping, take the opportunity to take the United States into the banner.

On the other hand, the fierce fight for capital is a boon for consumers. The main Internet giants in the attack on the city at the time, the crazy subsidies one after another, regardless of the cost, regardless of return crazy subsidies merchants, riders and consumers. A dollar to order a cup of milk tea, delivery of a single platform to reward the rider another 3 yuan, merchants receive a daily subsidy than the store earned more.

For a while, wool is flying all over the place, and takeout is heaven.

Around 2018, the big picture of the takeaway platform was finalized.

Baidu takeout dragged itself down by taking too big a step and rushing to build an all-encompassing takeout ecosystem, and was soon acquired by HungryMe. Just when the hungry one wants to do a big job, Alibaba to $ 9.5 billion to buy the hungry one, and then the hungry one and the original word of mouth network merger. The Meituan side has not only long entered the sweet period after merging with Dianping, but also under the shelter of Tencent, to create a comprehensive life electronic service platform.

2018 looks like the big picture has been finalized window, the main travel platform of the drop officially online drop takeaway, and in Wuxi test water. A time to eat for free, all the people point takeaway scene staged in a number of cities, soon in the regulatory intervention of this vicious competition eclipsed the scene.

Since then, basically no "doudoune moncler pas cher" dare in the takeaway business on the United States and hungry.

Where does the wool come from?

No one dares to take on the two giants head-on, and the two giants' "claws and teeth" reach out to the merchants, riders, and consumers who have been so well taken care of in previous years.

Some years ago, the rapid expansion of takeaway platforms, various types of open warfare, subsidies are conventional means, so much so that where the subsidies are more consumers go where to order takeaway. And after everything calmed down, the wool began to find a home in the sky.

First, commissions are rising, leaving merchants with a dilemma.

From the end of 2018, Meituan raised the commission draw percentage of merchants around the world , and according to CCTV reports some local commissions Billy has risen to 22%. Hungry Mou also adjusted the merchant commission in 2019, and the commission percentage was raised to 24%. From the early beginning of the subsidized merchants, to draw a few percentage points, in the gradual upward adjustment to 15%, 18%, the current 20% + draw ratio does not seem to be the end.

What can merchants do? If you quit the online platform, your revenue will be seriously affected, and if you don't quit, you have to accept the rules of the game.

Second, the algorithm is optimized to hold the delivery person tight.

In September last year, a "takeaway rider, trapped in the system" will be the delivery of takeaway employees full exposure of the distribution process, harsh algorithmic system and reward and punishment mechanism, driving the delivery staff regardless of the safety and health, all the way to the mad dash. Do not consider the retrograde, traffic lights, not to mention that will not take into account waiting for the elevator, up and down the stairs and many other practical situations, the algorithm has formed a one-way discourse on people. Even the hungry one at the time launched a "wait 5 minutes more" option, the pot thrown to the consumer.

What about the riders? To earn more money, to send more single more bonuses, it is not difficult to understand the countless battery car at the intersection whizzing past.

Third, big data kills, consumers are put on the chopping block.

With more draws and less subsidies, the cost to consumers must be higher. Since the beginning of 2019, the topic of "takeout price increase" has repeatedly topped the hot search list; a slight price increase is still acceptable to the psychology of people who often order takeout. But the big data to kill is consumers can not tolerate, recently exposed one after another "non-member delivery fee of 2 yuan, the member delivery fee of 6 yuan", "buy food online inexplicably opened the United States group monthly payment" and other news.

What can consumers do? Now you can choose the platform is mainly two, want to go to the complaint either robot like cold answer, or a few dollars red envelope perfunctory.

It turns out that the wool is costly, only divided into morning and evening.

The takeaway dilemma

After the two platforms fought fiercely, the merchants "two choices," the change of direction of the blow, the rider's squeeze, the consumer changed the pattern of deception, the result is not "very good! "

These are the first time I've ever seen a company like this one.

December 21, 2020, 43-year-old hungry rider Han Mou fell on the 34th single takeaway delivery. On this winter solstice night, this middle-aged man with an old man and a young man waited not for hot dumplings, but for a cold concrete road and a goodbye to the world. Just after Han collapsed, the system also deducted the rider penalty because there are four orders not completed.

What's even more cruel is that HungryMac told the family that the rider and the platform did not have any kind of labor and employment relationship, and HungryMac would give 2,000 yuan of consolation money out of humanitarianism. Finally, under the bombardment of the whole network, the hungry one said that in the future, the platform will be raised to 600,000 yuan of sudden death protection.

The essence behind this lack of humane competition is share anxiety.

Hungry Mou has launched several rounds of attacks after returning to Ali, but ultimately the market share fell instead of rising.Trustdata released a report showing that in 2020, the Q1 Meituan takeaway turnover accounted for 67.3% of the Hungry Mou slipped to 26.9%, a far cry from the earlier target of 50%. Two years, hungry in the market is really hungry and thin.

Meituan's share went up, is it beautiful? The truth is not. Meituan to merchants forced Ali in 2020 on Alipay comprehensive revision and upgrade, integration of hungry, word of mouth, flying pig, Tao Ticket and other businesses, in the life service provider comprehensive benchmarking against the group. As of June 30, 2020, the number of registered merchants of Hungry Mou has increased by 30% year-on-year. , 45% of which came from Alipay; with the advantages of Ali ecology, the feud between the two giants will be a long-lasting war.

Under the oligopoly, trapped in the system is not only the rider, but also around every one of you and me. Between riders, merchants, consumers and platforms, any party that wants to enhance its own interest space, have to be at the expense of others.

In the predicament of takeout, the core of breaking the circle lies in the platform.

What the platform needs to do is technological innovation rather than business model innovation, and to do long-term business rather than immediate benefits.

This article was originally published on Financial Breakfast