There was a widely circulated article on the Internet some time ago, "Takeaway Riders, Trapped in the System." As a catering practitioner, I have read this article over and over again. The story is very real and the emotions are very sincere. Takeaway Riders

It is true that I am urged to run day after day by the beating time, and driven and oppressed by food delivery websites in the name of the system.

In fact, as the other end of the food delivery system, we small merchants are trapped in the system just like these brother riders.

However, the riders are squeezed for their physical strength, and we are squeezed for profits. We are all kidnapped by Meituan and cannot escape.

(The delivery boy is really hard-working) 01 My hometown is in Gansu, and many of the people who open ramen restaurants in Beijing are from our same county.

In 2014, by chance, I opened a ramen restaurant at the east entrance of Guanghua Road in Beijing.

There are many office buildings in Guanghua Road, which is a big market for white-collar workers to have lunch.

Before the opening, I did a lot of preparation work, completely renovated the store, hired authentic master chefs from Lanzhou, and modified the food taste and dining process to adapt to customers' tastes and dining speed.

Require.

Because of its authentic taste, fast delivery, and affordable prices, my store has been doing well since it opened. White-collar workers from the surrounding office buildings love to come here to have lunch. Even the hosts of CCTV who are still some distance away sometimes come here to have lunch.

Take a taxi and come to my place for dinner.

At noon on weekdays, the line of diners can stretch dozens of meters away, and even the chefs and waiters in the store are often extremely busy.

(My ramen restaurant on Guanghua Road has been doing very well since it opened. Customers have to queue up for a long time at noon every day.) In 20015, food delivery platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me emerged. As Guanghua Road, Beijing CBD, you can see it almost every day.

The business staff from these companies solicited people on the street to download their systems.

At that time, these platforms provided a lot of subsidies to customers. Sometimes customers might spend half or even less on a meal. Gradually, customers came to the store and asked us if they could order takeout on Meituan.

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(The main products in my store are ramen, cold dishes and grilled skewers) To be honest, the continuous rise of Meituan and Ele.me will certainly have an impact on small restaurants like us. The continuous subsidies from wealthy platforms have a great impact on the customers who come to the store.

It has a huge impact, especially on restaurants like ours which mainly deal with light lunches for work.

When it first opened in 2014, my restaurant’s daily turnover on weekdays was about 13,000 yuan; more than a year later, while the taste and service remained basically the same, the restaurant’s dine-in turnover dropped to 13,000 yuan.

about.

If you don’t connect to the food delivery platform, you will be at a loss. In addition, at that time, the salesmen of the food delivery platform also came to the store again and again to lobby. They repeatedly described the future prospects to me and said, "We Meituan have plenty of money to subsidize, and we will definitely monopolize everything in the future."

Market, the conditions for cooperation with us may be different at that time.”

After much consideration, I understood that we small restaurant owners cannot resist the general trend created by Meituan.

Finally, in 2015, when food delivery platforms began to emerge, our store also chose to join the systems of Meituan, Ele.me and Baidu Food Delivery.

02 However, it is easy to get online but difficult to adapt.

In the past, although we would deliver food to customers who ordered it from the surrounding area, we would usually prioritize the business in the store and wait until it was less busy before our waiters would deliver the food on bicycles.

However, after being connected to the system, orders pop up from time to time. Not only are meal delivery times assessed, there are also online quality evaluations.

The ramen is soupy and watery, which makes it difficult to pack. If it is not delivered in time, the taste will deteriorate.

In order to adapt to Meituan's takeout system, we have done a lot of exploration throughout the store and made a lot of changes to the entire store.

In order to increase the speed of delivery of takeaway meals, we renovated the kitchen and pick-up area, purchased computers and printers, and added dedicated waiters to take care of packaging and pick up and drop off riders; to ensure the taste, we also purchased specialized

Meal boxes to adapt to the delivery of ramen; in addition, if you want your store to be noticed on Meituan, you must also conduct promotional activities on Meituan, invest in advertising, and participate in bidding rankings.

After all, I invested 40,000 to 50,000 yuan in order to connect to takeout, but I finally successfully "connected" to the Internet.

Of course, in addition to Meituan, our store is connected to systems such as Ele.me and Baidu Takeout.

Although the policies of each company are different, the deduction points are basically within an acceptable range. The platform's subsidies to customers are also paid by them themselves. As merchants, we do not need to pay for them.