“I know which store’s duck blood vermicelli is the most delicious and which store’s hygiene is poor.” In a small town in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, A Niu is the person most familiar with local businesses. In the past few years of working as "Aniu Takeaway", he has visited all the stores in Dayi Town.

"Aniu Takeout" is the most commonly used takeout platform by locals in small towns. Here, you can hardly see Meituan or Ele.me riders wearing yellow or blue jackets. Residents only use "Aniu takeout" when ordering food.

Food delivery is only one of Aniu’s many businesses. He also arranges shop leasing, buying and selling houses, and recruiting. This is almost the “local life” that the two giants Meituan and Alibaba are now competing for. Serve".

Compared with Huanglan APP, Aniu’s takeout ordering page is simple, but it covers more than 30 merchants in the town. At the same time, there are only 5 stores in the town that have Meituan stores, and even less, 1 Ele.me store - just because of the unified requirements of the chain brands.

In fact, the urban area 20 kilometers away from Dayi Town has already been taken over by Meituan and Ele.me, and the entire Yangzhou city’s food delivery market is almost divided between these two platforms. When food delivery giants conquered countless cities, why was Aniu able to hold on to the small town's food delivery market?

Dayi Town covers an area of ??just over 100 square kilometers and has a permanent population of 52,000. In such a society of acquaintances, Aniu has a deep relationship with the merchants. Relationships have become a barrier to Aniu’s business, making it difficult for Meituan and Ele.me to leverage this market.

Three years ago, before the big platforms had time to set their sights on the small town, Aniu started an errand business in the town. Initially, he did this for publicity purposes: Aniu's parents were wholesalers of tobacco and alcohol, and they ran errands to help people carry things, which could bring more customers to their store.

At first, he created a WeChat group to deliver fruits to others. Later, someone asked him if he could deliver food. Over time, the types of food he delivered increased. In a society of acquaintances, word-of-mouth and personal connections are far more effective than other publicity methods.

As there were more and more people in the group, Aniu also began to have the idea of ??building a platform. He said, "At that time, I thought, when there are 500 people in the group, I will build a platform." After a while. Later, when the number of people in the WeChat group just exceeded 250, Aniu started his own food delivery business.

The “platform” A Niu calls is a WeChat public account that aggregates merchant services. Soon, he transferred his business from the WeChat group to the official account. At first, there were only a few merchants willing to join.

Takeout is not a necessity of small town life - residents live a simple and leisurely life, and eating out is only 10 minutes away. Therefore, Aniu’s local promotion work is not simple and requires running business from house to house.

Since last summer, the town has had more shops, and more and more people are ordering takeout. The reputation of "Aniu Takeaway" gradually built up, and people from the next town even approached Aniu to deliver things, so Aniu also hired two delivery people. According to him, summer vacation is the peak period. At the busiest time, there are 40 to 50 orders a day, and delivery workers can earn 200 yuan a day.

As early as 2017, Meituan and Ele.me accounted for 90% of the online food delivery market. In the past few years, Meituan Ele.me has accelerated its competition. When the two companies tried to cover the remaining 10% of the market, they did not ignore this small town.

According to local merchants, in the past two years, staff from Meituan and Ele.me have come to do promotions.

The owner of a milk tea shop told Jiemian News that in 2018, just after her shop opened, staff from Meituan came to discuss cooperation, but she did not move in. The reason is that Meituan and Ele.me have not recruited delivery people in the town. Merchants must deliver the goods themselves, and many stores are run by one or two people. "It is simply too busy to deliver food by yourself." The shop owner said.

Ele.me’s local promoters have also conducted new promotion activities in town: users register on the platform and place an order, and can get a bag of eggs for one penny. Although this strategy fits the characteristics of "sinking" very well, it has little effect. A Niu said, "The merchants on Ele.me only have one fast food restaurant. Even if you register, what else can you buy on the platform?"

For these merchants, the size of the small town takeout market is limited. , now that we have stable order volume on Aniu’s platform, there is no need to settle on other platforms. More importantly, according to A Niu, compared to large companies such as Meituan and Ele.me, he gives merchants and delivery personnel a higher share.

The delivery fee for each order of "Aniu Takeout" is 4 yuan. The platform and part-time delivery staff each receive 2 yuan. The commission paid by the merchant is 10% of the order price. In comparison, the average commission rates of Meituan and Ele.me are now more than 20%. The commission includes the cost of delivery personnel, but it also exceeds Aniu’s pricing.

Although the number of merchants and order volume have expanded rapidly, Aniu Takeaway has not yet made any money. This is not surprising if we refer to the development paths of Meituan and Ele.me.

Now, in addition to providing delivery services, Aniu also provides marketing services to merchants. If merchants want to display more on the ordering page, they need to pay 500 yuan in advertising fees. However, the competition in the small town market is not fierce, and consumers are all regular customers, so businesses do not have much incentive to advertise.

For Aniu, what he really values ????is to rely on the traffic accumulated on the platform to monetize and create a local life service circle.

In addition to the food delivery platform, he also developed a small program called "Aniu Zhangquan". After logging in, users can post recruitment, rental and other information. The platform is currently open to users for free, but the number of views per message is still less than 1,000. A Niu said, "When the number of views reaches more than 10,000, I will consider charging."

Now, A Niu is active every day In four WeChat groups, people often ask him about shop leasing, buying and selling houses, and recruiting. When competition in local life services is raging, Aniu has created a small-town version of Meituan Ele.me, and may become a small-town version of "58.com" in the future.

In fact, small town takeout entrepreneurs like A Niu are not a minority. Jiemian News learned that in Luannan County, Tangshan, Hebei, a local entrepreneur provides an "online takeout ordering system" for catering merchants, claiming to "break the binding rules of third-party takeout platforms (referring to Meituan and Ele.me)" . In Shenzhen, there are also companies that specialize in the construction and operation of local life service technology platforms. The main service targets are third- and fourth-tier counties and townships.

In the foreseeable future, these small town entrepreneurs will not pose much of a threat to the established takeout market. Because they will soon discover that if they want to expand the market to a larger scope, the difficulty will increase exponentially - food delivery is a low-margin business, and it can only be profitable when it reaches a certain scale, and this also means more technology Investment, market investment, and management and operation requirements will also be higher.

However, when large platforms like Meituan Ele.me continue to penetrate into the lower market, the existence of small-town version platforms will also become a competitor that they have to face up to.