The recovery and recovery of the catering industry has a long way to go.
On February 18, the National Development and Reform Commission and 14 other departments jointly issued the "Several Policies on Promoting the Recovery and Development of Difficult Industries in the Service Industry", one of which mentioned that "to guide Internet platform enterprises such as takeaway to further reduce the service fee standards of merchants in the catering industry and reduce the operating costs of relevant catering enterprises." Guide Internet platform enterprises to give preferential service fees to catering enterprises in county-level administrative regions where high-risk areas are located during the epidemic. ”
Immediately after that, Meituan issued six support measures to help small and medium-sized merchants affected by the epidemic and in distress in their operations from the aspects of cost reduction and income increase. For example, for small and medium-sized merchants in high-risk areas of the epidemic and difficulties in their districts and counties, Meituan Takeaway will halve the technical service fee (commission), and cap 1 yuan per single after the halving.
It is worth noting that the measures given by Meituan are not limited to commissions. This begs another question, can the adjustment of takeaway commissions alone solve the current survival dilemma of the catering industry? Many merchants have doubts about this. When under the influence of the epidemic, catering people deeply feel the pressure brought about by the cost increase of multiple parties, where is the key to getting out of trouble?
Caterers are stuck in hard costs
In 2021, the total revenue of the catering industry reached 4,689.5 billion yuan, an increase of 18.6% year-on-year, returning to the pre-epidemic level, but in this nearly two-year period of industry shutdown, how many catering companies have fallen before the recovery. According to relevant statistics, in 2021, more than 1 million catering-related stores were written off, of which nearly 400,000 fast food restaurants were written off, nearly 350,000 milk tea shops were written off, and nearly 100,000 hot pot shops were written off.
Catering giants are also unable to escape the industry's predicament. A few days ago, Haidilao's listed entities issued a performance warning, by the end of 2021, Haidilao's pre-operating income will reach 40 billion yuan, although compared with the 2020 revenue of 28.6 billion yuan, an increase or more than 40%, but in the net profit sector, 2021 will face a pre-loss of as little as 3.8 billion yuan and as much as 4.5 billion yuan.
Increasing profits without increasing revenue is the common state of many catering companies at present, and this is largely due to cost changes. Although domestic catering consumption is recovering day by day, the revenue that can be brought about is not enough to dilute the cost of growth.
"Without income, we can't afford the rent of the shop, and our turnover during the quarantine period is sometimes even zero," said the owner of a small shop in Xi'an that has been operating for five years. When the epidemic broke out in Shaanxi last year, the store had no revenue for almost a month, and after the epidemic eased, it persisted for two or three months, and finally had to find another way because it could not make ends meet.
Nanchang a chain store with large stuffed dumplings in the northeast, after opening a new store in Wuhan, originally said that it was 3800 yuan to sign for a year, and as a result, only half a year, the landlord asked to rise to 4200 yuan, and at the end of the year, it rose to 4500 yuan. In just one year, rents have risen by 20 percent.
After the epidemic, takeaway commissions have been controversial, so in the public opinion condemnation of Meituan and Ele.me, many people subconsciously attribute the survival difficulties of catering businesses to the platform. However, in the past two years of operation, the problem that the catering industry has become more and more exposed is actually the imbalance of the cost structure, the original income of the business can balance the cost of rent, raw materials, manpower, takeaway commissions and other costs, and now the hard cost has risen collectively, making it difficult for the business to continue even if the takeaway commission has fallen.
For example, rent, the china hotel association survey report shows that 77.5% of catering merchants said that there is operating pressure on store rent, the vast majority of restaurant owners can not reach a rent reduction agreement with the owner, saddled with huge rent pressure.
The pressure on takeaway commissions is decreasing compared to rents. On the one hand, the epidemic has repeatedly reduced the number of people entering the store to consume, the number of people who order takeaway at home has increased, the commission cost can be diluted with more orders and income, and the fixed cost of rent will not be reduced because there are fewer people who go to the store to consume. On the other hand, last year's reform of the transparency of takeaway rates has benefited more and more merchants.
According to the "2021 Catering Takeaway Merchant Research Report" released by Aurora Big Data, more than 90% of merchants pay commissions, that is, technical service fees are less than 8%, and the proportion of merchants with commissions in 6%-8% has reached 66.3%.
We have seen that after the positive effect of the reform of the transparency of takeaway rates has been transmitted to the merchant side, most merchants have called for rent reductions instead of commission reductions.
Is it better to focus on supporting the overall reduction?
In the past 9 months, the new takeaway rate has been rolled out on a large scale across the country, and more and more merchants have begun to adopt the new rate, and the new commission is the technical service fee charged by the platform, which is basically less than 8%.
Taking the "semi-sugar crisp ice powder" of a dessert shop as an example, according to the past fixed rate, the commission for an order of 43.7 yuan after discount is 5.56 yuan, and the takeaway commission accounts for nearly 13%, while now the technical service fee has dropped to 2.81 yuan, the performance service fee is 3.21 yuan, and the takeaway commission accounts for about 6.4%. It's clear that after stripping rider costs from commissions, the real commission level isn't really high.
For merchants, the lower the commission, the lower the cost, the merchant is naturally happy to see it, but the cost that can be reduced based on the takeaway commission is really small compared with rent, raw materials, and manpower, and many merchants are not relieved, but have an extra layer of worry.
Mr. Xiong, a merchant in Shaoguan who deals in puffs and coffee, said, "If the commission can be reduced, it is of course good for us, after all, the cost can be a little less, but I am also a little worried." Since the increase in the takeaway business in the store, he has slowly understood the cost composition of takeaway, and the proportion of platform commissions is indeed not high, so once the commission of the takeaway commission is fully reduced, he is worried that the platform may reduce the service level, "more seriously, afraid that the risk of the platform will be passed on to us or consumers in another form."
In the entire takeaway ecosystem, the interests of the platform, merchants, riders and consumers affect each other. In the past few years, Internet platform enterprises have achieved scale effects by burning money and gradually established their position in the industry, and in this process, the platform has more and more discourse power, which is easy to break the original balance of all parties. This is also contrary to policy guidance.
From the perspective of Meituan, we can also see that Meituan has chosen to focus on supporting small and medium-sized catering merchants that have been seriously affected by the epidemic and have operational difficulties, which is more in line with the common interests of merchants and platforms in the short term than the uncontrollable results that may be brought about by the comprehensive commission reduction.
Out of the woods, open source is more important than throttling
The epidemic is repeated, and the biggest impact will always be small and medium-sized catering stores with weak anti-risk capabilities, and to help small and medium-sized catering stores survive the crisis, in short, it is open source and throttling.
The support measures announced in the "Several Policies" are mostly biased towards the latter, such as the 6-month rent reduction for small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households in the service industry in the county-level administrative region where the county-level administrative areas listed as high-risk areas in the epidemic are located in 2022, and the rent reduction for other regions for 3 months. At the same time, the launch of nucleic acid subsidies will effectively alleviate the epidemic prevention costs of the catering industry.
Meituan is also helping small and medium-sized merchants reduce costs based on the results of the reform of transparency of takeaway rates. First, for difficult merchants who have completed the transparency of the rate, combined with the assessment of business conditions and difficulty, the technical service fee (commission) is capped at 5%; second, for the difficult small and medium-sized merchants in high-risk areas of the epidemic and the districts and counties where they belong (the average daily paid-in transaction volume has dropped by more than 30%), Meituan Takeaway will give the technical service fee (commission) halved, and the maximum of 1 yuan per single after the halving.
On the takeaway platform, small and medium-sized catering occupies the mainstream, and their perception of cost changes is more obvious, although it is reduced from 8% to 5% or less, only a few cents of the cost is reduced, but the higher the monthly sales, the more costs can be saved. Last year's takeaway rate reform, a merchant selling roasted pork in Guangzhou said that each order reduced the cost of 8 cents, which can save more than 4,000 yuan per month.
However, in order to achieve the best effect, the takeaway commission reduction is premised on the growth of the takeaway income of the merchant, if the merchant has no income, even if the commission is reduced from 20% to 2%, the store still cannot hold up.
Compared with throttling, how to open source catering enterprises is more urgent. After the epidemic, some catering companies that did not do online sales before have developed takeaway business, and almost all catering stores have also adopted the "double home" model of dine-in + takeaway. However, these catering enterprises or brands with a chain foundation have opened takeaway businesses, which actually further compresses the living space of small and medium-sized catering businesses, because consumers have more choices.
In order to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized catering businesses, it is particularly critical for merchants to improve their online operation capabilities, which is not only for businesses that have just operated takeaway, even small shops that have long relied on takeaway business, there is also a common problem of insufficient online business capabilities.
In 2021, Meituan Takeaway launched the "Takeaway Butler Service", which is serviced by a special person to give optimization suggestions from the aspects of online store design, business status analysis, takeaway meal development, and marketing activity planning.
Many merchants try takeaway business, often directly take pictures of the offline menu to move online, but the menu design of dine-in is not necessarily in line with the online dining scene, which leads to the consumer's willingness to place an order is not strong, and the price, the takeaway pricing of the chain catering is also high, and consumers are more reluctant to pay. Through the "takeaway butler", the platform will match a variety of dishes such as single meals, small dishes, and drainage models to help merchants design online menus that better meet the needs of takeaway meals, so as to attract consumers to place orders.
Traffic is more critical to the growth of the takeaway business. On the one hand, with the increasing role of marketing in catering operations, Meituan will help merchants increase their promotion efforts in marketing activity planning; on the other hand, Meituan will also give special traffic support to newly launched small and medium-sized merchants to help them do a good job in takeaway business.
After the epidemic, the improvement of digital capabilities has become a common choice for almost all enterprises, and it is obviously difficult for small and medium-sized businesses trapped in survival problems to improve their digital operations on their own. To this end, in 2022, Meituan will expand the scope of takeaway butler services, continue to invest in special subsidies, and provide 100,000 "takeaway butler service" places for small and medium-sized merchants in difficulty free of charge.
Open source and throttling are indispensable to alleviating the survival pressure of the catering industry. The 7 special policies issued by the government to the catering industry, from the macro level of rent, epidemic prevention, takeaway and other industry pain points to intervene and guide, can fundamentally reduce the cost of the catering industry, and as a micro subject, the takeaway platform from a more detailed, more flexible level to help businesses, especially focus on increasing income, which will more effectively assist the implementation of relevant policies, multi-pronged, thereby promoting the recovery of the entire catering industry.
For the takeaway industry, this is also a must to promote the benign development of the takeaway ecology, small and medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of the takeaway platform, and their activity can fundamentally maintain the vitality of the platform.
However, from the crisis to survival to recovery, the catering industry still has a long way to go.
The Tao is always reasonable, and has used the name Crooked Dao, the Internet and the new media in the science and technology circle. The WeChat public account of the same name: Dao always has a reason (daotmt). This article is an original article, and any form of reproduction without retaining the author's relevant information is not retained.