Takeout is expensive, who is the winner?

CBN

2024-05-29 14:57Published on the official account of Shanghai Yicai

According to CNNIC data, as of December 2023, the number of online food delivery users in mainland China reached 545 million, an increase of 23.38 million from December 2022, accounting for 49.9% of the total number of Internet users. With the advent of the platform society, take-out ordering has become more and more popular, and the convenience and readiness of take-out have promoted the expansion of users' meal periods, and "ordering take-out" has become a daily practice for many people, penetrating into everyone's daily life. Takeout has gradually become a rigid demand of people, and the slight changes in takeaway prices have always affected our nerves.

"When I returned to Shanghai from my hometown, I found that takeaway had become so expensive! Before, 25 pieces could be eaten to your heart's content, but now 30 pieces are not enough. Zaza, who returned to Shanghai from his hometown of Xinjiang to study, said. Today, ordering takeout has become a daily routine, but the "freedom of takeout" is leaving us. Zazha is not the only one who found that takeout has become more expensive, "I order takeout now, and I first compare to see which one is cheaper." "I ordered a spicy tang and ordered the same dishes as before, but the price was a little more than before."

In our survey of college students in Shanghai, 53.92% of college students thought that the price of takeaway food had "increased a little", and 25.49% of college students thought that the price had "increased significantly".

The merchants explained: "You feel that the price has risen and become more expensive, because the rider's money and the platform's money have to be paid by customers." You spend money to buy Tiantianshen coupons on platforms like Meituan, but these are paid by our merchants, and those coupons of 10 yuan and 8 yuan are directly used in our store, and the profit margin is much smaller. "Relying on a strong operation team and a well-set operation strategy, the platform has produced a variety of activity subsidies such as takeaway red envelopes, god coupons, and full reduction of delivery fees, and almost no merchants can escape the activity subsidies.

Platforms seem to be the culprits behind the price hike for takeaways. However, in early March 2022, companies such as Meituan and Ele.me, under the guidance of the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments, successively issued documents, saying that they would propose a series of measures to help small and medium-sized merchants "reduce costs" and "increase revenue", and reduce the commission rates of some difficult merchants. Since then, Meituan's share price has plunged on the same day, and its market value has plummeted by HK$200 billion.

Since then, the huge takeaway catering industry composed of multiple entities has formed a huge dilemma: consumers generally feel that takeaway is becoming more and more expensive; On the one hand, the takeaway platform has formed an oligopoly, but it is also hovering on the verge of loss, and it is often criticized by merchants and users; Merchants are complaining that the platform's domineering rules and further falling market conditions have reduced their profit margins, and price increases or store closures have become a common choice for them to save themselves.

Takeaway prices become more expensive, who is the winner?

After decades of development, China's food delivery industry has formed a relatively mature market and a relatively stable competitive pattern. Among them, Meituan relies on the advantages of user scale and the resource endowment of leading merchants, and has a relatively stable leading barrier and a leading market position. According to the analysis data of the competitiveness of the food delivery industry released by Xueqiu (xueqiu.com), from the user side, in November 2021, among the top 500 brands in terms of order volume, the order volume from Meituan Takeaway was about 340 million, and Ele.me was 176 million.

According to iiMedia Research, 63.39% of consumers will regularly use Meituan in 2023, and 54.85% of consumers will regularly use Ele.me. This phenomenon is also reflected in the survey of the student group, 90.2% of college students often use Meituan takeaway, 78.43% of college students choose to use Ele.me, and at the same time, it is also more and more common to choose brand-owned mini programs and APPs, becoming the choice of 24.51% of college students. "Ele.me is not ordered, the riders here are indeed from Meituan." Boss Ma, a beef noodle shop in Lanzhou near Fudan University, said.

After comparing the prices of Meituan and Ele.me in the Wujiaochang business district, it was found that although the original price of the same package was the same on the two platforms, and even the price of Meituan was higher in terms of platform discount price, Meituan could always be 0.5-1 yuan less than Ele.me at the final settlement.

The reason for this is that Meituan attracts users with lower membership prices and higher preferential subsidies, making the price "look more affordable". For college students, the discount is an important reason for their takeaway choice, with a score of 4.45/5.

Diners mediate between the two delivery giants, but they are only the lesser of two evils, and in fact there is no winner.

Xiao Wu, an office worker, found that the previous takeaway red envelopes had coupons of "20 minus 8" or "25 minus 8", but now they have become "31 minus 8" or even "50 minus 8", and she sometimes spends more money in order to make up the full minus. When ordering the Qikou Spicy Hot Pot Cup, the consumer Xiaoyang put the bullfrog priced at 18.88 yuan and the single set meal at 24.9 yuan into the shopping cart, but when he checked out, he found that the price of the bullfrog had become 28.88 yuan. Although on the checkout page, you have enjoyed a full discount of 30.7 yuan in stores, 9 yuan in red envelopes, and 3.5 yuan in delivery fees, adding up to a discount of 43.2 yuan, but it is equivalent to no discount. Because the discount price on the takeaway platform is limited to 1 product, the full reduction of the merchant is carried out on the basis of the original price, and the original price is often more expensive than the offline store - the original price of a single package of 24.9 yuan is 57.6 yuan, while the price of the package in the store ranges from 25-38.

Merchants are also complaining, but in fact, it is not that they are willing to increase prices. Boss Ma of Lanzhou beef noodles complained bitterly: When delivering food, all the packaging and chopsticks must be matched, ramen is sold in the store for 15, online for 19.9, and the packaging fee is 1 yuan, a total of 21. Then the delivery fee is deducted, and the red envelope is used, and it is only 13.1 yuan in hand. He still remembers that once Ele.me made a few set meals for no reason, plus a few red envelopes, and a customer ordered a bowl of ramen and only paid 1 yuan. They can only choose to cancel the order, and after canceling the order, it will have an impact on the store, and the business will be at a loss.

Platform preferential subsidies have squeezed the profit margins of merchants, and it is consumers who ultimately bear all this. Although the merchants unanimously denied that they would deduct the amount of takeaway dishes, many consumers reported that after ordering at a yellow stewed chicken restaurant, the same set meal, after using a large amount of red envelopes, received significantly less chicken in takeaway.

"There is no way to alleviate it, only the platform disappears", merchants can't count on the platform, they only want to get rid of the platform in their simple wishes, they can only save themselves. College students who often order takeout continue to endure higher and higher prices or shrinking meal volumes, complaining that "they can't afford to eat takeout".

A Confused Account: Is the Delivery Fee Really 0?

According to the survey, in 2024, 17.05% of consumers said they could accept 3-5 yuan (including 5 yuan), 60.23% of consumers said they could accept 2-3 yuan (including 3 yuan), 96.59% of consumers said they could accept 1-2 yuan (including 2 yuan), 4.55% of consumers said they could accept 5-10 yuan (including 10 yuan), and 13.73% of consumers said they could not accept the delivery fee.

However, the price of takeaway delivery has also increased, compared with the previous delivery fee of 3-5 yuan, the current delivery fee for a takeaway often needs 6-8 yuan, and sometimes it also encounters 9-10 yuan. Not only that, but consumers are also not aware of the rules for charging platform fees. Xiaoyang said that she had noticed that Meituan had previously charged a starting price of 3.15 yuan for orders within 3 kilometers of the distance, but the price displayed on the takeaway platform was 3.7 yuan for 1.2 km of Rongliu Datie Niu snail noodles and 3.5 yuan for 2.5 km of Hu spicy soup, both of which were displayed as "free delivery fee" at checkout. "I don't know the bill," she said, "but in the end, it's up to the consumer."

However, the riders said that they did not make much money at all: more than one delivery person revealed that the delivery fee was determined by the delivery platform, and although the delivery fee had increased, their income had not increased, and they should still take as much as they wanted. "I ran 1,231 orders last month, and each order earned about 7.5 yuan. We also have a fixed range of distribution, like I often go around the area of Pentagon, and occasionally go to the Hongkou District a little farther away, but the far and near single platforms in the site still give us 7.5, and the money we earn per order will not fluctuate according to weather changes. ”

Packing fees, quietly growing

According to the survey, college students are generally concerned about the mandatory charging of takeaway packaging fees by takeaway merchants and the increasingly expensive packaging fees, and some even find that the amount of online and offline packaging fees is different, the fees of different purchase channels are different, and the packaging fees are not clearly labeled. On the takeaway order page of a neighborhood Sichuan restaurant, a package fee of 2 yuan is charged for a pea mixed noodles, while scrambled eggs with tomatoes and other dishes cost only 1 yuan. Consumers could not make adjustments or modifications to the packaging fee, and even the reporter searched for "tea eggs" as a keyword, randomly selected more than 10 merchants, browsed the collection of tea egg packaging fees, and almost every one charged a packaging fee ranging from 0.1-1 yuan. Some porridge shops even charge 1 yuan for a side dish and a leek box for packaging, and some students said that they ordered a porridge shop set meal but asked for 5 yuan for packaging.

Is the packing fee set by the merchant? Boss Ma said that the takeaway packaging charging mechanism is automatically set by the platform, and the packaging fee for each dish can be customized, but the merchant cannot modify the number of packaging fee charges by itself. Even, in 2019, the takeaway platform took the initiative to contact him to settle in the platform, the delivery was free, helped you pack, and the platform also gave subsidies. If he doesn't take the initiative in the future, he not only has to take the initiative to find a platform, but also collects money for everything.

Eventually, the packing fee became an unclear account, and many college students said that they didn't know how much they would be charged for each order, "Even if you use red envelopes, the wool is out of the sheep, and you can't save much money," said Xiao Yang.

Platform: Stealth after rake

Boss Ma, the owner of the Lanzhou ramen shop, took out his mobile phone and showed us: "Today's turnover is 777.8, and the platform deducts 178.03." "Converted, the service rate is 22.8%. The money paid by consumers will be taken by the platform in three layers (technical service fee, fulfillment service fee and environmental protection donation), and finally enter the merchant's pocket. The platform relies on member red envelopes not only to allow consumers to get discounts and retain users, but also to earn profits from merchants by commissions, and also to allow merchants to unconditionally bear subsidies.

The higher the unit price of the product, the higher the boss should have earned. But in the actual process, "there are a lot of people who eat overlord meals", a large plate of chicken is about 110 yuan, and the platform has to extract a lot of service fees. But when encountering unreasonable customers, it is still the merchant who charges the order, "I didn't get anything in the end after being busy, and I was still tired", said Boss Ma. The platform charged a service fee but could not help the merchant take a higher risk, "in the end, the big plate chicken can only be removed from the shelves".

The "Three Mountains" on the Heads of Merchants

The main costs of the catering industry are nothing more than three: rent, raw materials and labor, some studies say that these three costs account for 30%, 40% and 30% of the catering operating costs respectively, the "2023 China Catering Industry Annual Report" shows that the growth rate of these three costs last year reached 3.6%, 2.4% and 4.8% respectively. Rent, on the other hand, is a "hard cost" that is difficult to overcome.

Boss Ma of the beef noodle shop said that we can accept the overall price increase of ingredients, but labor, rent, gas, electricity, and water are much higher. Since I came to open a store next to Wujiaochang Wanda more than ten years ago, the rent has been rising. "Rents in Shanghai never go down, they just keep rising," said the owner. "We don't rent a store through a regular company, so the price increase also depends on the mood of the landlord, and there are no rules." Moreover, water and electricity are commercial, and it costs more than one kilowatt-hour of electricity. Now a beef noodle is ordered to 15, and we have increased by about 7-8 yuan in the past ten years, and the price of takeaway has also risen. The price increase also depends on the market, and they all go to school and work here, and they can't afford to eat 20 yuan at once. The Lanzhou ramen restaurant in Wanda shopping mall is the lowest at 30 or 40 yuan, but the rent is expensive, hundreds of thousands of yuan a month, and their takeaway is naturally expensive, he said.

This also confirms what the clerk of Xiao Yang Shengfang said, The stores opened in the shopping mall are high-priced stores, and Xiaoyang Shengfang has general price stores, high-price stores, and special stores in airports, railway stations and other places. The positioning of stores with different prices is related to the rent of the location, and the takeaway price of high-priced stores will naturally be more expensive than that of general-price stores.

According to the survey, 33% of college students in Yangpu District put hygiene conditions first in the selection criteria for takeaways. Businesses with clean hygiene and dine-in conditions tend to settle in high-end supermarkets, which often means higher rent costs.

It is these "three mountains" that make Boss Ma dare not give up the takeaway business. At present, there are seven or eight thousand laborers, three or four thousand rents, and more than 200,000 yuan a year.

"Either the price will rise or the store will be closed, and that's the way the market is right now. After the epidemic, many small restaurants have closed, and everyone is struggling to survive. "The owner of a small Chinese restaurant next to the Jianxin community said that in order to retain old customers, although the cost of ingredients has been rising for so many years, the price has not been raised." Like crucian carp, before the epidemic, it was more than 7 yuan a catty, and now it has risen to 12 yuan a catty. After the epidemic, the market has deteriorated, and we are surrounded by hard-working workers and students, and we dare not raise prices easily. ”

The downturn in the F&B industry continues. In the past, Boss Ma owned three or five stores in Beijing, but now only one store is left in a corner of the Wujiaochang business district. "In the past, there were many students, even foreigners, who used to come to the restaurant to eat. Now there are almost none. ”

【Interview shop】:

Neighborhood Sichuan restaurant (No.3 Bay Square store)

Hou hot pot (Gokakuba store)

Luckin Coffee (Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center Yigao Digital Plaza Store)

Halal Lanzhou Beef Noodles (Guobin Road Old Store) (Wujiaochang Business District)

Qianli Xiang Wonton King (Jianxin Community Store)

The taste of home (Jianxin community store)

Fei Tao Hong Kong Tea Restaurant (Shanghai First Store) (Wujiaochang Store)

Hometown chicken (Shanghai Wujiaochang Wanda store)

Xiao Yang fried (Wujiaochang store)

Bawang Tea Ji (Wujiaochang Wanda Store)

Dongfa Road Tea and Ice Hall (Wujiaochang LAB store).

Author: Wu Jiaying, Master of Journalism and Communication (2023), Fudan University; Fudan University Master of Journalism and Communication (2023 class) Chen Fangdi; Fudan University Master of Journalism and Communication (2023) Jia Fan

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

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