China Consumer Daily reported (reporter Wang Xiaoyue) from Sichuan cuisine, hot pot, Northwest cuisine, Xinjiang cuisine to Guizhou sour soup pot, local cuisine with regional characteristics has continued to go to the whole country in recent years, and the user scale of takeaway channels has also continued to grow, ranking in the forefront of all sub-categories. In such a "volume" catering industry, facing fierce competition factors such as homogenization and price wars, how can local cuisine "survive" and even gain new business growth?
On September 12, Ele.me released a guide to the operation of local cuisine, proposing the operation methods of local food delivery merchants around the current situation of local food delivery operations, and discussing how merchants in this category can leverage the platform to jointly seek new growth paths from four aspects: "multi-form supply, rhythmic marketing, products that can be driven, and highly loyal users".
The annual consumption frequency of local food takeaway continues to increase, and the demand for subdivided scenarios is differentiated
According to Ele.me data, more than 100 million users place orders for local dishes every year, and the annual consumption frequency of users increases by 0.34 times year-on-year to 7 times. Among them, one-person dining orders account for more than 60%, and more than half of local cuisine users have cross-category consumption needs in multi-person meal scenarios.
In the face of growth opportunities in segmented scenarios, local food takeaway is also facing challenges such as homogenization and price wars. "There is a pain point in local cuisine takeaway, that is, the homogenization is too strong, whether it is Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine or local cuisine, the top dishes of takeaway are very similar, all of them are fried meat with chili, shredded potatoes, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes, which do not reflect the characteristics of local cuisine." The person in charge of the takeaway in the tide world said.
To this end, the guide proposes four core growth factors for the growth of local cuisine business: supply, marketing, goods, and people, hoping to help brands dismantle their own business models to truly find strategic tools to drive business growth. The guide proposes that supply is the core factor for brand business growth, and in the environment where it is not easy to open a store, store production improvement has become a battle for every brand in the stock competition environment. Especially for local cuisine, except for some home-style small shop brands that are still expanding their stores strongly by virtue of their lightweight advantages, the number of local cuisine closures in the past year is even higher than the number of stores, and opening stores at this time may not be the best time. Therefore, brands should continue to explore diversified forms of supply, such as takeaway franchise stores that are different from dine-in, multi-brand stores in one store, and sub-brand incubation and category expansion.
Traffic is the underlying driver of store growth, and brands need to grasp the monthly traffic trend of the platform, clarify the festivals and seasonal nodes of each month, and get out of the business curve that conforms to consumer needs. From the perspective of the platform trend, the flow trend of local vegetables is mountain-shaped, with obvious peaks and troughs, which constitutes the chassis for the growth of local vegetables. In the medium term, July-August and November-December are the peak of category traffic; From a micro point of view, there is a significant traffic trend on weekends, small festivals without holidays, the day before and the last day of holidays.
The repurchase rate is the key to a brand's ability to operate. Consumers complete a brand interaction through order conversion, and the most important thing is what the brand is selling and how to sell these goods - that is, the product management strategy. With the continuous penetration of the supply of one-person food, the orders of 0-50 yuan for local dishes have increased significantly, which has pushed the overall unit price of local dishes downward; However, at the same time, the repurchase rate of users with 100-200 yuan continues to increase, and brands with a unit price of 100-200 yuan have strong price rigidity on customer orders. This means that, on the one hand, local dishes rely on high-quality packages, which continue to erode users of high-quality bento and simple meals, while the long-term consumption habits of high-consumption users are gradually developing.
Orders increased by 48% month-on-month, and Ele.me helped local food brands explode "new products"
Focusing on the four major growth drivers, Ele.me proposed the takeaway operation method of local vegetable merchants, and discussed how merchants in this category can leverage the platform to jointly seek new growth paths from four aspects: "multi-form supply, rhythmic marketing, tractionable goods and highly loyal users".
In terms of supply strategy, Ele.me proposed that the brand should base itself on the takeaway battlefield and do sustainable operation of new and old stores. Judging from the past data, local cuisine has entered the critical point of survival at the end of 1 year of operation, and 1-3 years is the core operation period, and it is necessary to consider doing store renewal and iteration at the beginning of 3 years. At the same time, brands need to improve store points through factor rectification, and improve operation efficiency through traffic diagnosis of stores and business districts to optimize operational efficiency.
At the same time, there is a large space for price management and brand operation of local cuisine, that is, promotion and marketing. Therefore, local cuisine brands can open up the marketing calendar with the platform and combine it with light and heavy to form a "marketing linkage": through daily marketing tools, seasonal festivals, anniversaries, platform IPs, etc., to enhance user awareness and improve user conversion. For example, on June 2 this year, Grandma's House celebrated its 26th anniversary, and Grandma's House and Ele.me launched an in-depth marketing cooperation, focusing on the theme of "West Lake Culture", and through Ele.me's digitalization and marketing empowerment, the overall number of orders increased by 61% and the transaction volume increased by 40%.
In the face of increasingly fierce competition for store traffic, goods have become the most important growth undertaking. Ele.me put forward a platform-specific product operation methodology, hoping to help store group selection, realize the recommendation of specific dishes to different groups of people, and jointly carry out new product research and development based on the competitive perspective and user needs, combined with the platform's years of data precipitation and algorithm capabilities. Taking the group products during the World Cup as an example, the data insight found that the World Cup orders mainly occurred during the night snack period, mainly in the categories of skewers, fried chicken, lo-mei, western express and other categories, and the crowd was mainly mature men, but the opportunity point was also obvious, that is, usually 20% of men would be accompanied by women to watch the game, which is a potential penetration group. Therefore, while developing men's preferred dishes, some non-fried and non-beer products, such as sweet snacks and drinks, can be sold to women, so as to form a differentiated operation plan for different groups of people in specific scenarios.
The report suggests that local cuisine should also focus on the pain points of category user churn, and carry out phased brand operation around the scale, efficiency and quality of highly loyal users, including omni-channel new acquisition, lunch/dinner time slots, and midweek/weekend time slots.
Integrating various growth factors, Ele.me also put forward three strategic directions for the operation of local food platforms: more efficient one-person food, more diversified multi-person meals, and from new products to explosive products.
Among them, with the continuous penetration of one-person dining, the one-person dining scene has become a must-win place for brands. At the same time, the operation of single meals is not a one-size-fits-all small set meal, but also includes: a variety of business forms, such as one-person meal packages, optional small dishes, staple foods, etc.; With a variety of products, such as meat dishes, vegetarian dishes, staple foods, side dishes, etc.; Multi-price strategies, such as 19.9 yuan drainage, 29.9 yuan explosive model, 39.9 high-priced model, etc.
In addition, the proportion of new local dishes continues to increase to nearly 20%, and leading brands are completing business growth, breaking the circle of people, and driving brand upgrading through rhythmic and seasonal innovations. At the same time, the report also pointed out that the efficiency of new local cuisine brands varies widely, and there is still a lack of a clear path from new products to explosive products. Therefore, the report suggests that brands need to treat new products as a "scene" rather than a "commodity", and conduct scenario-based operations: determine new goals and themes, invest in marketing resources, and set up pallets to promote to specific types of users.