Cheapness is the last word in doing business.

No matter how popular Hermès is, its boss will never be able to become the richest man in the world; if you want to reach a certain level, you must make something that most people can afford and a platform that most people will use.

If you want to be the world's top company, you must choose an industry where the ceiling is a sea of ??stars.

Pinduoduo has seized this key point and squeezed out a niche in the world of e-commerce by relying on extremely cheap department store products.

Meituan’s Wang Xing saw this and launched a catering version of “Pinduoduo”: Pinhaofan.

Meituan is now secretly testing a product called “Pinhaofan” in some areas.

In fact, it is the catering version of "Pinduoduo".

At present, “Pinhaofan” seems to be only embedded in the Meituan takeaway mini-program.

According to media reports, this feature is currently only being tested in a small number of areas.

Lingye randomly selected core business districts such as People’s Square, Pudong International Financial Center, and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech in Shanghai, and found that in these areas, there was no online shopping.

Netizens can test the specific areas and give feedback.

Since it is a low-priced version of takeout, the first priority is low price. Pinhaofan specializes in free delivery fees, free packaging fees, and discounted products.

Of course, the premise is that you have to fight to buy: go for the volume!

Just like Pinduoduo, after a user places an order at a merchant, a purchase link is generated and shared with other users. The order will not be made and shipped until both parties successfully pay within the specified time limit.

Order sharing is limited to the same merchant, which is also the motivation for merchants to participate in the order sharing.

The profit margin of takeaway products is relatively low, and sales are crucial to merchants. If Pinhaofan does not charge takeout fees or packaging fees, then it will inevitably bring more sales to the merchants. Otherwise, why should the merchants do business at a loss?

This is not the first time that Meituan has launched the “order sharing” service.

As early as the Meituan Ele.me war in 2017, Meituan relied on the "friends ordering" function to attract countless new customers.

Whether the platform’s food delivery business is doing well or not depends on user activity and its ability to attract new customers.

Putting together a good meal is conducive to attracting new users at low prices and activating silent users.

But is this good for the catering business itself? It is obviously unreliable to rely on generosity to gain new customers while asking merchants to reduce prices and make profits.

It is not yet known whether there will be any internal subsidies for participating merchants within Meituan.

Another big background is: consumption (forced or active) downgrade.

As early as the beginning of the year, "takeout is getting more expensive", this topic was once a hot search topic.

According to Meituan’s financial report for the first quarter of 2020, the price of each Meituan takeaway order increased by 14% compared with last year.

There are only two possibilities: first, the price of takeout increases; second, users order more per order.

There are two possible reasons for the increase in takeout prices: merchants have increased operating costs during the epidemic or Meituan-Dianping has increased commissions, forcing merchants to increase prices.

If you order more each time, you may be ordering a whole family at a time, and ordering for a day at a time during the stay-at-home period. It may also be that for the sake of food health and safety, consumers tend to choose more expensive top catering brands, so the unit price is higher.

Just looking at the increase of 14, we cannot fully analyze the reasons behind it.

However, Meituan relies on the Tianliang database to draw a curve based on the price of each surviving dish of the merchant. I think it is not difficult. Is this data unable to be calculated, or does it not want to be calculated?

Announcing a 14% increase, but leaving people guessing about the possible reasons and the logic behind it, I think Meituan has its own considerations.

Regardless of whether or how much the price increases, consumers’ wallets are visibly depressed.

Even if the price of takeout does not increase and income drops, takeout consumption will still shrink.

Pinhaofan was launched under this background. It is not only a way for Wang Xing to attract new customers and compete with Ele.me, but also a way to attract consumers and sink the market.

There is no truce in the food delivery battlefield yet, the food delivery war 2.0 seems to have begun!

But consumers don’t want any one party to dominate: only with competition can there be improvement.

In addition, both Meituan and Ele.me put food delivery users above merchants. The large number of small and micro food delivery companies with poor organizational skills have become nothing more than the food delivery war. A speechless foil.

It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t, the customers of the food delivery platform are not only the people ordering at this end, but also the people cooking at the other end, and also the delivery riders running around one after another.

Do you think takeout prices have increased?

Are you still hungry after using Meituan?