Chapter 59 Enemies Cooperate and Fair Competition

This self-media article "Blood and Tears Accuses Food Delivery Platforms of Unfair Competition, Forces Merchants to Choose One" mentioned that [Lituan Takeaway] and [Feixia Takeout] use their market advantages to force merchants to [choose one of the two] .

The so-called "choose one" means that some e-commerce companies require merchants to settle on the platform to only provide goods or services on the platform and are not allowed to operate on other platforms at the same time.

If a merchant violates the requirements of these two platforms, these food delivery platforms will unreasonably punish the merchant through measures such as search power reduction, traffic restrictions, technical obstacles, and deduction of deposits.

In this self-media article, we talk about a few businesses in a certain place. Because they are unwilling to accept the "choose one" from the food delivery platform, they want to develop in a balanced way. They should use more food delivery platforms to do more business and make more money. To feed the family, it was jointly banned by [Lituan Waimai] and [Feixia Waimai], and could only operate on the [Eame] food delivery platform.

However, the market share of the food delivery platform [EatMe] is not as high as the other two platforms, so the current business is miserable and has reached the point where it is almost no longer in business.

The author of the article believes that this kind of behavior is an obvious monopolistic behavior, restrictive behavior, and is illegal and illegal.

He called on society to pay attention to this matter and to the tens of millions of oppressed lower-level businesses, and not to let the corpses of lower-level businesses bear the evil flowers of Internet companies.

After this article came out, with the help of some people, it quickly became very popular and caused extensive discussions.

In Bihu, on Weibo and other social platforms, many users have expressed their opinions, or exposed dirty information about the food delivery platform. The core is nothing more than accusing the monopolistic behavior of the food delivery platform that has caused harm to consumers. Infringement of business interests.

There is a lot of discussion in the society.

Even the State Administration for Market Regulation was alarmed and announced that it would investigate the suspected monopoly operations of multiple food delivery platforms.

Market regulatory authorities in various places have also interviewed takeaway branches in various places and asked them to operate in compliance with the law.

For a time, several food delivery platforms, mainly [Feixia Food Delivery] and [Lituan Food Delivery], two food delivery platforms also felt the pressure.

The top executives of the two food delivery platforms have held multiple meetings on this issue to discuss how to deal with it.

They smelled a conspiracy.

Those who can reach high-level positions are not fools, many are smart people.

They suspected [Have you eaten it]?

Even enemies can work together.

In order not to be used as a spearman for others, I also don’t want the fisherman to benefit.

At the suggestion of [Li Tuan Waiwei], the senior management of [Li Tuan Waiwei] in the Beijing headquarters quietly went to the Beijing headquarters of [Feixia Waimai]. The executives of the two food delivery platforms held a closed-door meeting for a day, and there was a heated discussion. After arguing for a day, an unwritten verbal agreement was finally reached.

The two food delivery platforms will no longer implement the so-called "exclusive policy" between each other. In other words, merchants are free to launch [Lituan Food Delivery] or [Feixia Food Delivery], but the two companies will join forces to enforce [eating] [Eat Me] will be blocked. Merchants that have launched [Lituan Takeout] or [Feixia Takeout] will not be allowed to go online [Eat Me].

Of course, with this lesson learned, the two food delivery platforms will not simply and rudely ask merchants to go offline [Eatme], but will let bd managers use hints or other obscure methods to punish merchants who go online [Eatme] Remind them to take the initiative to give up going online [Have you eaten?].

Without merchants to provide goods or services to users, no matter how large the subsidies are, it will be of no avail.

This is the bottom line.

In addition, [Lituan Waimai] and [Feixia Waimai] have also reached a consensus on subsidies. They will gradually cancel such large subsidies and no longer engage in price wars, but will compete in the market in a more fair way.

In fact, [Li Tuan Takeaway] showed its determination to [Feixia Takeout], making [Feixia Takeout] see that it cannot easily defeat [Li Tuan Takeout] with subsidies alone, or even if it defeats [Li Tuan Takeout] 】, to pay an extremely heavy price.

In the past October 2017, [Lituan] raised US$4 billion.

Combined with other funds in bank accounts, the total adds up to more than $5 billion.

This does not include his cash flow.

Wang Xing has stated that even if all the US$5 billion is burned in the food delivery field, he will not take a step back.

[Li Tuan Takeaway] will only die on its battlefield, but will not be a deserter.

To be honest, making this decision was very stressful.

The pressure from investors can be like mountains that can make people breathless.

But when Wang Xing said this, he didn't hesitate at all.

It was precisely after seeing the firm determination of [Li Tuan] and [Li Tuan Takeout] that Qi Tianlin from [Feixia Takeout] thought about it again and again before agreeing to [Li Tuan]'s suggestion.

After all, compared with [Lituan], [Feixia Takeout]’s foundation is still a little thinner.

Although Wu Siyuan and Qi Tianlin had stated that their support for [Feixia Takeout] was not online, Qi Tianlin still hesitated.

The sunk cost of [Li Tuan Takeout] is so high that even [Li Tuan Takeout] cannot give up.

[Feixia Takeout] If you insist on going your own way and keep fighting the subsidy war, even if you can win the war in the end, the price you pay will be extremely high. Maybe ten years of operation may not be able to recover the cost, so why bother!

Moreover, if we continue to fight the subsidy war, it means forcing businesses to choose one of the two, which can easily lead to a crackdown by national regulators.

[Chaoqun Group] has always been very fair and law-abiding, and Qi Tianlin does not want [Feixia Takeout] to drag down the company's image.

This may cause him to lose points in Wu Siyuan's mind. He is only in his forties and still wants to continue to improve!

This is the main reason why Qi Tianlin agreed to the proposal of [Lituan Takeout].

Since [Feixia Takeout] cannot quickly become the king of the takeout market through subsidies and scare away competitors, Qi Tianlin must consider other methods.

Qi Tianlin flew back to Yangcheng, Yue Province, and had in-depth exchanges with Wu Siyuan, Huang Yuping, and his immediate boss [King Kong], and already had some ideas.

As for [Li Tuan], they were secretly relieved to see [Feixia Takeout] agreeing to give up the subsidy war. After all, with the support of [Chaoqun Group], this behemoth, if they really have to fight to the death, it would be good if they won. The world will not be harsh. For the winner, if he loses, Wang Hang's reputation will be completely ruined, and he will no longer be able to work in this industry.

Fortunately, things did not develop into the worst-case scenario they imagined, and [Feixia Takeaway] still had a little bit of sense.

In fact, without engaging in a subsidy war, [Li Tuan Takeout] has an advantage over [Feixia Takeout]. [Li Tuan Takeout] has been working in this market for many years and has multiple large-traffic entrances to attract traffic.

Even [Eatme] has an advantage over [Feixia Takeaway]. After all, [Eatme] also has traffic support from [Alibaba].

As for [Feixia Takeout], it only has its own app entrance. [Qiandu] previously said that it would package the traffic entrance and sell it to [Feixia Takeout], but it was rejected.

Under normal circumstances, [Feixia Takeout] should not agree to this condition. It would be equivalent to cutting off both arms. Originally [Li Tuan Takeout], I thought [Feixia Takeout] would make some compensation demands, but [Feixia Takeaway] didn't mention anything.

[Li Tuan Takeaway] Seeing that [Feixia Takeaway] agreed so readily, I was still suspicious for a long time, thinking there was a scam!

After much deliberation, I can’t figure out the idea of ​​[Feixia Takeaway]. In the end, it can only be attributed to the youth of Qi Tianlin, the person in charge of [Feixia Takeaway].

But no matter what, this is a good thing for [Li Tuan Takeaway]. The top management of [Li Tuan Takeaway] who knew about this were secretly happy in their hearts, vaguely seeing the dawn of victory - if [Feixia Takeaway] didn't betray its promise midway if.

However, the most important thing at the moment is to deal with the pressure from regulators.

After the two food delivery platforms reached a verbal agreement.

Not long after, [Li Tuan Takeout] held a press conference. At the press conference, [Li Tuan] spokesperson said sincerely that [Li Tuan] respects catering merchants’ independent choice of various online platforms, operates in accordance with laws and regulations, and consciously Maintain the order of fair competition and earnestly fulfill social responsibilities.

The day after [Lituan Takeout] held a press conference, [Feixia Takeout] also issued an announcement. The announcement expressed that [Feixia Takeout]’s vision is to bring business success to merchants on the basis of freedom, fairness and justice. to achieve higher profit margins and bring better convenient services to consumers.

The two food delivery platforms responded so quickly that many people were dumbfounded. They did not expect that the two food delivery platforms had such a strong desire to survive, and they all said that the two food delivery platforms were cowardly!

The National Supervision Bureau was dumbfounded when it saw this. The two food delivery platforms happened to be headquartered in the capital, so they interviewed the leaders of the two platforms and warned them to operate in accordance with the law, but no penalties were imposed.

After all, only disobedient children need to be beaten, and children who admit their mistakes will of course be treated gently by the world.

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After the two food delivery platforms issued announcements, their business policies were quickly adjusted. The deposits collected by [Feixia Food Delivery] from merchants were refunded, and the bd manager also informed these exclusive merchants that they can freely launch [Lituan Food Delivery] according to their own wishes. However, the bd manager also vaguely reminded merchants that if a merchant launches more than two takeout platforms at the same time, it will be difficult to get traffic support and subsidy support from the platforms.

Of course, [Feixia Takeout] will not object to which takeout platforms merchants launch!

[Li Tuan Takeaway] Manager bd’s external rhetoric is similar.

For a moment, the merchants were overjoyed.

As expected, once the state takes action, it will be known whether there is any.

On the last day of December 2017.

Many merchants contacted [Lituan Takeout] and reopened [Lituan Takeout].

Many merchants contacted the BD manager of [Feixia Takeaway] and opened [Feixia Takeout].

However, in 2018, [Eatme], which lagged behind [Feixia Waimai] and [Lituan Waimai] in terms of market share, was horrified to find that its online active stores had dropped by a full 30%.

And this downward trend continues.

[Eat What?] was secretly blocked by [Feixia Takeout] and [Lituan Takeaway].

And [Have You Eaten It] wants to repeat its old tricks and complain to others, but that won’t work anymore.

Because neither [Lituan Takeaway] nor [Feixia Takeout] is opposed to merchants launching [Have You Eaten] online?

Just after the launch of [Eat.me], the exposure of [Lituan Takeout] and [Feixia Takeout] suddenly decreased a lot, and the order volume also dropped. However, the orders that [Eat.me] can bring , and not much.

The boss of a catering business knows how to calculate in his heart and will naturally make choices with his feet.

The merchants on [Eat What?] naturally fell off a cliff.

Without merchants to provide services, naturally there will be no users to enjoy the services.

After many consumers opened [Eat.me], they saw that there was no takeaway from the merchants they wanted to eat. They shook their heads and logged out, then turned around and logged in to [Feixia Takeout] or [Lituan Takeaway].

It’s half way through January 2018.

[Lituan Takeaway]’s daily average orders exceeded its previous peak, reaching 22 million, accounting for 53% of the market.

The average daily orders of [Feixia Takeaway] are only 15 million, accounting for 36.5% of the market.

[Eatme]’s average daily orders are only 4 million, and it doesn’t even account for 10% of the market.

The management of [Have You Eaten It] saw it in their eyes and were anxious in their hearts.

The failure in the market made the major shareholder [Alibaba Group] behind [Eatme] very dissatisfied. The pressure from [Alibaba Group] was increasing, and the follow-up part of the originally negotiated financing was not received on time.

[Eat Me]’s capital chain is starting to get a little tight.

At this time, [Li Tuan Takeout] and [Feixia Takeout] also announced the end of large-scale subsidy activities such as [One-Penny Guarantee], allowing the market to return to normal, and would only subsidize newcomers and some special activities. .

The subsidy for [Eat Me] was not immediately withdrawn.

But even so, the total order volume of [Eat.me] did not achieve an explosive increase. The order volume only doubled, reaching an average of 8 million orders per day.

After a few days, the orders increased, reaching about 10 million orders, and then stopped growing.

What makes the management even more desperate is that the number of merchants in [Eat.me] has never increased, only increasing by about 30% compared with before.

The management instructed the BD managers below to use large subsidies to negotiate exclusive operations with merchants.

As a result, [Lituan Takeout] and [Feixia Takeout] sued [Eat.me] backhand, violating the principle of fair competition and claiming 1 million yuan.

After the news came out, the society also criticized [Have You Eaten].

[Feixia Takeout] and [Lituan Takeout] no longer engage in exclusives, but you are actually reversing the course of history. Where did your previous righteousness go!

[Did you eat it?] I can only come out and apologize.

Its management already has a sense of powerlessness.