Want Meituan Case Study?

The values of the Meituan are Customer centric, integrity, win-win cooperation and striving for excellence. The company is invented to solve problems and create value for consumers. Integrity is another major value of the consumer (Embapro 2019b). The company along all the platforms, business lines, ecosystem partners, and online/offline teams work together that is beneficial to serve the customers well. The mission and vision of Meituan are continuously improving itself and delivering services that regulate the reputation of the company towards the consumers. 

Meituan is an internet company that delivers online retail services that include the delivery of food along with travel bookings and hotels. It is one of the world’s largest food delivery platforms. It was founded by Wang Xing in 2010 whose headquarter is in Beijing. The flagship app of the Meituan is Dazhong Dianping. It connects approximately 240 million consumers and around 5 million local merchants across China (Researchgate 2022). This can be achieved via various kinds of lifestyle services like ride-hailing, food delivery, discounts and reviews. Meituan has almost 600 million users and among them, 35 million regularly use the services of this company. In 2021, the stock price of Meituan tumble over 50%. The major causes of this condition were an antitrust probe, a huge crackdown from the government on the industry of technology and irresponsible action of the CEO. 

Business level strategies of Meituan are applying the platform business model to create a Chinese leading super app. This model will assist the company to bring the consumers and producers together to create values that are required in exchanges. Meituan is considered the operating system that connects the merchants, riders and end consumers and the outcome is the ability of the participants to connect and transactions on this platform. Meituan adheres to the principle of technologies, cloud computing, big data allowance, AI and other technologies. The result is improved serving of the company that aligns with the evolution of the whole instant delivery network (Researchgate 2022). The increased number of users of the company improves the valuable assets of the company. By maximising the total value of the company, the platform can deliver valuable services to the users and assist in building the circular ecosystem. Another business-level strategy of the Meituan is considering customer-centric as the most important aspect to deliver quality service to the consumers. In this context, customers are referred to as both end consumers and B2B merchants. Per order, this company can save 48 minutes for the consumer. They provide comprehensive solutions to merchants. These solutions comprise online marketing tools, enterprise resource training that is cloud-based, real-time distribution infrastructure, management of the supply chain, and an aggregate payment system. Private traffic is the most popular marketing trend in China where the data and increased repeat purchases can be controlled. Various private traffic that works on Meituan is Bonus Fandom Group, Meituan Mini Programs and others. Private traffic is advantageous for the Meituan and merchants to get the needs of the consumers. Consumers on the other hand establish real-time online communication scenarios with the merchants to create a more convenient experience of shopping. On the other hand, Meituan Mini Programs improve the use of private traffic in the WeChat ecosystem. It is more cost-effective than posting advertisements on billboards and other platforms. 

Various corporate-level strategies of Meituan attract clients to use the services. During the segmentation of the market, Meituan follows different strategies like dimensions, coordination system and others. The target of their market is the college campus market as there is a high density of the consumer and the distribution for restaurants is simple. Another marketing strategy of Meituan is the positioning of the company in the market. Though, Meituan is well positioned in the market to fulfil the needs of the consumer in the market. In the market, the company empowers the merchants via o2o integration (Meituan 2022a). Another marketing strategy of Meituan is social media marketing. Via influencer marketing, Meituan collaborates with a few celebrities to improve the marketing value of the company. The E-commerce strategy of Meituan assists the company to provide locally found consumer products and retail services online. The mobile apps of the company promote the non-F&B service providers and help the consumers to book services with hotels, and other businesses that are related to tourism and local attractions. 

Competitive analysis will assist to evaluate the progress of Meituan in the food delivery market in China. The E-commerce background of the company influences the development of the food delivery company (Daxue_Writing 2021). On the other hand, the business model and food delivery scheme of the company increase the importance of the company in the industry. The prospect analysis of Meituan depicts that, Meituan become the market leader with proper strategies. These strategies that make the company get an advantage in the industry are consumer-first, high-tech-driven delivery. The state-of-the-art application of the software made by the company decreases the cost that is considered an investment. As people are accepting online consumption more than previously, in this context, Meituan is the platform which become undoubtedly the first choice of people in China for ordering food.  

The strength of Meituan in SWOT analysis are strong brand recognition, diverse revenue models, high margins, tracking the record of innovation, advantage as the first mover, and presence in a wide geographic area (Embapro 2019a).   

The weakness of Meituan can be the absence of resources capabilities or strengths that the organisation does not have at that instant. It is the responsibility of the decision-makers of Meituan to identify the weakness and deliver strategies to improve the state of the organisation. Declining market share, Niche markets and local monopolies, low investment in the customer-related services of Meituan, gross margins and operating margins are the weakness of Meituan (Embapro 2019a).

The opportunities are local collaboration; increasing government regulations; fast changing of the customers that is driven by the rising disposable incomes, easy access to information and fast adoption of the consumer in the technical products and others; rapid expansion of the economy; decreased cost of the new product launches and scopes in online spaces (Embapro 2019a).    

The threats to Meituan are trade relations between China and the US, decreased resources regarding skilled humans, stagnation of the rural market and saturation in the urban market; varying political environment; changing demographics and increased technological expertise in the market (Embapro 2019a).

That affect Meituan are the transition of government and changes in the policy; segregation of the political responsibilities between different agencies of different governments; the threat of terrorist attack; the role of local governments; the likelihood of entering into Armed conflict; the role of democracy and other democratic institutions.

The major economic factors are consumer disposable income, level of household income and savings of the people in that country; inflation rate; spending of the Government; Fiscal and monetary policies; workforce productivity; fluctuation of price in the international and local markets (EMBA Pro 2019a).

Social factors that have an impact on Meituan are the attitude of the people towards savings; the structure of paper in the society; attitude towards health and society; attitudes towards leisure; the trend of demographic; composition of gender n the labour market.

Technology that affects Meituan are the likelihood of disruption of technology, cost of production and trends, integration of technology in society and business processes, and mobile phone and internet penetration.

Legal factors that have impacts on Meituang are Health and Safety laws, employment laws, laws regarding Monopoly and Restrictive Trade practices and others.

Environmental factors are recycled policies, management of waste, the effect of change of culture, and influences and effectiveness of environmental agencies.

Customer from the younger generation who enjoys food, shopping, travel, and movies.

High-income, young and rich individuals who focus on high spending. 

The food and platform strategy of the Meituan enters into the day-to-day life of every consumer of China which assists in the continuous growth of the organisation (IIDE 2022).

The strategies that make Meituan appealing to the market are making relationships, strengthening the loyalty of the customer to the brand, keeping the level of price at an affordable range, following the trends in the market, and maintaining the publicity of the company.

As a tech-driven retail company, the product strategy of Meituan is the strategy of the organisation upgrading the services and goods retail on both the demand and supply side.

It is the platform for food, travel, transportation, and shopping. The pricing strategy of the organisation is that people can easily access and afford the resources that assist them in health and well-being.

Meituan collaborates with famous companies or a few celebrities to improve the promotion of the organisations. The influencers promote the products to increase the popularity of Meituan and sales will be increased via the fan following of them. Another promotional plan of the company is utilising the E-commerce strategies where the products and retail services are provided online (Daxue_Writing 2021). There is also a food delivery app of Meituan where that app welcomes non-F&B service providers and helps consumers to book services with hotels, other tourism-related services, local attractions and others. 

It is the set of activities that a farm utilises to set the marketing strategies. The outcome of the condition is the development of a differentiating positioning in the marketplace.

The product of Meituan is to capture the potential markets.

The pricing strategy of Meituan is to attract customers (Meituan 2022b). 

Online retailing improves the status of Meituan.

Social media and online advertising improve the marketing mix of the organisation.

Strength of the organisation like higher margin of profit in comparison with the other competitors, strong market leadership position in retail in comparison with the others that assist them to scale new products rapidly, extensive dealer network and associate network assist in managing the competitive challenges in retail, extensive offerings of the products also helped the organisation to diversify the revenue system.

The low loyalty among the suppliers, poor gross margins, and operating margins of the organisation than the competitors, decreased per unit revenue of Meituan, increased turnover of the employees of the Meituan and high costs that are associated with replacing the existing experts sometimes make a tough spot of Meituan in the competitive world.

The advantage of Meituan is an increased number of revenue streams that improve the experience of the customers.

The key factors are income from commission and advertisement

It has not produced innovations for more than 5 years, and Alibaba is ramping up its efforts.