Meituan, Alibaba’s old enemy, Dianping’s nightmare, the boss of the food delivery industry, and the leader in the group buying industry.
His appearance brought not only flowers and cheers, but also many curious voices. "I want to ask you, how did you end up being the big winner in the Thousand Regiment Battle's Summit Showdown now?" It's a long story. In 2008, the beautiful Chinese group buying website Groupon appeared. It not only allows the common people to enjoy the benefits of group buying, but also allows various domestic merchants to smell the opportunity to make a fortune. In just half a year, there are more than 2,000 group buying websites across the country, and they are backed by giant capital. The entire market is full of gangs. , very much like the powerful and powerful Shanghai at the time, the Thousand Regiment War officially started. Among them, our protagonist Meituan is particularly unusual, because his total net worth is only 12 million invested by Sequoia in the A round of financing, and one of the big group buying celebrities at that time was LaShou.com, which was born in Tsinghua like Meituan. In 2010 In June of this year, Lashou.com completed a round of financing of US$5 million. By the end of the year, it had completed a transaction volume of 1 billion, becoming the leader in the group buying market. Of course, others were not idle, and they were all working hard in the advertising sector. You must know that group buying was still a new thing in China at that time. In order to let the common people understand group buying, expand customer sources, and place advertisements, it became necessary. Able to continuously output advertisements, everyone who has money has to pay, and those who have no money have to borrow money. For example, Nuomi.com took out 200 million at one time, Tuanbao.com reached 550 million within a year, and LaShou.com directly completed the BC After two consecutive rounds of financing, it received support of 160 million yuan. For a time, all parties were jealous in the advertising war. Except that Meituan was too appropriate to spend money on advertising. It received guidance from experts and there was a more effective way. Then It is to form a local promotion team, communicate with them door to door, and let them settle in, because the essence of group buying is to attract users at low prices, and advertising is just promotion. If the price can be lowered from the source, that is, the merchants, then there will be no worries. There were no customers, so in June 2010, Meituan quietly completed the construction of sub-stations in 300 cities. At the end of the same year, the number was increased to 1,000. At this time, the Chinese group buying website was still advertising The fight was in full swing, but little did he know that his home had been stolen by Meituan, the merchants had defected, and not only the customers but also the young people had followed suit. At the same time, because of too much early investment, they had invested in group buying giants such as Wowotuan and Lashou.com. Already in a stretched situation, Meituan increased its efforts to promote annual sales, which increased tenfold from last year to 1.45 billion. It successfully occupied the position of the industry leader. The boss returned to the boss. At that time, not many people were optimistic about him, because Previous investments have yielded little results, and many capital tycoons behind the scenes have chosen to leave. Group buying websites are generally facing a shortage of funds. No matter how powerful Meituan is, you can still make money out of thin air. In fact, it was already on the eve of the Thousand Group War. , as one of the BAT3 giants at the time, Alibaba had launched two products with great reputation, but the results were not good and they never brought any results. The way Meituan fought bravely in the battle of thousands of groups was just right. Ali saw that after communication, both parties got what they needed, and they hit it off immediately. Ali, who has a lot of money, gave money and resources, and to show his sincerity, he even shut down his own reputation. He was bound to win the group buying position. .
Just when everyone thought that Meituan was about to monopolize the group buying cake, an unexpected enemy appeared, Dianping, and behind it was Goose Factory, which is also a BAT capital giant like Alibaba. As a copy ninja, Goose Factory in the early days Factory has also launched QQ Group Buying Network and Gaopeng, but the same results are not ideal. Therefore, in order to compete with Meituan supported by Ali, Goose Factory directly spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire 20% of Dianping's shares and will He pulled him into his own camp, and the Thousand Group War in the group buying world has officially entered the second half of the battle between the giants and the younger brothers. Despite Dianping's late start, he has a killer move in his hands - -Traffic, as you know, Alibaba and Goose Factory have been enemies for a year or four, and their Alipay and WeChat Pay were at loggerheads. It was also in that year that Goose Factory included Dianping in the WeChat grid. All users who use WeChat Pay can see the name of Dianping. The traffic it brings cannot be simply summarized in tens of thousands. Look at the fierce competition from the opponent. The anxious Meituan hurriedly found Ali for help. I hope that my logo can also appear on the Alipay interface, but I didn’t expect that Ali, who has always been obedient, would draw a big picture this time. At that moment, Meituan understood that it was just a pawn in the big factory’s game. That’s all, and not long ago, the last member of the BAT Big Three, Baidu’s acquisition of Nuomi.com, also entered the group buying table. If you really want to survive, you can’t hang yourself from a tree. Think twice, Meituan A decision was made that surprised everyone. In 2013, WeChat Pay was quietly launched on Meituan, even above Alipay. This completely angered Alibaba. Meituan’s position was very clear. It did not want to be Integrating into the Alibaba system, for the sake of determination, in 2015, Meituan rejected Alibaba’s follow-up investment in the first round of financing. At the same time, the introduction of external capital diluted Alibaba’s shares in a disguised manner. People who eat melon thought she was hot-headed. , but Meituan understands that when the Thousand Groups War has reached this point, negotiating mergers is far more effective than capital confrontation, so it found Baidu, which had just entered the market. Is this the end? Of course not, because the real goal of Meituan is actually Dianping. At that time, the market share of Meituan was that Dianping was the boss, Dianping was the second, Baidu was the third, and although Dianping was backed by Goose Factory, it could not withstand the siege of the boss and the third. Finally, in 2015 On October 8, 2011, Dianping, who had no choice but to do anything, signed the contract to merge with Meituan, and the two established a new organization, Meituan-Dianping.
After five years, Meituan finally won the Thousand Regiments War and became the clear winner. The boss behind the scenes, Goose Factory, also became Meituan’s by merging the two companies. Major shareholder, crushing old rival Alibaba. Alibaba, who was furious after the incident, also tried to interfere with Meituan's financing and development by selling Meituan shares at a low price, but the effect was minimal because after merging with Dianping, Meituan already occupied 85% of the market share, and its target was also Heading straight to the next battlefield, it is bound to be another fierce battle.