New Marketing Directions for Meituan? China's Local Services App

In 2023, Meituan, a Chinese local services app , aimed to increase its Gross Transaction Value (GTV) to compete with Douyin (TikTok 's Chinese counterpart). Various measures were implemented extensively in Q2 2023. These measures primarily included: on the B-end (business side), increasing subsidies and incentives for leading merchants to ensure their price competitiveness; and on the C-end (consumer side), launching group buying, flash sales, and live streaming. The goal was to cultivate a low-price image and increase the stickiness of high-quality users.

Meituan's first counterattack: low-price group buying

Meituan has added a special offer/group-buying section to its food page on the app. Under this section, Meituan's group-buying deals are priced lower than those on Douyin. The special offer/group-buying service uses a monthly rolling budget, and the application requirements are being among the top 50 brands covered by Douyin in a single city. The application fee is used to offer even lower prices to top merchants on Douyin. The largest subsidies are offered for in-store comprehensive services (including leisure and entertainment, weddings, lifestyle services, and family services).

Sampling statistics reveal that Meituan offers lower prices than Douyin in three categories under its special group-buying deals: in-store services, dining, and tickets. In terms of SKUs, the special group-buying deals include categories such as food, leisure and entertainment, beauty and health, family activities, tickets, and hotels, with limited-time flash sales at different times each day. Currently, there are numerous deals available; for example, in the 11:00 AM flash sale alone, there are 128 discounted deals from major restaurant brands. Meituan is benchmarking Douyin's subsidies and advertising discounts for key account (KA) merchants, increasing its incentive programs for merchants, such as subsidies for achieving GTV (Gross Transaction Value) targets.

Meituan's second countermeasure: Trying live streaming

In 2023 , Meituan launched its first food delivery livestream. According to official data, the livestream lasted 11 hours, selling limited-time discount coupons for food delivery items. The average weekly growth rate of transaction volume for the top 100 participating catering brands exceeded 30%. Mixue Ice Cream achieved sales exceeding 100 million yuan, selling over 15 million cups. Haidilao's sales growth reached 180%. Currently, the livestream adopts a platform-sponsored merchant model, primarily targeting leading brands such as Mixue Ice Cream, Haidilao, and Luckin Coffee. In addition to the monthly livestream on the 18th of each month, the platform also offers its own daily livestream in Shenzhen. Meituan Waimai is also gradually exploring merchant livestreams, progressively developing various livestream formats including platform livestreams, merchant livestreams, and influencer livestreams.

Meituan's third counterattack measure: transformation towards content and video.

New Short Video Entry: Meituan App has launched a short video entry in select cities—the second tab at the bottom of the homepage has been changed from "E-commerce" to "Watch Videos." Users who click to browse videos and reach a certain viewing time and number of views will receive cash rewards directly from Meituan or through their WeChat accounts.

Dianping's Content Transformation: According to a LatePost report, Dianping's content team has been instructed to learn extensively from platforms like Xiaohongshu（Rednote） and Douyin. The plan includes bringing in 20,000 external creators and 100,000 submitted content pieces. Previously, 26% of Dianping users browsed the product homepage's feed daily; the goal is to increase this to 50% by the end of the year.

Why can Meituan help businesses operate effectively in the long term?

Meituan boasts a relatively credible rating system and rankings, which constitute a significant competitive advantage in the local services sector. The 2015 merger of Meituan and Dianping brought Meituan a massive amount of merchant reviews. Douyin has already launched its own rating and ranking systems. Overall, Meituan's rating system emphasizes both sales volume and service, offering a richer range of evaluation dimensions.

(1) Douyin has fewer rating dimensions than Meituan. Meituan's rating dimensions include taste, service, cost-effectiveness, environment, etc.

(2) Meituan's rankings are more comprehensive, including annual must-eat, must-play, and Black Pearl lists, as well as daily rankings based on popularity, reviews, environment, taste, and service. Douyin's rankings currently only include daily reviews, popularity, favorites, and best-selling lists for each sub-category. Douyin's evaluation system still requires the support of a massive amount of merchant resources. For search, the essence is still to help users find answers faster and more accurately. The formation of users' mindset regarding finding stores requires "complete merchant resources + a rich and fair evaluation system + refined segmentation."