In the fierce competition in the food delivery market, consumers are often attracted by various subsidies and coupons, but where is the real cost performance? Through actual evaluation, this article compares the performance of Pinhao Fan and JD.com’s takeaway in different scenarios for your reference.
The takeaway war has been fought so far, and some people have aesthetic fatigue.
“I have a large coupon every day, what will happen if I send a little more!”
“Milk tea is going to vomit, why do you feel that the rice is not much cheaper?”
“I drank until I gained 5 pounds” and “I drank high uric acid”
After drinking all kinds of 1-cent milk tea coffee, some people gradually came back to their senses: Why is it all milk tea coffee? Today’s Mixue Bingcheng, tomorrow’s Overlord Chaji, the day after tomorrow Cudi. Although JD Takeaway is quite generous with milk tea, it is not a thing to drink like this all the time, three meals a day, eating is a serious matter.
Until this time, many “Buddhist users” who were too lazy to squat with coupons attracted attention: Does it need to be so troublesome to eat? There are a lot of merchants with the same origin as JD.com’s takeaway, and the price of the meals is the same. On the Internet, more and more people have found that the huge subsidy of JD.com’s takeaway has dried up the price of milk tea and coffee, but many restaurants that have long settled in the restaurant have maintained a very favorable price.
The loyal audience who plays stalks and fights for good meals has been living a similar life as during the takeaway war.
After 10 years of interaction design, why did I transfer to product manager?
After the real job transfer, I found that many jobs were still beyond my imagination. The work of a product manager is indeed more complicated. Theoretically, the work of a product manager includes all aspects of the product, from market research, user research, data analysis…
View details >
So the question is, is the cheapness of good food really as tricky as what is said on the Internet? What is the difference between a ten-yuan meal and a JD takeaway that receives coupons every day? We used both platforms to order several takeaways from the same store to test who was really the “cheap big bowl”.
Actual evaluation: JD.com quality dine-in VS good meal, who is better to use
Fighting good meals has always been a frequent visitor to Internet hot memes: “I suspect that I have eaten too much good food” and “I am honest when the price of good food increases”. Although some people are malicious, no one denies that the food is cheap and cost-effective.
So for the sake of fairness, we ordered two takeaways from chain brands and two takeaways from street stores that are most prone to problems in this test – yes, although JD.com takeaway emphasizes that it is a quality dine-in, in fact, most chain stores are also open on Pianhao Meal, and there is no difference in this regard.
In addition, we also chose two time slots, noon and evening, to see if the delivery at different times will be affected.
First of all, let’s take a look at the performance of chain stores that are not easy to step on thunder, we chose Yuan Jiyun dumplings and Tustin, a combination of Chinese and Western.
Compared with the wonton dumplings made by the self-employed, Yuan Jiyun dumplings are a more “noble” brand (the focus is on the latter word), but we found that after eating a good meal and joining the takeaway war, ten yuan can also get a double wonton, and the cost performance has risen sharply. And this time we chose ten new fresh shrimp yellow croaker dumplings, classic boiled flavor.
At the beginning, we found that this high-end new product was priced at 18.8 yuan on Pinhao Fan, while it was 16.8 yuan on JD.com. However, after placing the order, I found that JD.com had to add an additional 2 yuan packaging fee – the final price was tied, but there was no difference in packaging. And the meal itself is exactly the same – even the cabbage is the same two or three slices, and the delivery time is almost the same before and after. This round of the two sides is a draw, but you need to pay attention to the packaging fee and shipping fee when ordering JD takeaway, because it is calculated separately.
In Tustin’s round, the difference suddenly became huge – we chose the classic combination of burger + wing root + cola, and there was no difference between the actual price of the meal and the price in hand, which was 9.9 yuan. However, JD.com’s takeaway meal still costs 18.9 yuan after using a 10 yuan coupon – equal to one Yuan Ji or two Tustin with a good meal. This time we felt that it would not be two burger wings of completely different sizes.
This worry proves completely unnecessary, as it is still produced by the chain without any difference. The only difference may be due to the order of the meal, the ordered meal ordered a minute later was delivered a few minutes later than JD Takeaway, but it was still within the expected time.
In fact, Yuan Ji’s aunt who made dumplings told us that the amount of catering is managed by the brand headquarters, and the store is only responsible for issuing orders, and no one will bother to focus on the cheaper side. As for why the price difference is sometimes so big, it is simply because of the different platform discounts, and the good meal has always been cheaper, while JD.com’s takeaway is the recent trend of receiving coupons, but it also depends on who is more cost-effective than the final comprehensive price.
The same situation occurs in the field of tea. A cup of Cudi’s raw coconut latte is 4.9 yuan on both platforms, but you can buy a Pampas blue cheese jasmine latte for 6.9, and JD.com’s takeaway costs 11.99 yuan; A cup of Lingzhu raw coconut latte marked on JD.com is marked with a price of 10.99 yuan on JD.com, plus the packaging fee and shipping fee minus the coupon to become 14.69 yuan, and the meal is directly 14.8 yuan.
This is probably because I was not given a large coupon, but the discount is bound to a large coupon, which inevitably means that everyone is not treated equally. JD.com takeaway may have more advantages when subsidies are in place, while Ping Hao Fan does not talk about “0.01 yuan” every time, but has a stable preferential price and does not need to repeatedly squat coupons.
We also checked that Pinhao Fan has recently launched a new explosive one-price event (Tustin and Cudi’s packages are included), which actually includes many chain store packages. There are more than 5,000 chain catering brands on the Pinhao Fan platform. From this aspect alone, it seems that quality dine-in is difficult to become the differentiating point between the two platforms – when they are both brand chain stores, who can be better than whom?
Therefore, if you want to stabilize and cost-effective three meals a day, you have been saving money in silence, so it is no wonder that many users are unmoved by the takeaway war.
Chain brands to street shops: whose quality dine-in is more reliable?
Some people also said that chain stores are definitely no problem, and there will be no difference between the merchants on the meal and JD takeaway, they all have monitoring and standardization, and even the packaging is uniformly produced, so we can directly choose a cost-effective package. What about those self-employed people on the street and near the community?
In fact, street shops will also choose to settle on dual platforms. We also specially chose this type of store that we often eat, and after actual measurement, we found that the focus of quality dine-in dining is not on the platform, but on the merchant. Take the “Three Musketeers” of pig’s trotter rice, roasted cured rice, and braised chicken as an example:
The yellow braised chicken we chose is a very typical owner who started his own business and opened a store, right next to Zhou Black Duck. How is its production? Our evaluation is quite conscientious.
The side dishes are two out of seven, and we chose a combination of potatoes + fried tofu and lettuce + fried tofu. The left side of the picture below is the good meal, and the right is JD takeaway. It can be seen that except for the relatively large volume of lettuce, there seems to be no difference in packaging and portion on both sides.
However, we counted in the spirit of strict testing, the number of chicken on the left is 8, and the right is 9, and there is one piece of chicken and two pieces of fried tofu on the left, is it the store’s hand shaking? We think that this is because it is cheaper to make a good meal, so the store has made a little distinction. Because when I think of the price, I feel instantly relieved.
It only cost 11.4 to make a good meal, while the price of JD Takeaway minus the coupon plus the packaging fee and shipping fee is 19.68. According to this comparison, I am willing to go to the convenience store to buy a piece of chicken steak and add it to the good meal.
In the same way, there is also the following roast duck rice, which is much more standard than braised chicken, and is a compartmentally packed meal. We mainly compared the roast duck and found that the left side of the rice was 7 pieces of roast duck, and the right side of JD.com takeaway was 9 pieces, but the left knife was cut a little thicker.
And what about the price? 10 yuan on the left, 12.5 yuan on the right, and a 10 yuan coupon on the right. Cost-effective alone, it is still a good meal to win.
Moreover, we also found in the test that whether it is the takeaway “Three Musketeers” or more individual stores, although they will not emphasize that they are quality dine-in, they have their own business methods like the merchants who have been diligent in business for decades. Choose a good location around the community, do a good job in store layout, and serve meals regularly every day.
The rent of such a store is cheap, and there are many customers around, and even the takeaway brother is eating. On the Pinhao meal platform, you can also see the real store, dining and kitchen environment, if you are not at ease, you can go directly offline to find out. If someone attacks the package as “cheap and not good” just because of the price, maybe even the merchant himself will not agree.
After all, for merchants, the “quality dine-in” emphasized by JD Takeaway and the cost performance emphasized by Fighting Good Rice are all means of business. The same store, the same product and the same quality, what merchants want to do is a long-term business. Just like what we want, it is also a long-term, assured and cost-effective “online canteen”.
Behind the Subsidy War: Whose Model is More Sustainable?
Merchants choose to operate on multiple platforms, and the driving force to support their operation must be income. The real cost of the meal is not difficult to calculate, but there are many doorways about the platform. Just like JD.com’s takeaway and Pinhao Rice are both cheap to pick up, the logic behind them is different.
The core logic of JD Takeaway is subsidies. Although there are similar activities in Pinhao Fan, the long-term low price does not rely on subsidies, but the classic strategy of “explosive products drive sales”. It is this that many merchants and customers regard it as the “Pinduoduo” of the takeaway industry. Even the logic of the group is the same.
Specifically, as we can see on the ordering page, the operation of Pinhao Fan does not rely on the daily low price of large coupons, nor does it pick the time period, and the main daily low price. Merchants are willing to make efforts for good meals because good meals are more like a kind of reverse customization – merchants often only need to make a few explosive products, which are the most common varieties eaten by customers every day, with a high frequency of ordering and fast grouping.
For the platform, with high orders, the platform not only does a good job in store transparency and other aspects, but also uses the nature of group to promote centralized distribution and reduce distribution costs.
In the end, the combination of the two aspects allowed customers to eat takeaways that were both cost-effective and of the same quality. This is actually a popular strategy with small profits and quick turnover in the e-commerce field.
In fact, merchants feel this deeply. The owner of a pig’s trotter rice told us that the takeaway platform is not what everyone thinks, and that if you have a store that can serve food on the platform, you will have a bang, and you need to operate to do takeaway. But many self-employed people have no experience in catering business, what should they do? Pinhao Fan is such a choice to help merchants accumulate operational experience, and in the early stage, you can make small profits and sell well to beat the reputation of the store, because it is a fixed package product, and the cost is easy to control.
In the later stage, such a window is a good helper for long-term drainage. For example, some good meal merchants can pick up offline and then discount, so that the calculation often becomes the lowest price.
According to the calculations of the opening time of some merchants, they even cooked well as soon as the store opened, and it has not stopped. Some have helped merchants open up the situation, and some have changed from low-profit products to relatively stable long-term income, which also gives merchants the motivation to continue to create quality packages and give back to consumers.
It is based on this model that merchants, consumers and platforms have formed a virtuous circle. In contrast, it will take time for new food delivery platforms to catch up with this effect. Only a sustainable model can truly allow us to eat good takeaways all the time.
So, next time someone tells me that I can’t get the coupon, I will directly open Meituan and hand it to him: Do you want to try this?
