On August 24, the third study tour of the New Distribution Dealer Member Club, in collaboration with Meituan Flash Purchasing's Flash Purchasing Lounge, concluded successfully with a visit to Meituan Lightning Warehouse.
The tour focused on the following topics:
Official interpretation: What exactly is the Meituan Lightning Warehouse model?
Case study sharing: How to operate a Meituan Lightning Warehouse from 0 to 1?
In-depth discussion: With the rapid growth of Meituan Lightning Warehouse, what are the opportunities and challenges for distributors?
Despite strict registration limits, recruitment was completed in just three days. Over 30 dealer owners from across the country, along with relevant heads of Meituan Lightning Warehouse, the founder of Guangzhou Youkeduo, Liang Qizhi, and teachers from New Distribution, engaged in in-depth discussions on the tour topics.
Visiting Meituan Lightning Warehouse
This tour continued the format of "classroom sharing + on-site visits + interactive Q&A," breaking away from the traditional "touring without learning" approach, truly achieving goals such as "on-site experience, on-site learning, learning from others, and deep connections." During the tour, Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution, conducted an in-depth analysis of current channel changes and elaborated on the transformation paths and directions for FMCG distributors. Zhao Bo mentioned that China's FMCG channels have entered the third generation of retail models. The first generation: markets + mom-and-pop stores + wholesale markets; the second generation: CVS + KA + platform e-commerce + private domain e-commerce; the third generation: Meituan Lightning Warehouse + discount stores + membership stores + community group buying + interest-based e-commerce.
The retail model transformation is accompanied by new changes in the "people, goods, and places" at the consumer end. In the past, "people, goods, and places" were two-dimensional, based on the logic of time and space. Today, they are three-dimensional, based on time + space + scenario. The three-dimensional logic is fundamentally different from the two-dimensional: the two-dimensional is centered on the transaction field, while the three-dimensional is centered on the consumption field. When transactions can happen anytime, but the premise is demand based on scenarios, "scenario is the channel, and the channel is the transaction." Under such changes, distributors should gradually develop BC integration and omnichannel operation capabilities, moving toward one-stop supply chain development. At the same time, they must have the ability to coordinate same-city integration, covering consumers across all scenarios and time periods based on the total cost of ownership.
Wu Yanzhong, head of Meituan Lightning Warehouse Partner Management, analyzed the development and trends of instant retail and deeply interpreted Meituan Lightning Warehouse. From 2019 to 2022, instant retail users grew rapidly, with a compound growth rate of 47%, and 67% are young people aged 20-30. Instant retail has gradually become the main battlefield for young consumers. Meituan Lightning Warehouse is a new supply model under the instant retail scenario, serving online users' multi-scenario 24-hour home delivery needs through platform front warehouses. Its core problem is to solve the mismatch between online consumer demand and offline product supply. Wu Yanzhong also explained the cooperation model of Meituan Lightning Warehouse. For partners, Meituan Lightning Warehouse provides comprehensive empowerment, including site selection, product selection, supply chain, and digitalization, as well as regular video teaching and training to help merchants diagnose store operation issues.
Jiang Nan, head of products at Meituan Lightning Warehouse, shared the merchant distribution and supply structure of Meituan Lightning Warehouse and explained its product supply model. Meituan Lightning Warehouse will provide users with more urban supply to meet consumers' diverse needs across all time periods. Currently, the product categories mainly include beverages, snacks, daily necessities, beauty and personal care, clothing and shoes, mobile phones and digital products, and other daily convenience items.
Liang Qizhi, co-founder of Guangzhou Youkeduo, an excellent partner of Meituan Lightning Warehouse, shared his practical experience on how to operate a Meituan Lightning Warehouse from 0 to 1. Traditional stores currently face problems: first, reduced consumer foot traffic; second, limited product capacity to meet customers' comprehensive needs; third, the significant impact of online shopping on physical stores. Meituan Lightning Warehouse is a new supply model under the instant retail scenario, and it is a rapidly growing track with growth dividends that must be seized. Liang Qizhi also deeply analyzed how Guangzhou Youkeduo excels at operating Meituan Lightning Warehouse from three important dimensions: personnel management, product management, and site selection management. During the "interactive Q&A" session, the relevant heads of Meituan Lightning Warehouse and excellent merchants provided in-depth answers to the dealers' questions.
In addition, participants visited an excellent Meituan Lightning Warehouse store in Guangzhou, where on-site staff provided detailed explanations of each step and answered questions from participants with on-site teaching.
Why visit Meituan Lightning Warehouse?
Meituan Lightning Warehouse is a retail front warehouse project launched by Meituan in 2020 for merchants under the instant retail format, serving online users' multi-scenario 24-hour home delivery needs. In less than three years, Meituan Lightning Warehouse has covered over 200 cities, with over 4,000 online warehouse stores and monthly average sales exceeding 1 billion yuan. Why does New Distribution collaborate with Meituan Flash Purchasing to organize dealer study tours to Meituan Lightning Warehouse? On one hand, the traditional offline channel business is being continuously divided, and competitive pressure is increasing. As instant retail is a continuously growing sales channel, do traditional distributors have opportunities to enter? How can they enter? On the other hand, the data from Meituan Lightning Warehouse has proven the success of its business model, and there are many successful merchant cases. Against this background, is it valuable for distributors to engage in Meituan Lightning Warehouse? What are the paths and methods? New Distribution hopes that through the study tour of Meituan Lightning Warehouse, it can provide traditional distributors with inspiration and thinking in the instant retail field, helping them improve their understanding of new channels and new models.
In the future, New Distribution will continue to visit various places, exchange with dealer owners of all types, find excellent practical cases, organize study tours and content, and discuss and share together.