This article is from WeChat public account: Bei Qingshen Yidu (ID: bqshenyidu), edited by: Zhang Yadi, Gao Huiping, edited by: Yang Baolu, Song Jianhua, header source: Visual China.

Early in November, Jiangxi Yugan merchants received notifications from Meituan, Hungry Me, a takeaway platform agent: the platform’s pumping rate will all rise to 22%. This move caused strong opposition from the merchants. On November 8, the merchant alliance collectively signed the “Yugan Merchant Alliance Commitment Letter”, which aims at “joining forward and retreating to resist the violence of the platform.”

After four days of protest, on November 12, the merchant and the platform agent reached an verbal agreement: the merchant agreed to increase to 22%, and the Meituan, hungry agent promised that this was the “last increase”. And said that it will increase the original subsidies to businesses by 8 to 10 percentage points.

Agreement signed by Yugan Merchant Alliance

Contradictions seem to have subsided, but under the environment of rising raw materials, increasing downward pressure on the economy, and extremely unequal platforms and businesses, small-town takeaways have always struggled in a difficult situation.

“The boss wants to eat meat dumplings”

Fang Yuan is one of the bosses participating in the merchant alliance this time. In Yugan, he has operated two restaurants and has been in the takeaway platform for three years. When he first settled in, the contract that the platform agent gave him was a 16% discount (such as the price of 20 yuan, sold through the platform, the platform received 3.2 yuan), this time directly increased to 22%.

According to Fang Yuan, the agent will give the merchant different points of contracts according to the specific situation of the store. Usually high sales, unique features, can cooperate with offline activities on the platform, and strong business points are relatively low. This time, some businesses areFrom 16% to 22%, and from 20% to 22%.

In early November, the local market manager of Meituan’s takeaway platform came in and told Fang Yuan to increase. “They said, we just inform you, you must accept if you don’t accept it. After you don’t accept it, don’t open the store online, don’t open it, and don’t ask me later.” Fang Yuan recalled.

Fang Yuan is provoked. He thinks this is a language threat. He decided to shut down Meituan and only push his own shop on the hungry platform. One day later, he found that Hungry also explicitly raised the point to 22%. The starting price of his store on the Hungry platform was adjusted to 999 yuan, and the delivery range of other merchants was reduced to a minimum of 50. Square meters, or 30 kilometers away.

Fang Yuan told reporters that the agency said to them that “we also have difficulties. The platform headquarters puts pressure on us to pump our points, and we are helpless.” The salesman who helped the agency errands joked that “the boss wants to eat.” Meat stew. ” According to Fang Yuan’s estimation, the total annual turnover of the Yugan takeaway market is currently between 40 million and 50 million. Some merchants estimate that this increase will enable agents to increase their revenue by more than 1 million per year.

If the “rising point” is the “fuse”, then the platform has always been compulsory against the will of the merchants and has long been “full of oil” for the collective protest of the merchants.

Merchants told reporters that the platform’s activities include full reduction, 1 yuan spike, red envelopes, etc. Under normal circumstances, the merchants have to pay for their activities to participate in the event, and occasionally the merchants who have a better relationship with the agent can get the platform subsidy. Some merchants said that at the beginning, the platform would also discuss with the merchants and ask the merchants if they would like to participate in the event. Fang Yuan said that in order to attract users and increase unit volume, merchants will also do activities themselves. This was originally a problem of shop strategy, but in the rest, 60% of the activities are mandatory on the platform.

Yugan merchants set up banners to resist rising points

BusinessBoycott

The long-standing grievances broke out in the “rising point”. Businessmen began to discuss countermeasures in the local takeaway group, and then they simply pulled a group dedicated to the incident. On November 8th, dozens of merchants signed the “Yuqian Merchants Alliance Commitment” offline: “I promise to join the Yuqian Merchants Alliance voluntarily, advance together and retreat, and jointly resist the violent behavior of takeaway platforms. Do not disturb social security incidents, do not disrupt the normal business operations of others, actively cooperate with the government, the news media truly feedback the social public voice, restore the normal order of Yugan ’s food delivery market, no violent pumping points for takeaway platforms, no enforcement, no malicious price increases Graft to consumers. The common goal is to keep the Yugan takeaway platform at no more than 18% pumping point, to allow the market to grow normally and healthily, and to give yourself a space to survive.

Most of the merchants signing the commitment letter are those whose local takeaway sales are high, which have suffered a lot. Since the merchants initially thought that only the Meituan Group had an upswing, the Merchant Alliance provided voluntary subsidies to Meituan’s exclusive merchants through WeChat transfers. According to a merchant estimate, about 80% of Yugan’s merchants shut down the takeaway platform service for 3 to 4 days, adding resistance to the platform.

A merchant with an origin of 20% told reporters that the breakfast he ran was only 7-8 orders a day for take-out. Although the increase was irritating, it did not actually affect the merchants who did not rely on the take-out platform. Fang Yuan’s store takeaway turnover accounts for 40% -50% of the total turnover, and some businesses even reach more than 80%. Fang Yuan estimates that although it is only 6 points, for the good-performing businesses, the annual income of more than 100,000 is affirmative, and the increase is no different from cutting meat.

“Some things you do not resist, you will be left to slaughter in the future. We do business legally, and we also need to safeguard our legal rights.” Fang Yuan said.

On November 9, the Merchants Alliance contacted the County Market Supervision Administration, and the staff of the Market Supervision Administration negotiated with the platform agents, saying that they would study the solution. In order to increase the attention of the event, the merchant alliance chose Zhongshan Avenue, which has a lot of traffic, by pulling the banner “Yugan 100 catering alliances, and jointly resisting the US Mission ’s takeaway violence,” and “the US Mission ’s takeaway blood draw, which was 22%, We have closed the shop “and shouted slogans to protest.

On the afternoon of November 12th, the business alliance and the agent settled verbally. But in the eyes of the merchants, this is more like a unilateral compromise-the agent said that “the future will not rise”, but did not sign a contract with them, and did not state that “the future” is “not rising” how long. “We don’t even know if the platform headquarters is aware of the Yugan incident,” said a merchant.

Fang Yuan told reporters: “Although the merchants are together, they are compared with such a large platform.