162: Chapter 162, "Piece-to-Piece Meal," goes viral online!

In Shucheng, within a newly built technology park.

Although it was already nine o'clock in the evening, several office buildings were still lit up.

At this moment.

On one of the lit-up floors.

Two men with faces full of exhaustion sat facing each other, lacking even the energy to speak, because there was a problem with the project they were responsible for, and they had to work overtime to fix it.

They only had time to eat at nine in the evening.

One of them picked up his phone to check the time, opened a food delivery app to browse, swiped a few times on the screen, and then slapped the phone onto the table.

"It's gone, all gone. The one-cent coffee, the one-point-nine yuan milk tea, it's all gone. My free food delivery!"

He leaned back in his chair, unable to suppress the irritability in his tone.

The person opposite him picked up a teacup and took a sip.

"When I told you to take advantage of the deals the day before yesterday, you didn't. You said there was no rush, that you'd wait until you finished the work for the next few days before slowly milking it. Well, now it's gone entirely."

"How was I supposed to know it would end in just a few days? The last food delivery war lasted for months at least, but this one didn't even last ten days from start to finish."

"I haven't even had a chance to place a few orders, and it's all gone."

He flipped his phone over, screen facing up, and opened Taobao Flash Buy to browse around. There were still full-reduction coupons, but the discount magnitude wasn't even on the same level as before, and the food delivery prices on JD.com were even more ridiculously high.

"Forget it, let's go eat outside."

"There's no point in ordering delivery once the prices go up."

He stood up, grabbed the jacket he had just taken off, and prepared to head out.

At the same time.

The person opposite him stood up while subconsciously picking up his phone and opening Pinxixi Flash Buy.

He originally wanted to browse a bit more to see if there were any hidden coupons, but after opening it, he discovered a brand-new entry icon on the Flash Buy homepage.

shared meals service.

He paused for a moment, his finger hovering over the screen for two seconds, then he clicked into it.

After it finished loading, a brand-new page came into view.

This shared meals service page was completely different from the food delivery channel. It wasn't the usual list of merchants in rows; instead, it displayed all the dishes directly on the homepage.

Shredded pork with garlic sauce over rice, Kung Pao chicken over rice, pearl milk tea, coffee.

The key thing was.

Next to every item, it was labeled with the same price: 9.9 yuan.

He scrolled down a few times; the products on the page from top to bottom were almost all the same price, all 9.9 yuan.

The key was that he clicked in to check, and these weren't small portions of discounted dishes; they were normal portions, and they looked no different in the pictures from standard food delivery.

In fact.

Some set meals that sold for twenty or thirty yuan in the store were also 9.9 yuan here!

He hurriedly read the rules carefully, wanting to know why the products in this shared meals service were so cheap.

He quickly confirmed.

This was a campaign run by the platform and the merchants together, aiming for small profits but quick turnover.

The cost of the dishes themselves wasn't high. By centralizing procurement and unifying delivery, they minimized costs, then earned profits through volume; orders were only shipped if the group purchase was successful.

"Let's go, let's go eat out. What are you looking at?"

Having walked a few steps, the person in front noticed his colleague had stopped, his face full of confusion.

The latter showed his screen to the other.

"Still want to eat out?"

"Pinxixi Flash Buy launched a shared meals service, and basically everything is 9.9 yuan. Isn't this cheaper than going to the store?"

...

At the same time.

Although the shared meals service had just been updated and launched, Pinduoduo had already rolled out its promotion across the entire internet.

Douyin's algorithm used big data to push the shared meals service to all users who ordered food delivery, with splash screen ads, local city channels, and recommendation slots all being utilized for the push.

By the next day.

Under the money-burning operations of Langchao Group.

Discussions about the shared meals service appeared on all major social media platforms.

On the Weibo trending list, an entry for low-priced shared meals service appeared directly, even ranking third. Clicking into it showed various users posting screenshots of their orders.

Many food delivery users only then realized.

It turned out that even after the food delivery war ended, they could still eat low-priced delivery food. The comments were instantly flooded with a large number of food delivery users.

"There's another expert?"

"I thought the food delivery war was over, but I didn't expect this, I really didn't. You thick-browed, big-eyed Pinxixi Flash Buy, you actually hid a shared meals service. Very good, I am very satisfied!"

"I feel like the intensity of the shared meals service isn't any worse than the previous food delivery war. Although there's no free delivery anymore, the various 9.9 yuan set meals and drinks are quite cost-effective, though I don't know how the quality is."

"Bilibili has a blogger who posted a comparison video. The person above can go check it out. Same shop, one bought normally on Taobao Flash Buy, and the other via Pinxixi Flash Buy's shared meals service. The price difference is ten yuan, but the delivered meal is exactly the same!"

"When it comes down to it, isn't this just the same model as the previous Multi-billion Subsidy? Merchants want volume, the platform gives traffic, and users get low prices. Just how many industries is this one software going to topple?"

Not long after this trending topic appeared.

A comparison video on Bilibili, under the promotion of Langchao Group, also gained quite a bit of popularity and received millions of likes on Douyin.

The content of the video was very simple.

It was just a blogger ordering the shared meals service and then ordering normal food delivery for comparison. Ultimately, they discovered that for most meals, the quality was no different. Occasionally, some shared meals service orders had a few less pieces of meat, but compared to the price difference, it really didn't matter at all.

As for the brand-name shops in the shared meals service, the price had absolutely no impact on quality.

Finally.

With Langchao Group promoting the shared meals service with full force, the user growth rate of this brand-new channel far exceeded that of Qin Mo's previous life.

You have to know.

In the previous life, the shared meals service went through a long cold-start period, starting with pilot programs in a few cities and gradually expanding. It took quite a while before it really took off and was accepted by a large number of food delivery users.

But in this world, the shared meals service exploded in popularity almost from the moment it was born.

And the main reason for this difference was that in this world, the timing of the shared meals service launch was perfect; it was right at the moment the food delivery war had just ended.

At this point in time.

A large number of food delivery users were in a rather delicate state. The food delivery war had been going on for nearly ten days, and they had just gotten used to the existence of low-priced food delivery.

Many people hadn't even ordered food delivery a few times before, but because of the food delivery war, they had become regular customers, placing a few orders almost every day to milk the deals.

And habits, once formed, are very hard to break.

Especially the habit of milking deals to eat low-priced delivery food.

But then.

The food delivery war was suddenly called off. One-cent milk tea and free delivery meals disappeared overnight. It was like they had just started enjoying it, and the next second it was over, leaving countless food delivery users who had tasted the sweetness feeling restless and frustrated.

This group of people was feeling unsatisfied and uncomfortable all over.

At this time.

The shared meals service launched right at this juncture.

Although the 9.9 yuan price wasn't as low as during the food delivery war, it was significantly cheaper than eating at a restaurant and cheaper than normal food delivery.

For those users who had just gotten used to low-priced food delivery, 9.9 yuan was exactly at a psychological price point that they could accept without feeling it was expensive.

And what needs to be known is.

Although the shared meals service was essentially group-purchased food delivery, in terms of user experience, it was exactly the same as ordering normal food delivery. The process for ordering food delivery before was the same as the process for ordering the shared meals service now.

Because from the very beginning, the orders users saw on the interface were already ones where the system automatically matched nearby pending orders.

Many users didn't even feel like they were group-purchasing when they placed their orders; they just felt that this 9.9 yuan food delivery was as fast as usual.

This extremely low barrier to operation, coupled with the timing window that hit right at the habit-formation period, made the explosion speed of the shared meals service ridiculously fast.

The key is.

Facing the move suddenly played by Pinxixi Flash Buy.

Taobao and JD.com couldn't react in time at all. Even though they knew the lethality of the shared meals service, they could only watch.

Although they were envious, they had no way to follow up quickly.

Because the shared meals service didn't lower prices by issuing coupons; it renegotiated the cooperation model with merchants from the ground up.

Merchants agreed to small profits but quick turnover, the platform lowered its commission rate, and they coordinated with group-purchase delivery to optimize logistics routes. This entire chain was something Pinxixi Flash Buy had started building a long time ago.

As for Taobao and JD.com.

If they wanted to launch their own shared meals service, they would need to go out and contact merchants one by one across the country, asking if they wanted to join, what dishes to choose as the main promotion if they joined, how to set prices, and how to negotiate commissions.

This would require a huge amount of time.

Even if they started the project immediately now, it would still take about a month or more to roll it out nationwide.

And a month later, who knew where Pinxixi Flash Buy's market share would have already risen to.

Therefore.

When the shared meals service was launched, many internet analysis bloggers, quite a few netizens following the food delivery market, and even people inside JD.com, almost all defaulted to one thing.

Once this killer move, the shared meals service, was launched, Pinxixi Flash Buy would completely take over the majority of the food delivery market.

Even if Taobao and JD.com followed up later, they could only fight each other for the remaining share.

And the facts.

were about the same as what the outside world had guessed.

After the shared meals service launched, Pinxixi Flash Buy's market share began to jump upward at an incredibly exaggerated speed, almost sweeping across the entire food delivery market!