The fewer words, the bigger the matter.

According to the official website of the General Administration of Market Supervision, recently, on the basis of a report, the General Administration of Market Supervision filed an investigation into Meituan's suspected monopoly behavior, such as "choosing one of the two" in accordance with the law.

In response, Meituan publicly responded that the company will actively cooperate with the regulatory authorities to further improve the level of business compliance management, protect the legitimate rights and interests of users and all parties, promote the long-term and healthy development of the industry, and earnestly fulfill their social responsibilities.

At present, all the business of the company is normal. Not long ago, Ali was heavily fined 18.2 billion for "choosing one of the two." People's Daily commented that the move was intended to "promote the healthy and sustainable development of the platform's economic norms." BABA also responded at the first time to sincerely accept and resolutely obey in the face of supervision.

01 forcing merchants to obey?

It is high time to investigate Meituan's "choose one of the two". In February this year, the Zhejiang Jinhua Intermediate people's Court found out that Meituan had sent some messages to merchants denigrating the ele.me platform and asked for "one of two" exclusive cooperation to constitute unfair competition, and ordered Meituan to pay 1 million yuan in compensation to ele.me.

However, Meituan showed no obvious sign to stop "choosing one of the two." he only published a promise of "business compliance in accordance with the law," promising not to force merchants to "choose one of the two" through unreasonable restrictions and other measures. Respect the right of independent choice of operators in the platform, not through unreasonable restrictions and other measures to force merchants to choose one of the two, do not use technical means and other measures to implement monopoly agreements and abuse market dominance to exclude, and restrict market competition.

Prior to this, Niudao Finance had visited and investigated that Meituan takeout had forced merchants to "choose one of the two" in second-and third-tier cities, otherwise they would be forced to go offline and close the backstage. In fact, in the face of the platform side "choose one of the two" hard requirements, in the game with the platform in an obvious weak position, merchants do not have the right to speak.

In fact,Both the link of normal operation and the flow are directly affected by the platform.

Ding Daoshi, an Internet analyst, said in an interview with the media that the behavior of forcing merchants to "choose one of the two" is an abnormal competition model that has existed on the Internet in the past two years and has become an unspoken rule in the industry.

Across the country, there have been frequent reports of punishments for forcing merchants to "choose one of two" delivery platforms. Mr. Zhang, a former Meituan city operator, once revealed to Niudao Finance and Economics thatMeituan takeout has a variety of routines for merchants, customers, competing pairs, delivery staff and agents.

Among them, Meituan takeout forced merchants to choose one of the two in terms of regulating and controlling merchants in other competing pairs. Niudao Finance and Economics learned that in the cooperation between Meituan takeout and merchants, Meituan made use of his market advantage to require all merchants to sign a "cooperation commitment" when they settled in Meituan takeout.

Its contents include:Merchants stationed in Meituan can only operate exclusively through Meituan takeout, and merchants who break their promises are required to pay liquidated damages.

Although it will not really force merchants to pay, but the situation of blackmail is not uncommon.When the merchants settled on the ele.me platform, they unilaterally shut down their stores in Meituan, forcing them to give in.

"for example, narrowing the distribution scope of merchants so that some customers cannot order meals, reducing merchants' sales or increasing distribution fees, making merchants' distribution fees higher than other merchants, or finding a merchant of the same category for a preferential activity, resulting in a decline in merchants' sales to ask them, or unilaterally increase the commission to merchants, squeezing merchants' profit space. "

Mr. Chang, a Meituan agent in Zhengzhou, told Niudao Finance that he had been stationed and signed as an exclusive takeout agent for Meituan for more than a year. Mr. Chang heard that Meituan's exclusive agent forbade signing other takeout platforms, otherwise he would shut down the backstage.

"the business of our store has been growing. I want to broaden another channel. I don't know whether Meituan agrees or not, otherwise I will lose a lot if I forcibly close the backstage without the consent of Meituan. "said Mr. Chang.

"quitting the platform means the loss of the customer source; not quitting the platform means that you can only accept the constraints of the platform, otherwise close the background system. Meituan takeout seller Mr. Wang said.

From the merchant's point of view, the platform as a traffic channel is of course the more the better, but the one-way binding of "choose one of the two" is tantamount to giving up other traffic entrances in disguise. Moreover, the discourse power between the platform and small businesses has been unequal for a long time, a very small number of supported businesses get huge resources and huge economic returns, and the vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses struggle to survive in the gap.

02 "choose one of two" controversy

Public reports show that as early as the second half of 2016, in order to promote online services, Meituan forcibly shut down its merchants that had cooperation with delivery platforms such as ele.me and Baidu, Inc. takeout, and stopped the interface service of Meituan takeout to these merchants.

If they want to restore services, these merchants must stop working with other platforms. And if the merchant violates the relevant agreement, Meituan will raise the entry fee standard. "generally speaking, the company or the leader has asked to forcibly close the non-exclusive store, in short, it is to threaten with the flow.

Mr. Zhang told Niudao Finance and Economics. In addition, the fee actually charged by Meituan is a commission, and the consumer's consumption money is directly to Meituan's account, from which the commission is deducted, taking about 18% of the commission, and the rest will be automatically called to the merchant.

Meituan, a businessman in Xinmi, Henan Province, told Niudao Finance, "Meituan takeout actually hid the store directly, telling it that it must be removed from ele.me. If it is not exclusive, it will charge a commission of 25 to 30 points." "

It is worth mentioning that Mr. Zheng, who owns more than 10 restaurants at Meituan takeout merchants in Kunming, signed an one-year cooperation agreement with Meituan's online food delivery platform at the end of last year, according to the Spring City Evening News.

Around December 15, 2017, he included another delivery platform in the scope of his cooperation. Just after working with another delivery platform for three days, Mr. Zheng received a call from Meituan warning them that they could only cooperate exclusively with Meituan and that if another online food delivery platform was not shut down in time, Meituan would take their products offline.

After Mr. Zheng received the call, he was still thinking about how to solve it. As a result, his restaurant on Meituan was forcibly shut down the next day, and the online store on the client side was closed.

"there is no room for negotiation at all, there is no formal notice, as soon as we turn on the computer, the restaurant we try to run every day will not be able to open for business. I am really angry, but we can't find a place to communicate. "due to the long time of cooperation with Meituan, more customers, there is no way, Mr. Zheng can only another takeout platform online ordering closed.

Meituan takeout was fined 526000 yuan by the local market regulator for illegal acts such as restricting competition in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, the legal Daily reported.

At the same time, Meituan takeout also requires merchants to choose "only cooperate with Meituan takeout online platform" in the delivery service contract signed with it, otherwise Meituan will not provide Meituan takeout services to merchants and completely cut off the cooperation between merchants and other delivery platforms.

Then, the agent Mr. Zhang also said to Niudao Finance and Economics, "if ele.me merchants have made relatively big preferential activities, Meituan's people all went to order that merchant, causing the merchants to have a rest at the pressure point of serving meals." and waste the distribution capacity of ele.me so that real customers can not enjoy the benefits. "in terms of merchant subsidies, Meituan takeout assessment subsidy is divided into two parts: one part of the merchant subsidy, the business concession, the other is the agent subsidy, the agent pays the business to do activities, so that Meituan's price is cheaper than the competition.

An unnamed Meituan takeout agent told Niudao Finance that Meituan takeout asked his agent to pay for ele.me delivery staff. In this regard, some industry regulators said that Meituan takeout takes advantage of its own advantages to hinder and intimidate others to have normal transactions with competitors, which is an act of unfair competition.

03 the death of agency

It is understood that Meituan initially entered the market as a direct operator, but after Wang Huiwen took over the takeout business, taking into account such problems as the overweight of the direct operation model, he recruited agents on a large scale.

Earlier, according to the 21st Century Business Herald, citing information released by an agent, "the agent will withdraw 20%, 25%, from the merchant's order as a service charge. But sometimes the channel manager also requires the merchant to provide users with a list price of 10%, 50%, as a subsidy.

The merchant did not accept it, and the agent had to pay the subsidy himself in order to avoid punishment. Mr. Zhang revealed to Niudao Finance and Economics that customers often encounter such tricks: if there is a discount of 20 yuan minus 5 yuan, they do not actually enjoy the activity when they actually pay for it. For a very large activity, the amount of money paid is almost or even more expensive than that of going to the store, and the quantity of takeout is pitifully small.

"the fundamental reason is that the profit margins of catering merchants have been squeezed again and again, only by means of reducing food or selling prices online higher than the entry price, or using activity rules to fool customers, and the indicators of business personnel and agents and Meituan. "in terms of the delivery clerk, Mr. Zhang told Niudao Finance that Meituan had set various fine targets for the distributor: poor comments, overtime, advance delivery, and so on.

"the distribution time has been squeezed again and again, resulting in takeout boys running red lights, retrograde and other phenomena that can easily lead to hidden traffic troubles. Each agent has its own set of models. On the basis of Meituan's fine index, it is not impossible to formulate a higher fine system and squeeze more profitable agents out of the takeout boy. "for Meituan takeout agents, another important assessment index is the transaction volume index.

It is understood that the index of transaction volume needs to be jointly supported by various indicators such as user plus merchant plus distributor plus subsidy rate, and the online business of merchants needs to be reviewed by the headquarters.

Meituan's principle is that merchants are required to have a complete double certificate, but only one certificate in the audit process can pass, or even muddle through. This is also the reason for the frequent emergence of black workshops. And the relative risk liability Meituan only needs to determine the violation of business personnel or agents can be solved. "Mr. Zhang told Niudao Finance and Economics.

According to the Code of Conduct of Meituan takeout agents, every month the agent will have a corresponding KPI assessment index, 80 points as qualified. Unqualified agents are likely to need to carry out rectification on a weekly basis, two rectification failures will be seriously warned, and three serious warnings will be withdrawn.

Niudao Finance and Economics learned that the business team of Meituan agents is managed by Meituan channels, and the salary agents go out, but when the task is set, Meituan sets it, and the completion of the task has nothing to do with the profits of the agents, and even the profits will be lost. But it is directly related to the income of Meituan and Becton Dickinson & Co.

"the life or death of businessmen is not considered by Becton Dickinson & Co, what they consider is to close down and change bosses as soon as they lose their value."

A Meituan takeout market operator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Niudao Finance and Economics: "whether the agent makes money or not is not within the scope of their consideration. if the subsidy target is not up to the standard, the agent will be threatened to withdraw." if you have the ability to let the merchants have the ability to post their own money, but occasionally will force the agents to subsidize, for the agents who do not cooperate for several months, they will really withdraw. "

On November 10, 2020, the General Administration of Market Supervision issued the Anti-monopoly Guide on the platform economy (draft for soliciting opinions), detailing the "one of two" monopoly behavior in the Internet field for the first time.

A relevant official from the Office of the Anti-monopoly Commission of the State Council said that "choosing one of the two" is a general statement by the public on unreasonable restrictions such as platform operators requiring platform operators not to operate on other competitive platforms.

The Anti-Monopoly Law prohibits operators from abusing their dominant position in the market, and there is no good reason to restrict the counterpart of the transaction to trade only with them or with their designated operators. Now it seems that if Meituan is not willing to stop completely, as antitrust regulation deepens, he may be subject to more restrictions and even penalties, such as receiving huge fines. Therefore, all parties in the market must "beware" Meituan.