New face of the new economy: Ele.me CEO Wang Lei: Consumers' "Economy around" is a new track
China News Agency, Shanghai, August 12th, title: New face of the new economy: Ele.me CEO Wang Lei: Consumers "the economy around them" is a new track
Author Li Qiuying
"'Economy around' is a new business model that combines physical transactions and services, and this year's epidemic has greatly accelerated the implementation of this model." Ele.me CEO Wang Lei said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency recently, "I'm hungry. In the future, we will continue to focus on consumers' "economy around them" and strive to create a perfect life circle for users."
Are you hungry CEO: Wang Lei. Shen Hai
Shanghai has always been regarded as a fertile ground for the development of life service companies. Wang Lei also agreed with this point of view, "Are you hungry is inevitable to be born in Shanghai, even if you are not hungry, there may be "Is you full?" Is it fat? This is in line with the city's tolerance for multiculturalism , The pursuit of exquisite life is closely linked."
A few days ago, Ele.me announced a comprehensive upgrade, from a catering takeaway platform to a life service platform that solves all the immediate needs of users around. By creating an “economy around you”, it will go one step further on the road of digital upgrade.
A large-scale digital transformation of the local life service industry is taking place.
Ele.me data shows that the number of its merchants has increased by 30% during the epidemic, and many categories that are not suitable for takeaway, such as hot pot and kebabs, have also seen rapid growth. "Pets (supplies) have increased by 6 times, including maternal and child products." This also made Ele.me led by Wang Lei determined to expand the types of takeaways and improve service quality.
Specifically, the rapid growth of the number of merchants is firstly due to their desire for traffic, and then the specific manifestation of the gradual changes in the entire business format. Wang Lei said, “This shows that more and more businesses realize that digital capabilities have become an essential skill in the catering and retail industries.”
Ele.me used the take-out counter during the epidemic. Shen Hai
Wang Lei believes that “the digitization of the local life service industry is still in a very early stage. This is a brand new track.” This was confirmed in the “2020 China Life Service Industry Digital Development Report” previously released. According to the "Report", the current service industry accounts for more than half of China's GDP. However, due to the fact that it is mainly small and medium-sized enterprises and individual merchants, and is restricted by the characteristics of small scale and scattered distribution, there are still 80% of the service industry without Digitizing.
In April of this year, Shanghai officially released the "Shanghai Action Plan for Promoting the Development of Online New Economy (2020-2022)", and Ele.me also made a very large investment in the digital upgrade. Wang Lei said frankly, “It is not easy to build digital infrastructure for merchants, especially the service industry, which has a large industry span and a large investment.”
Wang Lei gave an example, "For example, for the'Double 11' promotion, e-commerce companies can plan early and prepare the goods, and then they only need to put the products on the shelves, sell and ship them step by step. However, facing the service industry Merchants and platforms don’t know how many salmon are left in the store on a given day, their numbers and sales plans, and how many tables there are in the store. They can’t help it with promotions, and many services cannot be closed-loop."
In his view, this problem must be completely overcome after the entire chain is digitized. "We have only achieved product digitization now, and there may be table digitization, production digitization, and supply chain digitization behind. This is a very large space, and it has only just begun."
It is understood that Ele.me has been building digital facilities in the past two years. Through continuous investment in cloud computing, logistics, financial technology, new retail, etc., it has formed a map based on Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Cainiao, Ant Financial, and AutoNavi. As the foundation, physical goods, services and entertainment are the main points of the digital economy "commercial infrastructure".
Today, Ele.me has become Shanghai's “new infrastructure” to build its first store economy and attract foreign giants to digitize. As a national brand of Canada, after Tims Hortons Coffee (hereinafter referred to as Tims) entered China in 2018, it chose to locate its headquarters in Shanghai and opened its first domestic store in People's Square. While opening the situation offline, Ele.me provided technical empowerment for Tims and opened up the digital situation. Use digital tools to assist in the selection of new store locations, and at the same time create a set of new store operation services around the new store. Tims' store members have also gotten through with Ele.me. Whether it is to shop or take out, they can enjoy membership benefits and share points.
Wang Lei said that Ele.me will continue to cultivate in Shanghai. "It took us more than ten years to have e-commerce. Is it possible for an'electronic service' to appear in Shanghai in the future?" (End)