Only by coming up with a more transparent, reasonable and fair benefit and cost sharing mechanism can we realize the benign development of the takeout industry and solve the dilemma of "merchants shouting difficult and consumers shouting expensive" in the takeout industry. Recently, the topic of "more and more expensive takeout" has attracted attention. According to people magazine, there is a strange scene in the huge takeout catering industry. Some consumers feel that takeout is becoming more and more expensive; The head takeout platform is still hovering on the edge of loss, and is often criticized by merchants and users; Takeout bosses complain. After the dividends disappear, they fall into the dilemma of raising prices or closing stores. The current development of the takeout market will really be incomprehensible to many people. With the continuous expansion of the user base, the distribution efficiency will continue to improve, and the scale effect of the takeout platform will be further amplified. It is said that there should be more dividends. However, why do consumers shout expensive, merchants shout difficult, and the takeout platform continues to lose money? Who made the money? Source: visual China In the early stage of the development of the takeout industry, in order to seize the users and market, the capital driven platform gave profits to merchants, offered various concessions to attract entry, and kept burning money to give subsidies to users, so that it formed the illusion that "merchants think it's easy to earn money and consumers think it's convenient to order takeout". But should it be cheaper to order takeout than hall food? The answer is No. It is better to pack and deliver the food to the customers than to the customers. From the perspective of market transaction, the cost of intermediate links will inevitably be fed back to the final price. Generally speaking, takeout consumers enjoy the convenience of eating without leaving home, and of course they have to pay extra. In the past, consumers thought it was cheap because the platform was burning money for subsidies. However, this kind of subsidy is unsustainable after all. Capital investment pays attention to return, which will inevitably require the takeout platform to make profits and earn back the subsidies previously invested. Therefore, the price increase is a natural result. This business model is difficult to judge by simple right and wrong. It is only a path of market development. First burn money to occupy users, and then raise prices to recover costs. Similar business models exist in many fields. When the user base is accumulated and the user habit of ordering takeout is formed, a large amount of traffic will be introduced into the platform. According to the data released by the National Information Center, the online takeout revenue accounted for about 21.4% of the national catering industry revenue in 2021, which also gave the platform strong capital. Therefore, we can see that in the second half of the competition in the takeout industry, the "flattering" action of the platform to attract merchants and users seems to no longer exist. Source: visual China For this reason, on the basis of antitrust, the national development and Reform Commission and other departments issued a special document at the beginning of this year, proposing to guide the takeout platform to reduce the service fee standard of catering merchants and reduce the operating costs of relevant catering enterprises in terms of relief and support measures for the catering industry. After the document was issued, many takeout platforms also responded quickly and launched a series of preferential measures. In the long run, only by coming up with a more transparent, reasonable and fair benefit and cost sharing mechanism can we realize the benign development of the takeout industry and solve the dilemma of "merchants shouting difficulties and consumers shouting expensive" in the takeout industry. (Xinhua News Agency)