Miniso and Meituan Deepen Flash Warehouse Partnership, Aiming for Over 800 24H Superstores This Year

On October 14th, Miniso and Meituan announced a deep strategic cooperation, focusing on immediate retail business. Miniso will launch over 800 "24H Super Stores" in the form of lightning warehouses on Meituan within the year, catering to consumers' immediate needs of "ordering online and receiving within 30 minutes." At the same time, the two parties will also explore cooperation in store business, with Meituan providing multiple digital marketing supports to Miniso based on user in-store consumption scenarios.

Wang Puzhong, CEO of Meituan's core local commerce, and Ye Guofu, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Miniso Group, witnessed the signing ceremony on site. Xiao Kun, Vice President of Meituan and head of the Flash Purchase Business Unit, Chen Yifang, head of Meituan's leisure and beauty business unit, and Yao Jianzheng, Vice President of Miniso Group and General Manager of China Operations, represented both parties in signing the deep strategic cooperation agreement.

"Meituan is an excellent deep partner for Miniso, and the two parties are highly compatible in style and genes. Miniso also hopes to become a benchmark partner for Meituan," said Ye Guofu. Miniso continues to be optimistic about the development prospects of immediate retail and lightning warehouse formats, hoping that this cooperation will become a new starting point, making the 24H Super Store, an immediate retail lightning warehouse format, the second growth curve for Miniso in the domestic market.

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Wang Puzhong stated that Miniso has a strong supply chain capability and product strength, actively embracing immediate retail. Meituan will leverage the synergistic effect of home and store to fully support Miniso's exploration of new formats. At present, the layout of lightning warehouse formats has become the mainstream trend and necessary direction for the evolution of the immediate retail industry. It is believed that the cooperation between the two parties will become a benchmark cooperation in the industry.

Meituan's ecosystem supports Miniso in exploring new lightning warehouse formats. According to Chen Zhenjie, the person in charge of Miniso's immediate retail, the 24H Super Store in the form of lightning warehouses is specifically aimed at the online consumption needs of immediate retail users, established and operated on the Meituan platform, forming a differentiation and effective complement with conventional offline stores in terms of product categories, coverage, operating hours, and service experience.

"From the opening of the first store in January this year, we have opened about 500 24H Super Stores, with a cumulative performance of over 100 million yuan," said Chen Zhenjie. After nearly half a year of "trial run period," this new lightning warehouse format has shown a very positive growth and profit trend. Therefore, Miniso decided to accelerate the exploration of this format. "Meituan has a deep accumulation and a large user base in the field of immediate retail, which can provide strong support for the development of new models for Miniso's 24H Super Stores."

Since joining Meituan in 2018, the number of new customers for the Miniso brand has increased by more than 70% annually over the past five years. "This deep strategic cooperation can be seen as an upgrade and deepening of cooperation between the two parties in the field of immediate retail," said Xiao Kun. In response to Miniso's exploration of new lightning warehouse formats, the two parties have carried out in-depth collaboration in site selection, inventory, operations, and organization. Meituan Flash Purchase provided customized warehouse network planning and precise site selection for Miniso; based on user needs, Meituan Flash Purchase provided customized inventory strategies for Miniso, and the two parties co-created a differentiated high-quality inventory exclusive to the 24H Super Store; in terms of operations and organization, Meituan Flash Purchase specially built a store operation system and plan for Miniso, and the two parties respectively established special teams to jointly accelerate the "warehouse opening" process.

In addition to the cooperation focus on immediate retail, based on the consumption scenarios of users in stores, Meituan and Miniso jointly build a "store official website," enrich online store information, optimize online group purchase supply, carry out online and offline IP joint marketing, and joint subsidies and other digital marketing cooperation, aiming to fully support Miniso's exploration of new formats with the "home + store" Meituan ecosystem.The layout of lightning warehouses will become the biggest opportunity in the instant retail industry

The "Instant Retail Industry Development Report (2023)" released by the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce shows that the instant retail industry has maintained a high growth rate of over 50% in recent years, with a market size exceeding 500 billion yuan in 2022, and it is expected that the market size of instant retail will reach three times that of 2022 by 2025.

With the rapid growth of this "trillion" market, many brands and retailers have vigorously laid out lightning warehouses, making this business format one of the core drivers of the growth and evolution of the instant retail industry. In this process, Miniso has become a benchmark brand for "opening warehouses" through in-depth cooperation with Meituan. Currently, Miniso has become the retail brand with the most direct-operated lightning warehouses in the field of instant retail.

"Miniso has a high degree of attention and clear goals and plans for 'opening warehouses'," said Chen Zhenjie, by implementing differentiated strategies in terms of location selection and goods, the 24H Super Store and conventional offline stores have formed a harmonious complement, which can actively promote sales performance. The 24H Super Store is mainly laid out in first-tier and super first-tier cities, as well as popular travel cities with high demand for online consumption, mainly located in communities, residences and other densely populated areas to supplement the coverage of conventional offline shopping mall stores; in terms of operating time, it achieves 24-hour all-weather service; in terms of goods, in addition to conventional fast-moving consumer goods, based on the product analysis provided by Meituan Flash Purchase, it designs and develops goods that are more in line with the needs of instant retail consumers, such as travel supplies, gift supplies, cleaning supplies, digital accessories, beauty and personal care, pet supplies and other characteristic products, rather than simply copying the goods of conventional offline stores.

"In the future, the product difference rate between 24H Super Stores and conventional offline stores is expected to reach 70%, and we will continue to deepen cooperation with Meituan, and continue to accelerate the 'opening warehouse' process with the growth of the number of instant retail users," said Chen Zhenjie.

"Miniso's supply chain capabilities and advantages in products are highly compatible with instant retail, which helps to enhance the richness and quality of Meituan Flash Purchase's supply," said Xiao Kun, the 24H Super Store, which is refined and differentiated, represents the current trend of instant retail evolution, and is believed to effectively promote the second curve growth of Miniso's domestic market and the overall development of the instant retail industry.