外卖标识再进化 美团上线“商场店”“商业街店”等标签

Meituan Waimai (Meituan Food Delivery) has rolled out new business category labels for special food service outlets, addressing gaps in the original dine-in marking system to help ordinary consumers understand outlet conditions more clearly and speed up their ordering decisions.

1. The new labels cover categories including "mall outlet", "high street outlet" and "platform-inspected", designed specifically for atypical outlets that do not have independent dine-in space but have access to public dining areas such as mall food kiosks and high street counters. As of August this year, more than 200,000 mall outlets and 45,000 high street outlets have been tagged.

2. Combined with "one-shot" verification videos, on-site platform inspections, live kitchen streams and open back-of-house disclosures, the new labels allow consumers to get a full picture of an outlet's location, dining conditions and kitchen hygiene before ordering, providing far more comprehensive information than the original ratings and dish photos alone.

3. If consumers find tag information inconsistent with actual conditions, they can submit reports directly via a one-click food safety feedback entry on the merchant page, and the platform will arrange for specialist staff to investigate and resolve the issue.

Meituan Waimai's launch of segmented business scenario labels reflects the latest consumer trends in the food delivery industry and opens up new opportunities for brand marketing and exposure for food brands of all sizes.

1. Current consumer trends show that diners increasingly prioritize access to accurate information about an outlet's actual operating scenario, dining conditions and food safety, and prefer merchants that offer greater transparency. These new labels directly respond to this shift in consumer demand.

2. For brands that operate special formats such as mall kiosks and high street counters, the new labels provide a more accurate channel to showcase their operating conditions, helping them match with consumers who have corresponding needs, reduce negative reviews and order cancellations caused by information asymmetry, and improve conversion rates.

3. Brands can proactively disclose back-of-house and dining environment information and integrate live kitchen streaming alongside the new labels to further boost consumer trust. Currently, 2.74 million merchants across the industry have already disclosed their environment information, and 450,000 have added live kitchen streaming, making this a promising operational direction for brands to pursue.

Following the implementation of new food delivery regulations in June this year, Meituan's launch of new segmented scenario labels brings new exposure opportunities for food delivery sellers of all types, while also clarifying operating requirements.

1. The new regulations require food delivery merchants to clearly mark whether they offer dine-in service. However, many mall kiosk and high street merchants do not have independent seating but have access to public dining areas, a situation the original single-category label system could not accurately reflect. The new labels solve this pain point, allowing sellers to accurately display their actual operating conditions.

2. The new labels help sellers match with their targeted customer groups and gain more relevant exposure. As of August this year, more than 200,000 mall outlets and 45,000 high street outlets have added the new labels and already benefited from the traffic growth brought by segmented categorization.

3. Sellers need to ensure their tag information matches their actual operating conditions; inconsistent information reported by consumers will trigger an investigation by the platform. Sellers can also proactively disclose outlet and kitchen information alongside their new labels to boost consumer trust and drive order growth.

Meituan Waimai's push for more granular outlet categorization and greater information transparency is driving industry-wide change, creating new business opportunities and digital transformation insights for catering supply chains and supporting manufacturers.

1. As consumer demand for more transparent catering information rises, a growing number of food merchants need supporting hardware and services to showcase their outlet environments and set up live kitchen streaming. Relevant manufacturers can develop kitchen monitoring equipment and information display products tailored for small catering scenarios to capture this new market demand.

2. As catering outlet formats continue to segment, small kiosks such as mall and high street outlets have different product needs than traditional full-service dine-in restaurants. Manufacturers can develop small-sized SKUs adapted for these high-frequency delivery scenarios to match merchants' operating needs and unlock new sales growth.

3. As the entire food delivery industry becomes more digital and operationally refined, manufacturers also need to accelerate their own digital transformation to better meet the new demands of platforms and merchants, and capture incremental opportunities brought by industry change.

Meituan's launch of segmented business labels signals a new development trend in the food delivery industry, and clarifies customer pain points and business directions for catering-related service providers.

1. The current trend in the food delivery industry is ongoing segmentation of merchant outlet formats, with information transparency becoming the industry norm. Both platforms and merchants now have new demand for refined information display and verification services, as the industry shifts from extensive growth to refined operation.

2. The core industry pain point today is that the original single dine-in marking system cannot meet the display needs of special outlet formats, while consumer demand for accurate outlet information continues to rise. Both merchants and platforms need professional third-party services to collect, verify and maintain outlet information.

3. Service providers can develop end-to-end solutions around scenario tag verification, environment content production, live kitchen equipment deployment, and ongoing information maintenance to meet the needs of merchants and platforms. With millions of merchants already having disclosed their outlet environment information, relevant service demand is already clear and substantial.

Meituan's rollout of segmented business labels offers operational insights for local life and food delivery platforms of all kinds, while also highlighting key risk areas to monitor.

1. After the implementation of new food delivery regulations, the industry broadly faced the challenge of marking dine-in status for special outlet formats, as the binary "dine-in / no dine-in" label system could not meet the needs of both merchants and consumers. Meituan's segmented scenario labels provide a compliant and effective solution that meets the new regulation's disclosure requirements while solving pain points for both sides of the platform.

2. Key operational takeaways include: soliciting consumer input before launching a new categorization standard to ensure it aligns with user understanding; pairing tags with verification videos, on-site inspections and a user feedback mechanism to guarantee information accuracy; and integrating existing tools such as live kitchen streaming and back-of-house disclosure to build a complete information display system.

3. The key risk to avoid is a consumer trust crisis caused by inaccurate tag information. Platforms need to build a robust user feedback and investigation mechanism to correct incorrect information in a timely manner and standardize merchant operations.

Meituan Waimai's launch of segmented business labels reveals new trends and emerging issues in the food delivery industry, offering high reference value for industrial research.

1. In terms of new industry trends, the food delivery sector has moved beyond early-stage expansion into a phase of refined operation. Outlet segmentation and information transparency have emerged as the new direction for industry growth, with platforms increasingly focusing on the granular needs that shape consumer decision-making, and better adapting to the actual operating scenarios of different merchants. The entire industry's business model is continuing to refine and upgrade.

2. On the side of emerging issues, after new food delivery regulations introduced clear requirements for dine-in marking, the industry faced a new problem: lack of a clear classification standard for special outlet formats. Meituan's rollout represents the first market-based exploration to address this gap.

3. This practice also provides a real-world case study for optimizing industrial policy and improving industry rules. Meituan's approach of engaging the public in standard-setting and dynamically adjusting its tag system based on user feedback offers a reference for future regulatory optimization, and reflects the new direction of platform governance in the local services sector.