ByteDance’s Douyin has been trialing a meals supply service since December because it appears to be like to develop its enterprise past promoting.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Pictures
ByteDance instructed CNBC on Wednesday that it has been testing a sort of meals supply service in China by way of its quick video app Douyin, doubtlessly pitting itself in opposition to main e-commerce firms like Alibaba and Meituan.
And the corporate is now contemplating extending the service past the trial.
Douyin is the Chinese language model of TikTok that are each owned by ByteDance.
A Douyin spokesperson stated that the corporate has been “testing a function in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu that allows retailers to advertise and promote ‘group-buying’ packages to Douyin customers in these choose cities and have them delivered.”
Restaurant house owners typically livestream on Douyin to market their enterprise. Whereas doing this, they will provide reductions and coupons for his or her meals to customers watching the movies. A number of customers can then buy that supply and select a time inside two days for the meals to reach.
The mannequin could be very totally different from Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me that are each on-demand meals supply companies, very like Uber Eats.
“We’d take into account increasing the function to extra cities sooner or later relying on the testing outcomes. There isn’t any detailed timeline but,” a Douyin spokesperson stated.
The corporate has been testing the function since December.
China’s meals supply business is dominated by Meituan and Ele.me.
However ByteDance’s tentative steps into the market suggests it desires a slice of the market, which was price $66.4 billion in 2022, in accordance with analysis agency IMARC Group.
ByteDance has been dipping its toes into totally different areas of on-line buying. Final yr, the corporate launched a vogue web site known as If Yooou outdoors of China.
