Meituan launches 30-minute delivery services for home appliances in China in Midea deal
- The food delivery giant is tapping into China’s growing on-demand e-commerce market by offering a wider variety of products
Chinese food delivery giant Meituan has partnered with Midea, one of the world’s largest home appliances makers, to enable app users to order products ranging from refrigerators to dishwashers and receive them in as little as 30 minutes.
The collaboration will connect 25,000 Midea retail stores to the Meituan platform by the end of this year, giving the manufacturer access to hundreds of millions of users registered with China’s largest food delivery service, according to a statement published on Meituan’s website on Thursday.
Users of Meituan’s apps, including the crowdsourced review platform Dianping, can browse product listings in nearby Midea shops and have purchases delivered to their doorstep in as quickly as half an hour. To promote the new service, Meituan’s food delivery service and Dianping are handing out vouchers to consumers.
“Currently, on-demand shopping has become a … lifestyle, and we are seeing more consumers accustomed to buying electronics with the same ease as placing a food delivery order,” Wang Chao, a Meituan executive, said in the statement.
The deal with Midea is the latest in a series of tie-ups struck by Meituan in recent years, as the Beijing-based firm searches for growth in new areas.
Meituan has formed similar partnerships with international and domestic brands, such as toymaker Lego, authorised Apple resellers, confectionery and food giant Mars, sporting goods retailer Decathlon and electronics retail chain Suning, to bring those brands onto Meituan platforms.
