Meituan Is Testing the ‘Takeout Version of Xiaohongshu’

After trying live streaming, short videos, and short dramas, Meituan has made new moves in terms of content.

Meituan is testing a service called “Local Eating” in Beijing, Shanghai, and other places. This service is embedded in the Meituan App’s food delivery service and is similar to a takeout version of “Xiaohongshu.” Users and Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) can share the takeaway orders they have purchased through creating content, allowing other users to discover hidden gems and merchants.

Users can place an order by clicking on the corresponding “buy these products.” The service also includes an AI writing assistance feature to further reduce the threshold for user creation.

Content seeding (recommendation) has always been one of the hot tracks in recent years. In 2022, Meituan e-commerce once set its sights on the ‘content seeding’ track. In February of the same year, Meituan launched the content seeding feature ‘Zhenxiang’, showcasing users’ notes on products for reference by other users in their product selection.

Earlier reports show that as China’s fastest-growing social media platform, Xiaohongshu is deeply loved by young women. It is reported that Xiaohongshu achieved a revenue of $3.7 billion last year and a net profit of $500 million. In comparison, the company had a revenue of about $2 billion and a loss of $200 million in 2022. According to sources close to Xiaohongshu’s operating company, the platform hopes to go public in Hong Kong. This unicorn enterprise reached 312 million monthly active users in 2023, an increase of 20% from the previous year.

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