Under the general trend of interconnection between giants, another pair of former "enemies" chose to shake hands and make peace.

Recently, many users have found that searching for Meituan in Alipay can already directly use Meituan charging treasure and Meituan ordering through small programs. The recent usage frequency of the two major businesses on Alipay,It has also reached 3 million and 4 million.

Recall that three years ago, Meituan also caused a heated discussion on the Internet for "abandoning" Alipay, and even led to the suspicion of "choosing one of the two" monopoly.

But now that the situation has changed and the forces have changed, the former enemies have chosen to shake hands and make peace, much like Palmeston's famous saying:"There are no eternal friends and no eternal enemies, only eternal interests".

Why do I have to connect to Alipay?

Judging from the online two Alipay ecological Meituan applets, Meituan is trying to clear the obstacles in the use cost of its own products. Whether it is Meituan charging treasure or Meituan ordering, it actually focuses on a use scenario, that is, in offline stores, customers obtain services through Alipay scanning codes.

For a long time before this, Meituan products were highly dependent on WeChat ecology. Both the ordering business and the charging treasure business could be unimpeded in WeChat ecology, with a very smooth use experience from code scanning to payment.

In some offline scenes such as restaurants and shopping centers, Meituan can provide consumers with basic services such as ordering and checking out. However, Meituan needs to reduce the use cost of users at the tool entrance. Although Meituan APP also has a large user group, there is still a gap in the face of WeChat and Alipay, two applications that can be called the king of installed capacity.

It has become a must for users to enjoy the products and services provided by Meituan through Alipay.

In fact, Meituan's move also has competitive considerations. Take shared charging treasure products as an example. In addition to Meituan charging treasure, there are also well-known brands such as monsters, small electricity and street electricity in the industry. These products have all opened up the use and payment channels of Alipay, and in many offline scenes, they have direct competition with Meituan charging treasure in the same space.

In a highly homogeneous product market, the lack of a payment channel and usage entrance may eventually affect consumer choice.

After entering Alipay, the increase of Meituan charging treasure is also obvious. In comparison with "Strange Street", the recent user usage of Meituan charging treasure is second only to the 5 million person-times of monster charging.

For Alipay, the entry of Meituan business is also great good news. After all, for a long time in the past, Meituan products did not support Alipay payment, and after entering in the form of small programs, Alipay will have the opportunity to directly cut into Meituan's annual transaction volume of hundreds of billions.

According to the actual measurement by spiral laboratory, Alipay payment is currently supported in independent apps such as meituan and meituan takeout. however, since the entrance is still folded, it is lower in priority than meituan payment and wechat payment.

Twelve years of feud

The feud between Meituan and Ali has a long history, which can be traced back to the hundred regiment war. Many differences and conflicts between the two have also focused on the issue of payment channels.

In 2011, Wang Xingzeng, founder of Meituan, took the initiative to find Ali, hoping to get the latter's support. After negotiation between the two sides,Meituan received a $50 million investment from Alibaba on the condition of selling a 12% stake and priority financing rights.

This fund and Ali's support also successfully supported the Meituan to win the Hundred Regiments War. After three years, the two families spent a short honeymoon period.

In 2014, WeChat Pay "attacked Pearl Harbor" through red envelopes during the Spring Festival, which made Ali and Alipay feel unprecedented competitive pressure, and then launched a siege of WeChat Pay on many battlefields. Naturally, the O2O market where Meituan is located is no exception.

But surprisingly, Meituan founder Wang Xing rejected Ali's request to make Alipay the only payment channel for Meituan, on the grounds that WeChat offered a lower payment rate.

However, from the perspective of the later development direction, what Wang Xing saw was not only the low rate paid by WeChat, but also other supporting policies given by Tencent. After all, in the later "Xinmeida" merger, the major shareholder Ali did not approve, but Tencent actively promoted the merger of Meituan and Dianping.

In 2016, Ali withdrew from Meituan and turned to buy Hungry Yao. Later, he vigorously supported products such as word of mouth, Fliggy and Taobao Film. He not only parted ways with Meituan, but even turned into a competitive relationship.

In 2020, the U.S. group canceled Alipay payment, the two conflicts to the surface, Wang Xing said on the meal:Why does Taobao still not support WeChat Pay? WeChat Pay has more active users than Alipay, and the handling fee is lower than Alipay.

It is worth mentioning that in the eyes of Wang Xing, the founder of the US group, Alipay has other special meanings. Because on the eve of Alibaba's listing, Ma Yun divested Alipay without the approval of Alibaba's board of directors.

In a later interview, Wang Xing said Ma's Alipay operation had caused lasting damage to the reputation of Chinese business leaders around the world. even point straight"Ma Yun has integrity problems".

Looking back on the many confrontations between Meituan and Ali, people once thought that the contradictions between the two sides were irreconcilable, but now that the two sides have re-accepted each other, it really makes people feel that "there are only eternal interests".