My ballet class got rained out, so I ducked into a cozy café—and somehow ended up learning a bit more about Meituan and Ele.me’s business models over two cappuccinos—real coffee talk.
In that café, when the barista handed the delivery guy one packed coffee.
Intro: On these food delivery platforms, cafés are ranked for visibility. The higher the rank, the more orders roll in. And while it’s no surprise that paying to jump the line (read: sponsored listings) exists, what is surprising is how quietly the game is being played—not all money-boosted rankings are labeled. In fact, many aren’t.
Promotion Pro: Pay to Climb, But Don’t Call It Sponsored
According to the café’s chic owner, Ele.me offers a service called Promotion Pro—a kind of VIP pass to the top of the list. You pay, you rise. But there’s no “sponsored” tag, and the brand would be have a golden label “premium brand”. For example, when I searched for cafés, Peet’s Coffee showed up first—not because it’s really the premium brand that offers consistent high quality, but because it pays for the privilege.
Search for café on Ele.me, top rank result (Peets Coffee) is actually Promotion Pro brought—not organic…
This subscription model does drive some traffic. But the petite café owner told me her 50 RMB credit—barely a half-hour of visibility—evaporates fast. Demand spikes are inconsistent, results murky. Meanwhile, big chains with thousands of monthly orders throw real money at it.
It’s basically search ads—but without the part where users know they’re ads.
Some small cafés are now using Douyin (TikTok) and Little Red Book (instagram?) to reach potential customers, or relying on the good old-fashioned neighborhood strategy.
The Price of Being Seen
Cafés are generally fine. But for business that are harder to search for, for example, manicures shops located inside business buildings, they would rely fully on these online platforms and have to pay a lot into promoting themselves to get customers.
These online platforms that plays a role in recommendation have way too much market power that they can squeeze cash from already-struggling small businesses. We seriously need some regulation. Ideally, platforms would be required to publish their ranking algorithms—or at the very least, be honest when someone’s paid their way to the top. Because this “Promotion Pro” thing, well, walks like a sponsored listing and quacks like one too.
But hey, apparently it just needed a better outfit :)