Rappi's multi-vertical Meituan play
Sebastian Mejia, co-founder of Rappi, on building for multi-verticality in on-demand
This reveals that Rappi is not trying to win as a food delivery app, it is trying to win as the default local commerce layer for Latin America. The Meituan comparison points to a very specific playbook, use frequent low margin orders like meals, groceries, and convenience to build daily habit, then use that traffic, merchant base, courier network, and payments footprint to sell higher margin services over time.
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In practice, that means one app that starts with food and grocery, then adds pharmacy, e-commerce, travel, cards, and payments. Rappi says more than 90% of customers buy from at least two categories, and purchase frequency rises from 2 times per month in year 1 to 11 times by year 5.
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The Meituan model is as much about merchant control as consumer habit. In China, Meituan used a huge field sales force to lock in merchants and layer on software and other services. Rappi is following the same logic with dark kitchens, micro fulfillment, ads, payments, and tighter merchant workflows.
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The economic reason this matters is delivery efficiency. A multi-vertical app creates more chances to batch orders, raise order density, and keep couriers busy. Rappi estimated delivery expense at 10% of GMV, versus 16% for Meituan and 32% for Uber Eats, showing why multi category scale can change margins.
Where this heads next is toward a smaller number of dominant local platforms that bundle delivery, merchant software, and fintech inside one app. If Rappi keeps increasing frequency and shifting mix beyond core delivery, the business moves closer to Meituan’s model, where the logistics network becomes the customer acquisition engine for much higher margin services.