Same-day delivery within half an hour. The 618 Shopping Festival has changed.
The "618" shopping festival, which has been relatively quiet in the past few years, finally has new highlights.
On May 27, 2025, Meituan officially announced its participation in this year's 618 event. With Meituan's arrival, this festival originally belonging to e - commerce promotions has become lively.
After nearly 20 years, 618 has long become a "habit" for platforms, merchants, and consumers. However, the longer promotion period, the unpredictable subsidy mechanism, and the annoying pre - sales are all testing the public's patience and enthusiasm. On social media, there is no shortage of confusion and aesthetic fatigue, such as "Who still cares about 618?" and "Has 618 started?" This festival, which is in the middle of its journey, has never needed new vitality as much as it does today.
From the platform's perspective, in the past few years, the novelty of new players entering 618 has been the mutual penetration of shelf e - commerce and content e - commerce. Now, Meituan, with its "half - hour delivery for all things", has created a "new scenario" for instant retail in another dimension. It may not only reshape 618 but also comprehensively reshape consumers' daily shopping habits.
01
Half - hour delivery of in - stock goods, changing the way of 618
For a long time, the process of ordinary consumers participating in 618 has generally been like this: waiting for discounts, calculating combined orders, waiting for pre - sales, waiting for delivery, waiting for express delivery, and perhaps also waiting for returns. This is an operating system formed in the Chinese e - commerce industry over the years. Merchants across the country have jointly established a supply network of "in - stock + pre - ordered goods". Consumers place orders from afar, and the busy express delivery system connects the two ends. Time is gradually consumed, and people have to wait even more during major promotions.
This time, Meituan, which doesn't seem to be making a big splash in the eyes of the outside world, has quietly brought some excitement and surprises of "no more waiting" to the market.
The change first occurs in the more extreme "speed", which is also what Meituan is always good at. During the 618 event, in addition to ordering takeout meals, users can get iPhones, Huawei phones, Moutai, Wuliangye, milk powder, skin - care products, small household appliances, and daily necessities within 30 minutes through Meituan.
This instant retail model centered on "local services" reduces the psychological cost of consumers when making decisions with the certainty of "buy now, get now; what you see is what you get". Faster decision - making means a higher willingness to place an order. Faster fulfillment means saving consumers' attention time and improving the efficiency of shopping and life.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also talked about the importance of time from the user's perspective. "At Amazon, 28% of purchases are completed within three minutes, and half of the purchases are completed within half an hour. Research shows that it takes about an hour to go to a physical store to buy things, including driving, parking, finding products, waiting in line to pay, finding the car, and driving home. If you use Amazon to shop twice a week instead of going to physical stores, you can save 75 hours a year. This is important because we live in the ever - busy early 21st century."
Meituan's instant retail model is a combination of brand supply and the takeout delivery network, which also determines it to be "faster". Some media described it like this: "Consumers can now easily order an iPhone online as easily as ordering a bowl of noodles and have it delivered to their door within half an hour. If everything can be this fast, why wait for several days?"
The logic of "buying everything with takeout" is indeed becoming the daily consumption habit of the younger generation. The report "Focus on China's Post - 95s Consumer Group" released by Accenture shows that the younger generation pays more attention to "speed". More than 50% of post - 95s hope to receive their goods on the same day of shopping and are willing to pay extra for faster delivery. A report from Nielsen also shows that 72% of instant retail users are under 35 years old. At the earnings conference call after Meituan's first - quarter 2025 earnings report, Meituan CFO Chen Shaohui said that since the launch of the new brand of Meituan Flash Shopping, post - 95s young users have accounted for more than half.
On April 15, Meituan officially launched the instant retail brand "Meituan Flash Shopping" for consumers across the country, positioning it as a "new - generation shopping platform that accompanies consumers 24 hours a day", making Meituan's "retail" attribute more prominent. However, objectively, Meituan is not an experienced e - commerce player after all. Whether it has price advantages comparable to e - commerce platforms besides "speed" is what consumers are skeptical about.
In mid - May, a lady in Beijing placed an order for a "Huawei Pura70 Ultra 12G + 512G" mobile phone on Meituan at a price of 5,259 yuan and received the goods 30 minutes later. What made her even happier was that the price of this model on some other e - commerce platforms exceeded 6,600 yuan.
How to achieve low prices? According to 36Kr, just a few days ago, nearly 10,000 physical stores of digital and home appliance brands across the country jointly launched the "Super National Subsidy Week" with Meituan Flash Shopping. The "National Subsidy" page on the Meituan App has been launched in many provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Chongqing, Changsha, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Changchun, Dalian, Xiamen, and Hangzhou. The national subsidy discount can be up to 20%.
Currently, Meituan's 618 event has officially started. A person close to Meituan revealed that during the 618 period, there will be more favorable and expectable prices for core products such as mobile phones and liquor on Meituan Flash Shopping.
Gradually making breakthroughs in the core value of "affordability", the attribute that all products are directly supplied by brand stores enables the realization of the impossible triangle of "genuine products, low prices, and fast delivery". Meituan is a "newcomer" to 618, but its characteristics such as transparent product sources, no pre - sales, and half - hour delivery of in - stock goods are providing a new idea for the major promotion. The once bloated 618 promotion is becoming refreshing and simple.
02
The old battlefield of 618, the new value of Meituan
As 618 enters the second half, what kind of imagination can new players bring?
"Speed" is the most direct, while simplicity and certainty carry a classical meaning of value return.
In recent years, from watching live - streams to doing tasks, e - commerce platforms have launched various complex combined - order strategies and gameplay during major promotions. The routine of "raising the price first and then lowering it" has also become a "consensus" between merchants and consumers. Many consumers have been complaining year after year that it is the "most difficult 618 ever". In addition, in order to compete for users, platforms were once keen on price wars. Under the behind - the - scenes traffic distribution, more low - quality but low - priced products were pushed in front of consumers. Impulsive hoarding, idle products due to dissatisfaction, and another impulse during the next major promotion have almost formed a closed - loop that is difficult to break out of.
As a result, consumers' "sensitivity" to major promotion festivals has also been gradually decreasing. At first, users across the network would wait for major promotion nodes and go crazy for "instant low prices". Four or five years ago, people started to wait for the release of rules and use calculators to find the most cost - effective combined - order methods. Today, the outside world's discussion about major promotions is getting weaker and weaker.
Meituan's first 618 event strongly implies the return of the "simplified" shopping value. There are no cumbersome participation rules and thresholds. Everyone can get money, order takeout, and use it when shopping in categories such as beverages and snacks, digital and home appliances, beauty and skin - care products, sports goods, and mother and baby products. Any user can enjoy real discounts. At the same time, thanks to the characteristics of fully predictable products and real - time delivery, consumers can consume more rationally based on their actual daily lives and on demand, rather than being forced to hoard goods passively by e - commerce promotion rules.
The simplification of rules and faster delivery capabilities are what traditional e - commerce promotions lack, but the richness of supply is the prerequisite for attracting users and giving full play to the fulfillment advantage. Can Meituan's product supply capacity support a 618 major promotion?
On the one hand, Meituan Flash Shopping, which plays a leading role in non - food instant retail supply, maintained a strong growth momentum in the first quarter of this year. Many categories, including beverages and snacks, 3C products, household appliances, beauty and personal care products, etc., have shown significant growth. As of the end of March, the cumulative number of transaction users of Meituan Flash Shopping exceeded 500 million, mainly young consumers born in the 1990s. From the information revealed by Meituan's 618 so far, "hot commodities" such as Feitian Moutai and iPhone 16 already have quite competitive prices. Coupled with half - hour delivery, it constitutes the biggest difference from e - commerce platforms.
On the other hand, Meituan has not left out its main business - food delivery in this 618. This year's 618 major promotion has also been extended to the catering field for the first time. The ability to order takeout and use flash shopping makes "low prices for both eating and shopping" another differentiating point for this new player.
According to the above - mentioned person close to Meituan, during the 618 period, Meituan Flash Shopping will offer low prices for well - known brand products in categories such as mobile phones, computers, digital and home appliances, alcohol, and milk powder. The products will be directly sent from brand stores and delivered within 30 minutes. All in all, a 618 with fast delivery, low prices, and products directly from brand physical stores has arrived.
03
Conclusion
Meituan's first participation in the 618 major promotion is an example of the manifestation of its "shopping" gene and a memorable node for the interaction, integration, and mutual change between instant retail and traditional e - commerce.
The "Report on the Development of the Instant Retail Industry" released by the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce of China states that the instant retail industry in China has maintained rapid growth in recent years. It is estimated that the market size of instant retail in 2025 will be three times that of 2022, that is, about 1.5 trillion yuan. Among them, Meituan Flash Shopping is undoubtedly the recognized "representative". When the relative disadvantages in product supply capacity and price are gradually eliminated, and even an advantage in price is achieved, the advantage of "time" is also infinitely magnified. Even though it is an online order, consumers no longer need to "wait".
In terms of results, users' consumption behavior on Meituan Flash Shopping is changing from sudden "buying for emergencies" to planned and daily "buying everything". Instant retail is becoming a new shopping and lifestyle. As "getting high - quality goods at low prices within 30 minutes" becomes the norm, the competition dimension of e - commerce is no longer just about discounts and price - comparison in the decision - making stage, but also about grasping the change of the entire consumption habit. The inflection point of the old - to - new change has arrived.