Huang Zheng enters the arena, Wang Xing holds his ground, Liu Qiangdong builds strategic moats, Jiang Fan expands his operational strength: The four major players' contention in the instant retail sector
The trillion-yuan instant retail track has officially entered the stage of four-player hegemony competition.
On August 10, Pinduoduo launched a first-level entry of "Earliest Next-Day Delivery" on the homepage of its app, placed in the core navigation position side by side with the "Billion Subsidy" campaign, marking that Pinduoduo has officially launched an assault on the instant retail market.
Data from iResearch shows that the scale of China's instant retail market exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025, with an annual compound growth rate of over 50%, making it a rare high-growth track in the e-commerce market.
After new players join, the four e-commerce giants — Meituan, JD.com, Taobao and Pinduoduo — are about to kick off a new round of competitive games.
Divergence in Strategic Positioning: Different Asset Structures with Respective Advantages
Due to inherent genetic differences, the four major e-commerce platforms have chosen different entry paths for the instant retail market.
In terms of timeliness, due to the essential differences between the light-asset and heavy-asset models, the corresponding target customer groups and consumption scenarios are not completely the same, forming a gradient stratification of "minute-level delivery", "hour-level delivery" and "next-day delivery" across the four platforms.
Pinduoduo: Light-asset "Next-Day Delivery" — Extension of Huang Zheng's Cost-Effectiveness Logic.
Huang Zheng, founder of Pinduoduo, once stated that the company focuses on the vast majority of ordinary people in China. This corporate value of serving the "greatest common denominator" has led Pinduoduo to adopt a similar logic in its operation when entering the instant retail market.
Free of the rent of front warehouses and the labor cost of delivery riders is the biggest advantage of this model. By reusing the existing shared warehouse system and third-party transport capacity such as SF Express, Pinduoduo's "Next-Day Delivery" can enter planned consumption scenarios such as fresh produce and daily necessities with ultra-low prices.
The downsides of this model are also obvious: the fulfillment experience relies on third-party partners, and the timeliness and stability of services are relatively poorer than those of the self-operated system. In case of sudden surge in orders, delivery delays may occur.
Meituan Flash Purchase: Heavy-asset "Minute-Level Delivery" — Wang Xing's Moat in Local Life Services.
Wang Xing, founder of Meituan, has repeatedly stated that the low-quality and low-price involution competition cannot last for a long time. He believes that the market competition of instant retail will eventually return to a normal state, and the long-term development of enterprises must rely on fundamental capabilities.
In April last year, relying on more than 7 million riders and an intelligent dispatching system, Meituan upgraded its instant retail business to the independent brand "Meituan Flash Purchase", and added a new first-level entry on the homepage of the Meituan app, focusing on "30-minute home delivery".
The advantages of Meituan Flash Purchase lie in "speed" and "comprehensiveness". Supported by a high-density rider network and a large number of offline joint stores, Meituan Flash Purchase can realize minute-level delivery, covering almost all daily categories such as fresh produce, medicine, and daily necessities.
This heavy-asset model also has shortcomings: the comprehensive cost of single fulfillment is relatively high, and the scale of more than 7 million riders within the Meituan system makes the platform face long-term capital pressure on social insurance compliance.
JD.com Instant Delivery: High-quality "Hour-Level Delivery" — Liu Qiangdong's Supply Chain Barrier.
A sentence from founder Liu Qiangdong demonstrates the strategic foundation of JD.com: "All businesses of JD Group only revolve around the supply chain, and I never touch anything that has nothing to do with the supply chain."
In the segmented track of instant retail, relying on JD's self-operated warehouse system, JD.com Instant Delivery targets high-unit-price categories such as 3C digital products and branded fast-moving consumer goods, and puts forward the slogan of high-quality "Hour-Level Delivery", whose core logic is consistent with Liu Qiangdong's statement.
The advantage of this model lies in the stability of customer experience. With the gradual accumulation of the brand reputation of JD.com Instant Delivery, users are willing to pay more for high-quality and stable services.
Due to its focus on partial categories, JD.com Instant Delivery also has a certain scale ceiling. After all, the consumption frequency of 3C digital products is much lower than that of life service products such as fresh produce and catering, and the category expansion of JD.com Instant Delivery is limited by the pace of supply chain expansion.
Taobao Flash Purchase: "Hour-Level" Ecosystem — Jiang Fan's Ambition for Full-Category Coverage.
Taobao Flash Purchase, which belongs to Alibaba's e-commerce sector, is currently under the overall management of Jiang Fan.
Jiang Fan has high expectations for the instant retail business. He once said in a conference call in June last year: "With the settlement of millions of brand stores in the next three years, Taobao Flash Purchase and instant retail will bring 1 trillion yuan of transaction increment to the platform."
Taobao Flash Purchase adopts the path of ecological integration, and realizes the conversion of internal resources by relying on the rider capacity of Ele.me, the supply chain of Tmall Supermarket, and the huge user base in the Taobao system.
Strong supply-side flexibility is the core advantage of Taobao Flash Purchase. The platform can connect with brand merchants on Tmall and link local offline merchants, so it can cover product categories at a fast speed, and the marginal cost of traffic conversion is relatively low.
Where there are interests, there are disputes. The uncertainty of internal resource allocation is the core problem of Taobao Flash Purchase. In addition, the "Next-Day Delivery" business of Tmall Supermarket and the "Hour-Level Delivery" business of Taobao Flash Purchase partially overlap in functions, which may lead to a situation where the two businesses compete with each other and result in scattered resource input.
Cost Structure Analysis: Who Is Becoming More Cost-Effective As It Scales Up?
The differences in business models will eventually be reflected in cost and supply chain. After all, in the instant retail market, the one that can reduce the fulfillment cost will take the initiative.
The difference in fulfillment cost is the essential difference between the four platforms.
The situations of Meituan and JD.com are roughly similar. Their single fulfillment cost is mainly composed of "variable costs" such as rider delivery fees and front warehouse rent. With the growth of order volume, the marginal effect of cost reduction is decreasing, leaving limited room for the reduction of single-order fulfillment cost.
The single fulfillment cost of Pinduoduo is mainly composed of "fixed inputs" such as shared warehouse construction and trunk logistics network building. With the increase of order density, the single fulfillment cost will be gradually diluted, and the larger the order scale, the lower the single cost.
Taobao Flash Purchase adopts a "hybrid structure": its capacity side is dominated by "variable costs" (Ele.me rider delivery fees), and its supply side is dominated by "fixed inputs" (calculated internal resources). The optimization space for its single cost is at an intermediate level.
The difference in supply chain depth further amplifies the cost differentiation of the four enterprises, which will be analyzed one by one in the following part.
Pinduoduo — Supply Chain Depth Is the Core Moat, and Scale Effect Unleashes Cost Dividends.
Relying on the advantages of the upstream supply chain, Pinduoduo uses the "100-Billion Support Plan" to realize direct supply from industrial belts. The platform directly connects factories and agricultural product bases with users, eliminating multi-layer distribution links. If this capability is applied to the instant retail business, its coverage in the township market may be stronger than that of its competitors.
At present, the inflection point of the scale effect of this uncertain model has not been verified. The order density of Pinduoduo's instant retail business needs to reach the level that can cover the fixed cost of transfer warehouses, and the actual operation effect in the future still needs further market test.
Meituan Flash Purchase — Local Life Network Builds Barriers, and the Positive Cycle Effect Continues to Strengthen.
Relying on a high-density life network, Meituan adopts the "integrated warehouse and store" model to place high-frequency commodities in stores around communities, which forms a mutually promoting positive cycle between rider density and order scale. The more orders there are, the lower the no-load rate of riders, and the lower cost can support more categories and price concessions.
The main problem that Meituan Flash Purchase needs to consider in the future is the market competition from Pinduoduo. If most users are attracted by the high cost-effectiveness of "Next-Day Delivery", the order scale of Meituan Flash Purchase will shrink accordingly, and then its single fulfillment cost will rise, eventually forming a negative cycle of "fewer orders, higher cost, and more expensive prices".
JD.com Instant Delivery — Self-Operated Supply Chain Has Outstanding Stability, and Its Genetic Adaptability Faces Tests.
JD.com features a self-operated supply chain, with strong bargaining power and high inventory turnover efficiency in categories such as 3C digital products and branded beverages. This supply chain system that prioritizes quality has a heavy cost burden, but can generate premium through stable service reputation and after-sales experience.
The main challenge faced by JD.com Instant Delivery lies in the disassembly of centralized supply chain capabilities. The localized, fragmented and distributed fulfillment method of the instant retail industry conflicts with JD's long-standing practice of "centralized large warehouses". How to resolve the contradiction between the two while ensuring service quality is the issue that JD.com Instant Delivery needs to solve in the future.
Taobao Flash Purchase — Advantaged in Supply Breadth, with Mismatch Between Cost Logic and Premium Capability.
The supply breadth of Alibaba's internal ecosystem is the natural advantage of Taobao Flash Purchase. The platform can quickly realize full-category coverage, making its cost structure more flexible without large-scale heavy-asset investment.
The problem of Taobao Flash Purchase is that its supply side highly overlaps with Tmall Supermarket. Taobao Flash Purchase needs to clarify its uniqueness within the group system. Only when the business team figures this out, can the premium logic of Taobao Flash Purchase be sufficiently reasonable.
Endurance Showdown: Where Does the Capital Come from and Where Is It Spent?
In the trillion-yuan track competition, the contest of capital endurance is inevitable. From the perspective of capital investment direction, the differences between the four platforms are obvious.
Pinduoduo focuses on investing in infrastructure capabilities, such as shared warehouses, trunk logistics, and industrial belts, which belong to the aforementioned cost-decreasing investments that "become cheaper with more investment".
The reason why Pinduoduo has the confidence to do so is that its profitability is stable and it has abundant cash reserves. In the first quarter of this year, the company's single-quarter net profit attributable to shareholders was close to 30 billion yuan, and the cash and short-term investments on its book exceeded 420 billion yuan. The capital reserve can support long-term investment.
Merely having the correct capital investment direction does not mean that it can change users' minds. For many instant retail users who are used to "half-hour delivery", whether they can accept the timeliness change of the "Next-Day Delivery" business is the question that Pinduoduo needs to answer.
Meituan Flash Purchase invests capital in rider subsidies. Relying on its relatively mature and high-frequency food delivery system, it mainly uses rider subsidies to drive the relatively low-frequency "all kinds of goods delivered to home" service. At present, this strategy is temporarily effective, and the order scale of Meituan Flash Purchase is on the rise.
However, the role of subsidies is secondary. If the substitution effect of "Next-Day Delivery" is obvious, the business logic of Meituan Flash Purchase will fail, and the original scale barrier may instead become a burden.
JD.com Instant Delivery chooses to start with merchant-side subsidies, launching the "0 Commission Policy" to attract merchants to settle in. It also takes advantage of national subsidy policies to make breakthroughs in high-value categories such as 3C digital products and branded drinks, and quickly forms a sales advantage in these tracks.
This kind of practice of "teaching people to fish" has a relatively long capital return cycle, which may affect the revenue of the group company in the short term. According to the research report of Nomura Securities in July this year, JD's instant retail business suffered a loss of about 6 billion yuan in the second quarter of this year, and international brokerages such as UBS and CLSA hold similar views.
Taobao Flash Purchase's capital investment focuses on traffic conversion. Its parent company Alibaba has invested multiple 2-billion-level special support funds to integrate internal traffic. Due to the comprehensiveness of Alibaba's internal ecosystem, this strategy has huge room for imagination.
This practice of betting on online capabilities may not be comprehensive enough, because Ele.me's transport capacity scale is relatively small, and the end-point delivery capability may not keep up with the traffic supply. In addition, the business distinction between Taobao Flash Purchase and Tmall Supermarket is not obvious, which leads to confusion for customers when making choices.
Five Variables Reshaping the Trillion-Yuan Market
After Pinduoduo entered the retail market, the original competitive balance was broken, and the competition logic of all parties has also changed. The following five development trends cannot be ignored.
The first is the shift from speed competition to efficiency competition. In the past few years, the core of instant retail competition was delivery speed, but Pinduoduo's entry may be a turning point. In the future, all parties may pay more attention to price advantages and supply chain cost reduction.
The second is the accelerated finalization of market stratification. In the next few years, Meituan and JD.com will continue to occupy the dominant positions of "emergency instant delivery" and "high-quality instant delivery". Pinduoduo will enter the sinking market and family planned consumption with the support of "Next-Day Delivery", and Taobao will rely on ecological diversion to meet comprehensive consumption needs. The basic market of each player is relatively stable, and a monopolistic situation will hardly appear.
The third is that supply chain depth determines the outcome. Because instant retail is essentially a part of the retail industry, fulfillment capability is only the superficial requirement, and supply chain capability is the core competitiveness. The author also believes that a price war is likely to appear in the industry in the future, and platforms that can continuously optimize costs will have more advantages.
The fourth is that compliance becomes a structural variable. The compliance problems that existed in the industry before have gradually emerged. Facing the two major issues of flexible employment rights protection such as riders' social insurance and low-price dumping regulation, the four major platforms need to make changes quickly.
The last is that the differentiation of user behavior is the key. If you can get a 30% discount by waiting until tomorrow to drink a bottle of water, how many people are willing to wait one more day? How much instant demand can Pinduoduo's "Next-Day Delivery" model replace is the ultimate question in the industry in the future.
Conclusion
Pinduoduo's "Next-Day Delivery" model has a profound background of the times. At present, residents' income expectations are relatively weak, and the public's sensitivity to prices is generally rising, so "exchanging time for lower prices" has become a rational choice.
Therefore, in the author's opinion, Pinduoduo's "Next-Day Delivery" is not a model innovation, but a judgment for a specific economic cycle.
However, in a few years, how many users will return to the top three established platforms due to "consumption upgrade"? And how many users will be locked in by the cost-effectiveness of "Next-Day Delivery" due to limited consumption capacity?
This is not only a test for Pinduoduo, but also the biggest variable in the post-pandemic era.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Liu Kuang Channel", author: Liu Kuang Channel, published with authorization from 36Kr.