On July 5, a 24-hour blitzkrieg internally called “Takeaway World War II” began: Taobao flash sale raided with a subsidy of 10 billion, targeting 80 million orders; Meituan urgently increased the “0 yuan purchase” to counterattack, doubling the rider reward and the server was once washed down. On the same day, the two major platforms ate a total of 200 million orders, with a loss of more than 1 billion, but it also made “instant retail” change from a concept to a national carnival. This article restores every moment of the three-line confrontation between subsidies, transportation capacity, and mentality – this seemingly crazy hedging is rewriting the boundary between takeaway and e-commerce.
01 9:00, Taobao: Two-front battle, launch a charge
On July 5th, an ordinary midsummer Saturday, it was not ordinary for Xiao Yu.
As a Ele.me delivery worker in Chongqing’s Yuzhong District, she received a “war” signal two or three days ago: all morning shift personnel arrived an hour earlier than usual, because “the number of orders in recent days will be very large.”
At 9 o’clock in the morning of the same day, Xiao Yu was pulled into a DingTalk meeting, and after synchronizing the precautions with his colleagues, he immediately called his team members, “Hurry up and come out to earn money, there are so many lists.” ”
At the same moment, the Taobao flash sale “war room” located in Hangzhou’s Xixi Park was already full of personnel from various business lines, looking at the data, watching the trend, communicating with merchants, spreading subsidies according to the rhythm, and anchoring the goal.
This is a well-planned campaign – on July 5, the first Saturday after entering the peak food delivery season, Taobao Flash Sale decided to charge the food delivery boss Meituan on this day.
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Speculation about the number of charging orders has been circulating in the industry for a long time. According to 36Kr, Alibaba internally estimates that the daily order volume can reach 70 million. Meituan’s daily order volume is usually about 90 million.
Ele.me’s leading merchants received a notice at least a week in advance: prepare enough goods and people. Some Meituan employees also got information, and some people “laughed”, believing that Taobao’s capacity was not enough to support this order volume; Some people began to get nervous, and early that morning they kept an eye on the data of both sides, trying to find out the truth of the opponent.
Earlier, on June 23, Taobao’s daily order volume had exceeded 60 million. It is also this good report card that has allowed Taobao flash sale to receive 50 billion yuan of funds from the top management, giving it the confidence to charge at the industry boss Meituan.
The ambition of Taobao Flash Sale is to raise the retail part of the order volume to a new level in addition to catering orders.
This is also a bigger blueprint for e-commerce companies to do takeaway – to feed back far-field e-commerce with near-field e-commerce.
Jiang Fan once said at Alibaba’s earnings conference: “Flash sales are a high-frequency scene for Taobao, and the activity and scale of users will be better reflected, and Taobao and near-field e-commerce will have more possibilities for integration.” Liu Qiangdong, founder of JD.com, also said in a recent exchange, “The money we lose on takeaway is still more cost-effective than the money we spend on Douyin and Tencent to buy traffic.” ”
“With an investment of 50 billion, the company certainly hopes that not only catering orders are rising, but also retail orders need to be pulled quickly.” A Taobao employee told 36Kr.
Tension and anticipation are intertwined in employees. On the evening of July 4, many people in Taobao’s flash sale retail line fell asleep in the early morning, and got up in a hurry at 7 a.m. the next morning to watch the market. An employee involved in the operation told 36Kr, “Many of the opponent’s business personnel arrived in the city where the head merchant was located a day early and settled in the merchant’s office on the same day in an attempt to interfere with the charge.” ”
The first wave of “pressure intelligence” was sent back at 9 o’clock. Some retail head merchants said that they were asked to increase the “starting price” on the Taobao platform – subsidies directly affect users’ orders, but the “starting price” is also crucial, retail orders are not as “rigid demand” as catering, the starting price is too high, users will not place orders, the starting price is too low, and the platform is a low-price and low-quality “gross order”.
Ele.me Xiao Er rushed to the office of a key merchant at about 10 o’clock. In many merchants, the salesmen on both sides confronted each other on the spot, and although there was a consensus of “no physical conflict”, under round after round of bilateral pressure, “the merchants were still very embarrassed that day.” ”
Going back in time, JD.com, which was “calm” on July 5, was the initial fuse of this fierce takeaway battle.
In the takeaway world, Meituan and Ele.me have been living in peace for many years. Before this year, no one could have predicted that JD.com would be the disruptor of a new round of takeaway wars.
JD.com’s moves can be described as fast and accurate: free commissions for merchants, five insurances and one housing fund for riders, founder Liu Qiangdong personally delivers meals, and money subsidizes consumers…… The number of orders has been rising – on April 15, April 22, May 14, and June 1, JD.com announced in a high-profile manner that the number of takeaway orders exceeded 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, and 25 million.
JD.com has carried the banner of “e-commerce takeaway”, which has objectively created a favorable terrain for Alibaba. “We are also gambling to educate the market with JD.com and establish a mentality that allows consumers to order takeout with e-commerce apps, so that they don’t have to install takeaway apps in the future.” A Taobao employee told 36Kr.
From another perspective, it is impossible for Alibaba to sit back and watch JD.com become the second place in takeaway at such a fast speed.
Compared with JD.com, which builds high-rise buildings on flat ground, Ali already has a lot of cards in his hand. Alibaba’s old businesses such as Ele.me and Hema are all layouts in the field of instant retail. At the February 2024 earnings conference, Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming once again emphasized the strategic value of near-field e-commerce.
In the same year, Taobao launched “Taobao Hourly Delivery”, connected to Ele.me’s hummingbird delivery, and began to deliver digital 3C, clothing, supermarkets and other goods in Taobao in 30 minutes – this is an important “pre-situation” and preparation for Taobao’s official takeaway.
The menacing JD.com has accelerated the launch of “Taobao flash sale”.
“Taobao Flash Sale” is an upgraded version of “Taobao Hourly Delivery”, and the core change is the introduction of Ele.me’s takeaway supply, as well as occupying the largest first-level traffic entrance on the homepage of the Taobao App.
The name “flash sale” is also quite meaningful, it has the same name as Meituan’s non-meal business. The reason why “flash sale” is used instead of “takeaway” directly is “because the mind of takeaway Meituan is already very strong, but everyone is still grabbing the mentality of ‘flash sale’, and whoever grabs it counts as whom.” A veteran of the food delivery industry told 36Kr.
According to 36Kr, this product was launched from the originally planned 618, directly ahead of schedule by nearly two months – it was launched in 50 cities on April 30. “Taobao and Ele.me products have just completed the docking, and before they have time to optimize, they cannot directly see the takeaway shopping cart on the Taobao page.” A Taobao employee close to the project told 36Kr.
The subsidy for consumers was also temporarily finalized at Taotian’s high-level meeting in the last week of April: the amount was increased from the original billions to more than 10 billion.
During the May Day period, there were many people going out to play and few people ordering takeout, but the results of the first battle were unexpected. According to 36Kr, Taobao once internally judged that it would take more than ten days for Taobao flash sale orders to exceed 10 million, but it actually only took 6 days.
Starting from April 30, the teams of Taotian and Ele.me officially entered a state of war.
Ali’s determination is not only reflected in the single volume. 36Kr learned that in late May, Alibaba began to discuss the possibility of business integration between Taotian and Ele.me. On the third day after the end of 618, Alibaba Group CEO Wu Yongmingdi announced that Ele.me and Fliggy would be merged into the reorganized Alibaba China e-commerce business group, reporting to Taotian CEO Jiang Fan.
“Ele.me and Fliggy will continue to maintain a corporatized management model, and the implementation of business decisions will be focused and unified with China’s e-commerce business cluster.” Wu Yongming said. He also specifically mentioned that this is a strategic upgrade of “moving from an e-commerce platform to a large consumption platform”.
Just 21 days away from 10 million orders, Taobao flash sale exceeded 40 million orders on May 26. According to 36Kr, because the time between 30 million orders and 40 million orders is very short, and the interval is only a few days, Taobao flash sale did not even have time to make a promotional poster for 30 million orders.
“Skipping 20 million and 30 million, and directly announcing 40 million orders (20 million each on Taobao and Ele.me) has another meaning, that is, Taobao only took more than 20 days to achieve JD.com’s results for more than 2 months.” A Taobao employee told 36Kr.
Earlier, Meituan was still closely monitoring JD.com, which is growing rapidly. An example is that JD.com hopes to make a benchmark in Liu Qiangdong’s hometown of Suqian, and achieve a “comeback” through centralized subsidies and street bombing, while Meituan has also set up a special subsidy team in Suqian to bite the share.
“Objectively, Meituan is still quite grateful to Alibaba.” A middle and senior person from Meituan told 36Kr, “Generally speaking, it should be the boss who pays to check and balance the third child, but I didn’t expect the second child to take action quickly.” ”
But it was the results of “jumping in place” such as 10 million orders and 40 million orders that made many people in Meituan realize for the first time that Taobao was going all out to “start World War II” this time, and it was the faster and closer opponent.
02 16:00, Meituan: The opponent is fierce, get up and fight
Many Meituan employees temporarily returned to the company on the afternoon of July 5.
“Rush.” In the afternoon of the same day, Wang Puzhong, CEO of Meituan’s core local business, finally made a decision. The charge battle was commanded by Xue Bing and Xiao Kun, Xue Bing was the head of Meituan’s takeaway business, and Xiao Kun was the head of Meituan’s flash sale, both of whom reported to Wang Puzhong. Dozens of business backbones were urgently recalled to Meituan’s headquarters campus in Hengdian, and a large conference room immediately became a combat center.
Meituan found that Taobao’s subsidies are getting heavier and heavier, and they are quite strategic – vigorously subsidizing non-meals in the morning, directly without a threshold for delivery, free delivery fees and superimposed cash coupon impulses, and turning large subsidies to catering during peak dining periods. By noon, orders rose rapidly.
“Not only is the supplement particularly fierce, but they still send out the orders that need to wait for an hour in the order grabbing hall, which shows that they are very determined and may really rush to 80 million.” A Meituan employee who participated in the day’s battle told 36Kr.
Once Taobao flash sale achieves 80 million orders and Meituan’s daily order volume remains at about 90 million, the market share of the day will plummet. “The minds of consumers, the market mind, and the capital market will all be affected.”
Meituan’s summer battle this year with the theme of “fighting a summer, determining the world”, was originally advancing in an orderly manner – from the strong growth of good food and the gods to carry the banner of single charge, it was originally scheduled to do a wave of subsidies from July 5 to July 8, “which is more than double the previous subsidies.” ”
“We also made preparations, but we didn’t expect them to suddenly increase subsidies on the C-end on the afternoon of the 5th.” The founder of a Chinese fast food chain told 36Kr.
“Our bottom line is that we must not lose in order volume.” Within 2 to 3 hours, Meituan Takeaway concentrated the subsidies that were originally supposed to be carried out gradually according to the rhythm and region to be rolled out nationwide. “It’s too burning.” A Meituan employee described how he felt at that time.
At about 4 p.m., Meituan’s subsidies began to increase on a large scale. Starting from the milk tea free coupon, users who successfully “bought for 0 yuan” cheered on social platforms. Immediately afterwards, Meituan’s large coupons extended from tea to more categories, “full 18 minus 18”, and the expansion of red envelopes almost formed a “saturation attack”.
Riders are also the target of key subsidies. A Meituan rider told 36Kr that on weekdays, the average delivery fee during peak periods was 4 yuan and 7, but on July 5, he got at least 10 yuan per order.
The two major platforms worked together to subsidize, and tea and coffee stores in many cities across the country were fully exploded, “the list was as thick as a book, and more than a dozen delivery people were waiting in front of the dining table.” Ele.me rider Xiao Yu told 36Kr. Riders and clerks encouraged each other, and Xiao Yu said to the riders he knew, “Let’s not rush, let them do it slowly.” ”
The utilization rate of capacity has also been stretched to the limit. Xiao Yu remembers that the usual orders of seven or eight hundred meters are usually limited to 30 minutes, and the longest order on July 5 took 2 hours and 50 minutes, “It has never happened before, and we joked that this is the longest battle we have fought in our lives.” ”
At about 4 p.m., Xiao Yu received a notice that “no money will be deducted for more than 10 minutes”, “The brothers around me are happy and miserable.” And a Meituan runner remembers that from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. that day, Meituan launched the activity of “running enough 40 orders to reward 180 yuan”, “I ran more than 30 orders and took more than 90 yuan.” ”
The person in charge of the online business of a beverage brand told 36Kr that the order volume of the day seriously exceeded expectations, and the headquarters opened an “emergency transfer channel” for the store, but some stores still had a situation of “not being able to catch it”, so they had to temporarily arrange for the diversion of surrounding stores and send additional manpower.
Meituan’s past order peaks have been to establish subsidy plans in advance and implement them with clear expectations, and in the process, they have also attached great importance to the risk control mechanism to prevent merchants from swiping orders and prevent goods from being maliciously “wooled”. But the sprint on July 5 was unusual, no one knew how much the order would be, “the factor of risk control has also been ignored to a certain extent.” ”
At 6 p.m., the hot search #Meituan collapsed# appeared on Weibo, and many merchants posted on social media that they were in a hurry to complete the order, but they could not see the settlement price, and the user side also had a payment abnormality of about 5 minutes. Meituan officials first pushed messages to merchants to stabilize the panic, and then issued an emergency announcement at 8 p.m., saying that “the order volume exceeded the historical peak to trigger server flow restrictions”, and the affected merchants would not be affected by the follow-up retrospective settlement of the affected merchants.
Taobao flash sale hopes to use takeaway traffic to bring non-meal orders and even e-commerce GMV growth, but Meituan’s previous judgment has always been that Taobao’s takeaway has not driven retail business obviously.
Therefore, a Meituan insider told 36Kr that on July 5, if the increase in orders for Taobao flash sales came from meals and drinks, it was not worth being too nervous, but the sudden surge in non-meal orders such as rice, flour, grain and oil was “quite scary”.
Meituan is the initiator of this wave of “instant retail”. Catering takeaway drives richer categories such as fresh food, daily necessities, home appliances and even clothing, and “pulls both retail supply and users to the side”, which Meituan has been painstakingly cultivating and calling for. At the instant retail conference in October 2024, Wang Puzhong said, “Instant retail is not emergency retail, but a high-certainty lifestyle. ”
The goal shouted at that conference was that by 2027, the number of Meituan flash warehouses would reach 100,000, and the GMV of flash sales would reach 200 billion. At that time, Meituan did not have a strong opponent in this field, and some industry insiders believed that “this goal was too conservative for Meituan”.
Now on this road, Taobao has killed halfway. Alibaba’s determination to make Taobao a super entrance is obvious, and among the three main entrances for takeaway, “the subsidy rate (the proportion of subsidy amount to the price of the order) of Taobao flash sale entrance is much higher than that of Ele.me and Alipay.” A person familiar with the matter told 36Kr.
In addition to giving money to traffic, Taobao flash sales are also accelerating the integration of the supply of near-field retail. “Taking Nongfu Spring as an example, what needs to be done is to integrate its resources in warehouses, convenience stores, water stations, and supermarkets, and supply them to consumers together.” Taobao is also negotiating with brands in the fields of clothing and cosmetics, hoping to open up a separate area in the store for flash sale business.
If Taobao succeeds, Meituan’s position as the takeaway hegemon will not be shaken, but the new story of “instant retail” may be rewritten.
03 24:00, 200 million orders: instant retail is coming faster?
At 8:45 p.m., Meituan pushed a battle report to internal employees, saying that “the daily order volume of instant retail exceeded 100 million.” At 22:54, it was officially announced again that “instant retail orders on the same day have exceeded 120 million orders.” “In the 100-person combat room, Meituan HR also organized a small celebration ceremony and placed two colored paper flowers.
“These two days are the richest and craziest two days.” Recalling that weekend, a Meituan rider said so. While pulling down the income interface of the day, he couldn’t hide his excitement: “This is a lot of money, there is no way to calculate it, the daily income must be thousands.” ”
The following Monday, Taobao Flash Sale announced that the number of daily orders exceeded 80 million. Meituan, Taobao, plus JD.com, the takeaway industry’s 200 million sky-high orders were completed in this confrontation.
Behind the 200 million orders, the capacity supply and distribution capacity of catering takeaway are also undergoing all-round stress tests.
In the field of catering takeaway, Meituan’s refined operation capabilities have always been praised by the outside world. 36Kr learned that since the launch of Meituan members, Meituan’s subsidies have been more disciplined than before, such as large subsidies are usually pushed to black diamond members.
In this confrontation, the capacity of Taobao flash sales has also been optimized with the naked eye. Xiao Yu is a rider of Ele.me’s “preferred mode”, which is characterized by the fact that riders cannot refuse orders, and in the past, it was inevitable that detours and other problems would be caused by unscientific dispatches, and the “difficult areas” in the mountain city of Chongqing can also be relatively smooth, “It can be seen that the platform has been optimized.” ”
JD.com did not participate in this hot war, but chose to supply money to high-quality merchants in chains. “If a merchant sells one order on JD.com and makes more money than selling two orders on other platforms, although the order volume is small, it is sticky. This is also a relatively cost-saving strategy for the platform. A person close to JD.com told 36Kr.
In the past few years, the peak of Meituan’s takeaway orders has occurred on the day of the beginning of autumn, and the “first cup of milk tea in autumn” has long become a newly created festival. In the “beginning of autumn” in 2024, Meituan set a record of 98 million instant orders, and a former Meituan employee specially rushed to the company to cut the cake with his colleagues. ”
“The peak of order volume occurs in ‘autumn milk’, and the peak GMV may occur at another time, such as on Qixi, but the previous peak could never have happened on an ordinary Saturday, and this day is too ordinary.” The above-mentioned workers sighed to 36Kr.
According to 36Kr, in this “ordinary day”, the total loss of Meituan takeaway and Taobao flash sale exceeded 1 billion. A comparative data is that in 2024, Meituan’s takeaway profit per order will be about 1.5 yuan.
In a competitive ecology, Meituan still has to compete with Taobao. However, a middle and senior employee of Meituan also said that instant retail is not a “fast-to-do” business that can be driven by subsidies, but needs to be cultivated slowly. “You can hit the peak, but business always has to return to normal times.”
Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, likes to set a big goal for the business, and the origin of the 100 million single goal is the same.
When disclosing the first quarterly report of the year in May 2020, Wang Xing said, “Meituan Dianping has reached the goal of 100 million orders per day, aiming at an operating profit of 1 yuan per order.” The target node is 2025, when Meituan’s daily orders are still in the order of 30 million, and employees are confused about how to achieve it. ”
At every subsequent annual earnings conference, the topic of 100 million orders will be discussed, and the management has always said that “stick to the goal.” However, this goal was later downplayed, and the peak of 98 million orders in 2024 did not spread on a large scale.
“But this year’s environment is different, competition is intensifying, and everyone needs milestones like this to build confidence.” The above-mentioned former employee said.
Behind the 200 million orders, there is also a bigger imagination of instant retail business that has been opened.
An insider in the food delivery industry told 36Kr that only the demand for catering is rigid, especially meals, which must be delivered on time within 30 minutes, so only the company with the strongest performance ability has a chance to win. But the demand for non-meals is not so rigid, and the instant retail business will not be dominant, and everyone has a chance.
After the high pressure of the bowstring, everything briefly returned to calm.
During this week, Taobao flash sale employees were on leave in batches, while Meituan reviewed according to the team. On the evening of July 5, Xiao Yu arrived home at more than 2 a.m., and she still caught up with the subsidy and ordered a milk tea takeaway for herself.
The battle for instant retail is still hard to tell, but the vitality of both companies has been rekindled.
Similar to the previous war, Alibaba once again used the three-board axe of “integration, subsidy, and first-level entrance”. The speed and determination reflected in the rapid entry decision-making, lightning-fast organizational adjustments, and strong enough subsidies have not been seen for a long time. In the past week, Taobao flash sale employees will still sigh, “I had a hearty fight that day.”
Taobao flash sale will make every Saturday a new festival – Super Saturday. A person familiar with the matter told 36Kr that Meituan also intends to reach a higher peak this summer. The next round of charge may be in sight again.
Summer has always been the peak season for takeaways, but a Meituan employee said, “This year I think it’s the peak season, there is no off-season.” He and his colleagues also gladly participated in it, gaining a long-lost sense of cohesion in one peak after another, “Fight, soldiers are worth fighting in war.” ”
Wang Xing said in an exclusive interview ten years ago: O2O has no peace. Ten years later, the boundaries between O2O companies and e-commerce companies have completely melted.
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