In the 618 shopping carnival in 2025, Meituan will enter the market strongly with the “instant retail” model, setting off a revolution in the retail industry with its efficient service of “30-minute delivery”. Meituan not only set a new instant retail record of 18 million orders in a single day, but also broke the traditional e-commerce “pre-sale routine + long-distance logistics” model through the three-dimensional reconstruction of efficiency, price and scene. This article will delve into the three revolutionary breakthroughs of Meituan’s instant retail, its impact on traditional e-commerce, and five major changes in the retail industry in the future.
In the pre-war arena of 618 in 2025, another new opponent has come down: Meituan has set off an industry earthquake with an instant retail model of “30 minutes delivery”.
This consumption revolution, with the participation of millions of physical stores and 2,000+ big names, not only set a new instant retail record of 18 million orders in a single day, but also tore apart the inherent model of traditional e-commerce “pre-sale routines + long-distance logistics” through the three-dimensional reconstruction of efficiency, price and scenes.
When Beijing consumers receive the Huawei Mate 70 in 27 minutes, and when Feitian Moutai arrives at the table in 30 minutes at a price of 1,499 yuan, Meituan is redefining the business essence of “how fast and how easy to save” with instant retail – and this is just the beginning of the transformation of instant retail in the next decade.
1. Efficiency revolution: from “three days waiting for express delivery” to “receiving goods in the time of a cigarette”
When I was in the e-commerce industry in 2010, I was discussing with my colleagues, what is the future model of online purchase? Not only the whole country and the world will receive the goods in three to ten days, but it may also be delivered in time, depending on how the user needs. Seeing that in 2025, timed delivery has been fully realized, and this efficiency subversion comes from the “local warehousing and distribution network” that has been precipitated for many years – the “urban minute network” composed of more than 500,000 instant retail outlets across the country, so that 2,000+ explosive products such as 3C digital, wine and beauty can achieve “sorting when placing an order and leaving the warehouse in 10 minutes”.
[By the way, JD.com, through big data, through simulation definition, predicts what users may order, and books the goods directly in advance to the door of the community – local warehouse, and the user places an order and delivers it directly to the door.] This is JD.com’s timed delivery, which is one step ahead of Meituan, but it did not continue. 】
Data from the web:
- Instant consumption of mobile phone digital: Huawei Mate 70 was sold at 5,249 yuan in Meituan flash sale, 150 yuan lower than traditional e-commerce, and Beijing users measured 27 minutes to receive the goods; The iPhone 16 is 4,299 yuan after superimposing the national subsidy, which is 200 yuan cheaper than its friends, and Shanghai users will receive the new machine 30 minutes after placing an order, and the rider will complete the boot activation service simultaneously.
- The ultimate response to emergency scenarios: A user in Beijing suddenly had gastroenteritis at night, and received the goods 15 minutes after placing an order for montmorillonite powder; Shanghai mother ordered a little genius watch for a crying child and delivered it within 1 hour – this “life-saving consumption” scene made Meituan’s flash sale increase by 200% in supermarket orders on the first day of 618.
Accenture data shows that 50% of post-95 consumers expect “same-day delivery” and 7% require “2-hour delivery”. Meituan used “order-to-takeout shopping” to change the promotion from “planned hoarding” to “instant satisfaction”, completely ending consumers’ anxiety about “waiting for express delivery”.
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The e-commerce model has changed from the beginning of online shopping (before 08), to focusing on promoting products + customer service (15 years ago), to the speed priority + high-quality model (around 20 years), and the current user needs are differentiated: defined by price, model, timeliness, and scenario. When demand is constantly changing, the business model is also changing step by step.
2. Price reconstruction: break the routine of “rising first and then falling” to achieve “direct supply at naked price”
You can recall your purchase process during the traditional e-commerce promotion: pre-sale ++ full discount + final payment, in order to meet the price advantage, so focus on placing orders in one day, and at the same time fight for hand speed, but also calculate various rules. In response to this, Meituan has changed some ideas and simplified the complex process to: subsidy + direct reduction model. To put it simply, the platform subsidizes the product, allowing users to place orders directly when needed, reducing more user hesitation.
Here you need to consider a question, why do users have difficulty choosing, why do users need to return and refund? Is there a lot of hesitation moments for users? If we shorten this condition, it can be satisfied when the user needs it. Users can enjoy and use it, how many are the conditions for refunding?
Data from the web:
- The price of the wine category is subverted: Feitian Moutai is limited to 1,499 yuan, and the number of reservations on the first day of 618 reached 230,000 people; The transaction volume of brands such as Wuliangye and Jiannanchun exceeded 10 million yuan, and the sales of Zhejiang Jiujiaji chain on the first day were 11 million yuan, an increase of 80 times year-on-year. The beer category has achieved fresh direct delivery through the “lightning warehouse”, Carlsberg and Budweiser have surged at night, and the “beer + snacks” combination orders have increased by 300% during the European Cup.
- The price of all categories is anchored: Dior lipstick dropped by 30%, and Feihe milk powder (820g×2) 561 yuan does not need to be made; Small household appliances such as Xiaomi notebooks and Dyson hair dryers are directly supplied through lightning warehouses, and the price is 5%-15% lower than that of traditional e-commerce. Meituan’s CFO disclosed that among the 500 million users of the flash sale in Q1 2025, the post-90s generation will account for 2/3, and “low price + instant” will become the core logic of young people’s choice.
Think about it, will there be another situation in the traditional e-commerce you are counting on: “the price of certain categories will increase in big promotions”. Isn’t it, everyone hates it~ Finally made it to this day, added their shopping cart to almost done, and it was calculated, but when they calculated the subsidy before payment, they found that the money had increased~ Is the platform playing tricks, or is it a small operation of the merchant? Consumers are not fools, consumers will also record their preferences, and they will also stare at the daily price of certain things and the price of big promotions, which is why live broadcast e-commerce is popular. After all, the impulsive order, after all, the low price of Zhenyin Silver in the early stage is visible to consumers.
3. Scenario expansion: from “shelf e-commerce” to “full life scene coverage”
Traditional e-commerce, or new retail e-commerce, is still limited to conventional online transactions of standard products, which means that this is a “product” that can be purchased. The definition of merchants refers to the category of buying physical goods, and some service and catering businesses are excluded here. Think about it, we rarely see catering and service product sales on some e-commerce? In fact, in essence, this should all belong to product sales, but some are long-term fixed, and some are short-term and timely use.
Different from traditional e-commerce, which is limited to online transactions of standardized goods, Meituan will expand to the full scenario of “catering + retail + service”. Flash sales, takeaway food, hotel vacations, and medicine and health care are linked to build an instant consumption ecology of “from a cup of milk tea to a refrigerator”. I also need to mention Ele.me here, the same is true. But why is it not easy to use? Is it because everyone understands it?
Data from the web:
- The digital rebirth of physical retail: the turnover of 1919 liquor supermarkets exceeded 100 million on the first day, and the transaction volume of brands such as Watsons and Snack Youming doubled; RT-Mart and Wal-Mart achieved a 200% increase in online sales through flash sales, and a Wal-Mart store in Beijing delivered 500 orders in a single day. This “online drainage + offline fulfillment” model allows physical stores to share e-commerce dividends, and flash sales orders in Chongqing Huawei stores increased by 10%-20% weekly.
- Scene activation of the sinking market: the turnover of the county and township market doubled on the first day, Sichuan county users received children’s bicycles in 1 hour, and Shandong township users completed the electric vehicle battery replacement in 30 minutes; Local liquor brands have achieved regional breakthroughs through flash sales, and the order volume of a liquor brand in Henan has increased by 3 times. Meituan uses instant retail to activate the county economy, filling the “last mile” gap of traditional e-commerce in the sinking market.
When traditional e-commerce is still competing for “GMV growth rate, low price and large volume”, Meituan has turned the holiday promotion into a “life solution” through instant retail – users can not only buy mobile phone milk powder, but also book dinner hotels, and even let riders throw away garbage and pick up express delivery.
Here is a point: today’s users are no longer buying for the sake of hoarding, although they still have the habit of concentrating on a wave during the big promotion, but the concept of daily timely consumption has been developed. Users have relatively abundant purchasing power, and many times they can also recognize the fluctuation of prices, and will place orders as soon as possible when needed, and enjoy them in time.
4. Future trends: five disruptive changes in instant retail
1. Technology-driven real-time fulfillment network upgrades
Meituan’s drone delivery has landed on 28 routes in Shenzhen and Shanghai, with a total of 250,000 orders completed, with an average delivery time of 20 minutes, which is nearly 40% more efficient than the traditional model. In the future, the AI demand prediction system will realize “stocking before placing an order”, combined with drones and automatic sorting warehouses, the delivery time within 3 kilometers is expected to be compressed to 10 minutes. By 2027, the number of Meituan lightning warehouses will exceed 100,000, covering all categories and county markets, forming a “5-minute delivery” urban capillary network.
It is impossible to confirm whether drone delivery is a way to replace couriers, but consider one point: in the future, more than N drones will fly in the sky, and then there will be high timeliness requirements for safety for wires and drone landing sites.
2. Integration of full-category penetration and scenario-based consumption
Instant retail is extending from emergency consumption to planned consumption. In Q1 2025, Meituan’s flash sale orders in the 3C home appliance category increased by 120% year-on-year, and the repurchase rate of the maternal and infant milk powder category reached 45%. In the future, the “instant retail + service” model will give birth to new formats: such as riders installing home appliances, walking pets, and even providing temporary housekeeping services. Accenture predicts that by 2030, the instant retail market will exceed 2 trillion yuan, of which service orders will account for 30%.
In other words, Meituan can easily cut into what JD.com and Taobao can do, but JD.com and Taobao are not very convenient to convert. It’s like Luckin can sell it with milk tea when selling coffee, but it is a truth that the shop that sells milk tea is not very good. There are specializations in the industry, but it also depends on how you cut into another industry.
3. The sinking market and the activation of the county economy
The scale of instant retail in the county will reach 150 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 23.42%, Meituan’s flash sales in the county will increase by 54%, and 1,866 convenience store flash warehouses will be opened. In the future, the county market will become the main battlefield of instant retail: through the “local warehouse + community leader” model, low-frequency and high-customer unit price goods such as agricultural machinery accessories and agricultural products will achieve “online ordering and same-day delivery to the village”. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, rural online retail sales have accounted for 38.9%, and instant retail will further release the consumption potential of counties.
The county market here still refers to areas with relatively large traffic flows, rather than simple rural areas, which are a lower level of market. Rural e-commerce is a large market, but transportation and consumption power are issues that need to be considered separately.
4. Green logistics and sustainable development
Lala’s platform accounts for 40% of new energy truck orders, with an annual carbon reduction of 1.42 million tons, and Meituan is piloting degradable packaging and shared distribution boxes. In the future, instant retail will build a “green supply chain”: for example, Meituan Flash Sale cooperates with brand owners to launch the “empty bottle recycling and rebate points” program; Drone distribution uses hydrogen energy batteries to achieve zero carbon emissions. Seven departments, including the Ministry of Commerce, have issued policies to encourage instant retail enterprises to participate in the construction of green shopping malls and green logistics systems.
Packaging, now a major pain point of express delivery and takeaway, each currently has some relative solutions, such as but not limited to explaining packaging, recyclable express boxes, or brief packaging, etc. But in any case, energy conservation is a direction to consider; Reverse consideration: Many merchants are reluctant to save on packaging, after all, if the goods are a little damaged, that is, returns, merchants will lose more.
5. Data-driven, personalized experiences
AI technology will deeply reconstruct the consumer decision-making chain: by analyzing user historical data, just like the aforementioned JD.com through big data analysis and prediction, it can identify user needs in advance, prepare in advance, and then deliver it as soon as possible: the so-called user portrait + user preference + purchase judgment + search decision = prediction definition. For example, after a user continuously purchases infant milk powder, he simultaneously pushes diapers, milk powder bottles, etc.; Then, remember that here is the associated user role, and push related products such as stroller products and early education toys to the user’s peripheral relationship.
If you are still stuck in the current user scenario, it is the big data analysis model of 5 years ago. The so-called AR virtual makeup try-on, VR home design and other technologies have appeared very early, but before because of insufficient technical capabilities and insufficient hardware capabilities, there was a concept, and the entire ecological environment could not keep up, resulting in the product appearing very weak. However, now that AI technology has been greatly improved, there will be an updated bearer that will be integrated into instant retail, and users can have a better way to simulate the effect of online experience of goods before placing an order, reducing the return rate.
5. The essence of breaking the game: reconstruct the underlying logic of business with “immediacy”
The core of Meituan’s new retail breakthrough is to subvert traditional e-commerce with the “instant retail triangle model”:
- Supply chain reconstruction: The “lightning warehouse” model incubated for 7 years has realized the minute-level performance of “front store and back warehouse”, and a beauty lightning warehouse in Beijing has a single-day sales of more than 200,000 yuan, and lipstick masks are delivered in 5 minutes;
- User mental reconstruction: Accenture research shows that young people are willing to pay a 15% premium for “instant satisfaction”, Meituan has turned “emergency consumption” into “daily consumption” through “30-minute delivery”, and the growth rate of non-catering orders in Q1 has exceeded 60%;
- Industry rule reconstruction: Forcing friends to follow up on “hourly delivery”, promoting the promotion from “price war” to “experience war”, this year’s 618 major platforms have simplified the rules and returned to the original intention of affordability.
As Ouyang Rihui, an expert at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said: “Meituan has freed the big promotion from the ‘involution trap’, proving that the ultimate competition in retail is not GMV numbers, but the competition for user time.” When 500 million users are accustomed to “30-minute delivery”, instant retail is no longer a supplement to e-commerce, but is becoming a new infrastructure for the retail industry – this revolution has just begun.
