In today’s fast-paced consumer era, instant retail is undergoing a profound transformation. From simple “instant delivery” to being a platform that provides “life solutions”, the instant retail market is redefining the shopping experience for consumers. Through the analysis of the latest survey data, this paper reveals the diversified picture of instant retail consumer groups and the changes in demand under different ages, classes and consumption scenarios.
China’s instant retail market is undergoing a profound change in the consumption structure of the population.
Kantar’s latest survey covers 2,000 consumers in 337 cities across the country, revealing that for the first time, the group over 30 years old has become the main force of instant retail with a proportion of 55%, an increase of 5% from 2023.
Senior middle class and exquisite mothers constitute the core consumer force, contributing 22% and 21% of the market share respectively. These household decision-makers are upgrading instant retail from an emergency procurement channel to a daily supply hub for households, driving steady growth in customer unit prices for three consecutive years.
At the same time, urban Gen Z is reshaping the dimension of market competition with unique consumption behaviors.
Although the penetration rate of young people under the age of 25 in first, second and third-tier cities is currently 13%, their exploratory consumption characteristics are remarkable, and the new product trial rate has reached 1.3 times the industry average.
These young consumers are not satisfied with simple shopping, but also regard the instant platform as a testing ground for lifestyle, from ordering imported snack combinations late at night, buying limited coffee beans in the early morning, to ordering bartending sets for parties at noon, forming an all-weather, fragmented consumption map.
The essential change in consumption motivation
In 2024, the logic of consumers choosing instant retail has been fundamentally reconstructed. Product richness surpassed 61% delivery speed for the first time with a 68% selection rate, becoming the primary decision-making factor.
Consumers are not only satisfied with “fast”, but also demand “complete”, this consumer demand has made cross-category purchases the norm, and the combined purchase rate of snack food and beverages has climbed to the peak of the industry.
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In addition, the seamless experience of the whole link has become a new rigid need, and up to 86% of consumers require the smooth connection of the whole process of search, payment and after-sales, reflecting that instant retail is transforming from a trading platform to a life solution platform.
We believe that the change in consumption motivation has given rise to diversified category consumption and scene consumption on instant retail platforms:
First of all, the food and beverage category has been established as the core category of instant retail platform competition.
Kantar data shows that 38% of purchases are driven by immediacy and 35% by the desire to explore new things. Small-format packaging accounts for 75% of the sales share.
An international snack brand has developed a “15-minute craving plan”, co-branded a single small package with film and television IP, and accurately pushed it during the late-night snack period, increasing the repurchase rate by 30% in a single month.
The freshness-sensitive characteristics of the dairy bakery category are extremely prominent, with consumers paying attention to the production date as high as 89%, exceeding the industry average by 25 percentage points. The breakfast scene accounts for 57% and the office sharing accounts for 30%, forming a clear double-peak consumption curve.
A fresh milk brand optimized the design of the detail page, displaying “delivery within 12 hours of leaving the factory” with dynamic labels, and cooperated with the development of 200ml office sharing packaging to double sales in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration.
The second is that the household cleaning category has shifted from instant consumption to strong planned consumption characteristics.
According to Kantar Consulting, household hoarding demand accounts for 78%, and the preference for large-packaged products is 2.1 times that of other categories. However, 45% of consumers have concerns about weight delivery, and door-to-door delivery has become a core demand.
A leading daily chemical company and a grain and oil brand jointly promote full discounts, and at the same time jointly build a heavy goods distribution standard with an instant retail platform, shortening the delivery time of orders above 10kg to 40 minutes.
Finally, the 3C digital category shows the dual track of emergency and exploration.
Kantar data shows that more than 42% of purchases are due to urgent needs due to equipment failure, and 38% are driven by the desire to explore new products. 83% of the brand attention in this category is the highest in the industry, but the price comparison rate of functional parameters is the lowest.
A mobile phone brand has deployed basic models and concept machines in the front warehouse at the same time, and through the “one-hour fast tasting of new products” activity, the conversion rate of new products on the first sale day has increased to 3 times that of the e-commerce platform.
For different consumption scenarios, consumers also put forward different demands for instant retail platforms.
For example, in the home scene, daily replenishment accounts for 50% and lazy demand accounts for 48%, constituting the basic market.
The travel scene showed explosive growth, with the hotel order rate soaring by 30%, and the growth rate of travel personal care products leading all categories.
The social scene shows the value of emotional connection, with 38% of users placing orders for party building and 25% for gifts from relatives and friends.
Obviously, the instant retail competition in 2024 has been comprehensively upgraded from a single dimension of competing for delivery timeliness to a multi-dimensional competition for product richness integration capabilities, full-link experience optimization capabilities, and differentiated scenario demand satisfaction capabilities.
Whether instant retail platforms can accurately understand and meet the comprehensive needs of consumers will greatly determine the position of major platforms in the competition of “life solutions”.
Reconstruction and evolution of consumer behavior patterns
Search logic is undergoing a systematic restructuring, with 61% of users starting their shopping journey with their preferred category keywords and 55% directly searching for brand names.
It is worth noting that the explosive growth of scene combination searches, of which the search volume of “milk + bread” breakfast combination increased by 120% year-on-year, and the search volume of “sunscreen + sun hat” summer set increased by 90%, reflecting consumers’ increasing reliance on instant retail platforms to provide scenario solutions.
Although 70% of users still insist on cross-platform price comparison, the willingness of people aged 30-40 in high-tier cities to compare prices is significantly reduced.
This group values the value of time more and is willing to pay a premium for deterministic services. The dependence of residents in fourth-tier cities on offline price comparison is 38%, reflecting the fundamental difference in the trust of different levels of markets in channels.
Although price wars still occur from time to time, from the perspective of consumer behavior, the proportion of orders placed simply due to promotion stimulation has fallen from a high of 77% in 2021 to 46%. On the contrary, membership rights and first order reductions have become the most attractive means with an efficiency rate of 36% and 34% respectively.
A beverage brand has established a tiered membership system to improve user retention, in which basic members enjoy free delivery fees, and paid members get exclusive new product tasting rights, making the monthly active user retention rate exceed 60%.
Brand merchants’ marketing preferences on instant retail platforms are also evolving in the direction of high engagement, with Kantar data showing that new product launches and brand exclusive day events are tied for first place with 35% preference.
The interest of the exquisite mother group in exclusive customized products is particularly prominent, 42% higher than the average. These consumers are not satisfied with simple transactions, but expect brands to provide emotional value.
A mother and baby brand drove a 150% increase in high-end line sales through the combination of “parenting expert live broadcast + customized formula milk powder”.
an outdoor brand merchant launched a camping food box containing self-heating rice and portable water purification tablets; A hotel group cooperated with a personal care brand to develop a travel toiletry bag containing makeup remover wipes and compressed towels, and the unit price of the pilot store was increased by 90 yuan.
For brand merchants, only by deeply understanding consumers’ life scenarios and combining products into solutions that truly solve life pain points, such as breakfast bags, travel sets, etc., can they meet the diverse needs of consumers.
At the same time, by providing a deterministic service experience, establishing a reliable quality commitment, and meeting the definition of “worthy” by different groups of people, we can build multi-dimensional trust, form stronger stickiness, and reduce marketing investment on the platform.
In terms of consumer management, we can upgrade the transaction relationship to emotional identity and identity belonging through exclusive rights, customized services and warm interaction, and manage the emotional link of consumers.
The future growth path of instant retail
In the face of the diversification of consumer demand and consumption scenarios, as well as the reconstruction and evolution of consumer behavior patterns, instant retail platforms should break through the dilemma of refined scene operation and enhance the innovation ability of brand merchants in product form.
In addition, it is necessary to crack the fragmentation of crowd operation in layers. The data shows that the demand difference between the senior middle class and Generation Z is as high as 32%, and the platform can set up a dual-account system of “family account + personal exploration account” to meet the personalized needs of family consumers.
For example, the family account supports multiple people to share shopping carts and periodic purchase lists to meet planned purchases; The personal exploration account recommends niche new products based on interest, and with the “blind box” early adopter experience, the monthly activity of young people has increased by 45%.
Now it seems that the final competition of instant retail is no longer a simple competition for delivery speed, but a deep adaptation to the rhythm of life.
When a senior middle-class mother orders breakfast ingredients for her children in the morning, a white-collar worker buys office afternoon tea during a lunch break, and a young couple places an order for exotic snack combinations late at night, instant retail platforms need to interpret these life scripts and reorganize matching products into various solutions for life scenarios.
According to the observation of “Zhuang Shuai Retail E-commerce Channel”, the upgrading of instant retail from “instant delivery” to “life solutions” is essentially the return of the retail industry to humanistic values.
As the consumer market enters the era of intensive cultivation, Meituan flash sales, Taobao flash sales and JD.com second delivery all need to meet the deterministic needs of the senior middle class and the desire to explore of Generation Z at the same time, and integrate goods, services and emotions into life solutions in order to win a place in the trillion-level instant retail market.
*The data and charts in this article are from the Kantar O2O White Paper 2024
