In the highly competitive instant retail market, how to find room for survival and development in the cracks of giants? This article will delve into the application of the strategic mindset of “flanking warfare” in the realm of instant retail. By analyzing successful cases such as Pinduoduo, Dewu, and Douyin e-commerce, it reveals how to achieve a gorgeous turn from the edge to the home field by accurately positioning market gaps, innovative business models and differentiated competitive strategies.
“It’s a blessing not to be favored,” Jack Ma once summed up Alibaba’s early rise. Looking back at the development of business, when industry giants pour their main energy and resources into the fierce battle on the mainstream battlefield, those marginal areas that have not been paid attention often have huge opportunities to subvert the industry pattern. This business logic has been verified many times in the field of e-commerce and has become a key password for many emerging companies to achieve corner overtaking.
Flanking war: the blind spot of giants and the blessed land of entrepreneurs
Pinduoduo’s success can be called a classic example of flanking warfare. Under the e-commerce pattern led by Taobao and JD.com, Pinduoduo keenly captured the gap in the “low-priced white label” market abandoned by Taobao.
At that time, in order to improve the quality and brand image of the platform, Taobao vigorously cleaned up white-label merchants, but this decision created a window of opportunity for Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo has entered the WeChat ecosystem with a highly innovative “group + agricultural products” model, cleverly avoiding the strong barriers built by Taobao and JD.com in terms of payment and logistics.
On the one hand, the group model uses the fission propagation characteristics of WeChat social network to quickly attract a large number of users and reduce the cost of customer acquisition. on the other hand, choosing non-standard fruits as the entry point, high-frequency consumption attributes have effectively driven the improvement of user stickiness. This differentiated competition strategy allowed Pinduoduo to rise rapidly in the cracks of giants, and eventually counterattacked to become a new e-commerce giant with a market capitalization surpassing Alibaba.
To achieve these three challenges, product managers will only continue to appreciate
Good product managers are very scarce, and product managers who understand users, business, and data are still in demand when they go out of the Internet. On the contrary, if you only do simple communication, inefficient execution, and shallow thinking, I am afraid that you will not be able to go through the torrent of the next 3-5 years.
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Dewu has also opened up a new world in the seemingly saturated e-commerce market. In addition to the comprehensive e-commerce field dominated by Taobao and JD.com, Dewu has an accurate insight into the niche but potential needs of the sneaker and trendy category market in the context of the rise of trend culture.
By pioneering the unique model of “identifying first and then shipping”, Dewu has successfully established consumer trust barriers and solved consumers’ concerns about the authenticity and quality of products when purchasing trendy items. This differentiated positioning not only brings together the originally scattered niche needs into a huge market, but also builds Dewu into the preferred platform for trendy culture lovers, successfully transforming niche needs into a 100 billion-level track.
Douyin e-commerce has taken a different approach, abandoning the shelf logic of traditional e-commerce, and reconstructing the relationship between people and goods with “content planting + interest recommendation”. In the traditional e-commerce model of focusing on product display and search, Douyin e-commerce uses short videos and live content to stimulate users’ potential consumer needs and realize the transformation from “people looking for goods” to “goods looking for people”.
According to relevant data, during the Double 11 period in 2024, Douyin’s live broadcast sales grew by 54.6%, far exceeding the growth rate of comprehensive e-commerce, fully demonstrating the strong vitality of its innovation model.
From these successful cases, it is not difficult to see that the essence of flanking warfare is that “different is better than better”. Instead of going head-on in the areas of strength of giants and falling into a war of resource consumption, it is better to change thinking, dig deep into open spaces in the dimensions of cognition, product, crowd or channel, and carefully cultivate and upgrade seemingly small tactical-level opportunities into strategic positioning, so as to achieve a business miracle of small and big, surprising wins.
Classic case: winners and losers in flank battles
Winner: Accurate card slot in the undisputed zone
In the practice of flanking battles, Pinduoduo played a beautiful set of “quadruple flank” combinations.
On the cognitive flank, Pinduoduo boldly broke through the traditional e-commerce cognition and completely upgraded “group joining” from a conventional promotion method to a core strategy. In its APP design, it abandons the shopping cart and search bar necessary for traditional e-commerce, and adopts a unique “product flow” model to reconstruct the relationship between people and goods. This design concept makes users feel like they are in a never-ending group buying carnival when browsing products, and is constantly stimulated by low prices, group buying and other elements, strengthening Pinduoduo’s brand awareness of “low-price group buying”.
In terms of product flanks, Pinduoduo chooses to use non-standard fruits as sharp knife products to cut into the e-commerce market. At that time, Taobao focused on the clothing category, JD.com dominated with 3C products, and fruits, as non-standard products for high-frequency consumption, had huge market demand but had not yet been fully tapped in the field of e-commerce. Pinduoduo ensures the freshness and price advantage of fruits through direct procurement cooperation with the origin, and the fruit categories consumed frequently effectively drive users to use the platform frequently, enhancing users’ dependence and stickiness on the platform.
In terms of crowd flanking strategy, Pinduoduo accurately harvested the small and medium-sized merchants overflowing from Taobao’s anti-counterfeiting operation, as well as the huge “400 million sinking users” group in the WeChat ecosystem. Small and medium-sized businesses face strict supervision and competitive pressure on Taobao, and Pinduoduo provides them with a relaxed business environment and new development opportunities; The sinking users in the WeChat ecosystem are price-sensitive and their consumer needs have not been fully met, and Pinduoduo has accurately met the needs of this part of the users with a low-price group buying model and quickly accumulated a massive user base.
Pinduoduo has successfully transformed WeChat’s powerful social chain into a commodity distribution network with the help of WeChat’s “slash” fission marketing model. In order to get a lower price, users spontaneously share links among WeChat friends, forming a viral virality, allowing Pinduoduo to achieve geometric growth in the number of users in a short period of time. In contrast, although a certain east also entered WeChat nine-square grid at the same time, due to the lack of innovative marketing gameplay, it failed to effectively activate WeChat traffic and achieved little effect.
Meituan has also made two key flank jumps in its development history. In the fierce competition of the Hundred Groups War, Meituan decisively abandoned the traditional offline advertising and promotion methods, concentrated limited funds to buy out the “group buying” keyword, and occupied the traffic entrance advantage on the search engine side. At the same time, avoid the fierce competition of the top 25 cities in the Red Sea and focus on the mid-range cities of the 25th – 100th. The market competition in these cities is relatively small, but the consumption potential is huge, and Meituan has quickly established a market advantage in these cities through precise positioning and resource focus, laying a solid foundation for subsequent development.
In the competition with Ele.me, Meituan once again keenly captured the market gap. Through in-depth research, it was found that Ctrip’s boundaries in the field of local hotel booking – the subdivision scenario of local people booking local hotels (non-business travel) has not been fully met. Based on the local life service experience and user data accumulated by its own food delivery business, Meituan has successfully broken through this segment and achieved a counterbalance to Ele.me with the innovative combination model of “high-frequency takeaway + low-frequency wine tourism”.
Loser: The Trap of the Imitator
Fanke Eslite was once a star enterprise in the e-commerce industry, and in the early days, with the precise positioning of “vertical shirt brand”, it quickly opened the market with the ultimate cost performance, and achieved remarkable results in the shirt field. However, in the process of development, Eslite gradually lost its way, blindly pursuing the expansion of all categories, and trying to replicate the comprehensive e-commerce model of Taobao and JD.com. However, in the process of expansion, Fanke Eslite not only failed to effectively integrate resources, but also lost its original “ultimate cost-effectiveness” cognitive advantage, and gradually was at a disadvantage in the competition with Taobao and other giants, and was eventually eliminated by the market and swallowed up by Taobao.
Jumei Premium focuses on the field of beauty e-commerce, and attracted a certain user group with its beauty group buying model in the early stage of development. However, with the intensification of market competition, especially after giants such as Alibaba and JD.com strengthened the beauty market, the shortcomings of Jumei Youpin were gradually exposed. Due to the failure to effectively solve the problem of trust in genuine beauty products, consumers have doubts about the quality of the platform’s products, resulting in serious user loss, market share being eroded by giants, and rapidly marginalized.
As a traditional offline retail giant, Suning is trying to transform under the impact of the e-commerce wave. Suning imitates JD.com’s self-built self-operated logistics system, but due to the heavy offline genes, it is seriously lagging behind in digital capacity building. The construction of self-operated logistics systems requires strong digital technical support to achieve efficient warehousing management, distribution scheduling and other functions. Suning’s shortcomings in this regard have caused it to fall into the dilemma of “asset-heavy and inefficient”, with high logistics costs and difficulty in improving distribution efficiency, and gradually falling behind in competition with e-commerce platforms such as JD.com.
Key lessons can be drawn from the cases of these losers: flanking warfare is not simply about avoiding competition, but about gaining insight into the strategic blind spots of giants, carefully cultivating areas where giants “can’t” or “don’t want to do”, establishing a solid base, and forming a unique competitive advantage. If you just blindly imitate the giant model and lack a differentiated competition strategy, you will eventually become cannon fodder in the fierce market competition.
Instant Retail Battleground: Who’s Fighting the Real Flanks?
According to relevant data, the overall market size of instant retail will exceed the trillion mark in 2025, showing strong development momentum. However, in this seemingly thriving market, the competitive strategies of various players are very different.
At first, Meituan Lightning Warehouse did not focus on the grand goal of “instant delivery of all categories”, which was difficult to achieve absolute advantages in the short term, but instead focused on the “high-frequency rigid demand of the community” category, such as fresh food, daily hundred, etc. In the county market, Meituan Lightning Warehouse actively replicates the mature model of “local supply + instant delivery”.
According to data from the Meituan platform, county orders will achieve a significant increase of 42% in 2024. Meituan Lightning Warehouse has also cleverly upgraded the advantage of “30-minute delivery”, which was originally only a service feature, into a category strategy. It forms a distinct differentiated competition with the traditional e-commerce main “half-day delivery” and “hourly delivery”, so that consumers can think of Meituan Lightning Warehouse for the first time when they have immediate demand for high-frequency goods and successfully seize the market mentality.
In the recent takeaway war, Taobao flash sale and Ele.me played a set of flank combination punches, which is also a classic flank blockade battle in the business war. Ele.me makes full use of the advantages of its own distribution system to undertake the “unfulfilled demand” generated by the Taobao platform, such as temporary refunds and sudden replenishments.
At the same time, with the help of Taobao’s strong platform traffic, with the model of “platform traffic + instant delivery”, it accurately cuts into the clothing, beauty and other scenarios of high customer orders through the near-field e-commerce model. This strategy cleverly avoids the fierce head-on confrontation with Meituan, and will also open up a new market space by tapping the potential demand in the Taobao ecosystem.
On the other hand, although a series of strategies for merchants and riders at the beginning are indeed deeply popular, the essence of business is not only “good”, but also to stimulate merchants and riders to make more money.
On the merchant side, many small and medium-sized merchants on an east platform are facing the dilemma of weak digital capabilities, and the cost of transforming instant retail business is too high, including the digital transformation of stores, online management of commodity information, and docking with distribution systems, which require a lot of investment in capital and manpower. However, it lacks effective measures to help small and medium-sized merchants improve their digital capabilities, resulting in low enthusiasm for merchants to participate.
On the user side, the model of a certain Dong instant retail business has not yet jumped out of the service scenarios previously accumulated by Meituan and Ele.me, making it highly homogeneous, whether it is a product category, delivery timeliness or user experience, it has not shown obvious “must-choose reasons”, it is difficult to attract and retain users, it can only be called a “pseudo-flank” strategy, if the subsidy stops, it is difficult not to “return to before liberation”.
Flanking methodology for instant retail
Cognitive flanking: from “fast” to “accurate”
In the field of instant retail, Meituan currently focuses on “everything to home”, emphasizing the richness of product categories and the timeliness of delivery; Taobao flash sale highlights “fashion express delivery”, focusing on fast delivery services for fashion categories. However, outside of these mainstream cognitions, there are still a large number of professional service gaps in vertical scenarios that need to be filled urgently.
For example, in the field of medical cold chain, special drugs such as insulin have strict requirements for storage and distribution temperatures, requiring precise cold chain instant delivery services to ensure drug quality and effectiveness. In the pet emergency scenario, when pet owners encounter sudden illnesses of their pets at night, they urgently need medicines to be delivered quickly, and it is crucial to establish an exclusive cognition of “drug night delivery” to meet the urgent needs of pet owners.
By accurately locating the needs of these vertical scenarios and establishing an exclusive cognitive system of “demand-response”, instant retail companies can establish a unique brand image in the minds of consumers, differentiate themselves from competitors, and win market share.
Product flank: abandon the big and complete, focus on the small and refined
Dewu’s successful experience in the field of trendy items provides valuable reference for instant retail. Like billiard cues, wearable armor, metaphysical bracelets, etc., which seem to be “non-mainstream categories”, the annual sales on the Dewu platform can easily exceed 10 million. Its core is to accurately capture the emotional value needs of young people in pursuit of personalization and uniqueness.
In the field of instant retail, enterprises can also learn from this idea, focus on subdivision scenarios, and tap niche but high-potential product demand, rather than just thinking about constantly letting merchants add products, add products, and add products. For example, the “instant launch” service of trendy toys is very attractive to consumers who are keen on collecting trendy toys, and being able to own limited edition trendy toys at the first time is very attractive; “Emergency delivery” services for camping equipment can quickly meet the needs of consumers when they plan to camp temporarily but are short on equipment. By focusing on these small and refined product segments, instant retail companies can deeply meet the individual needs of specific consumer groups and create unique product competitive advantages.
Crowd flank: the overlooked “new blue-collar”
At present, the instant retail business mainly focuses on the post-95s and post-00s consumer groups, such as fresh food mainly focuses on the housewife group to meet the daily consumption needs of families, and cosmetics, 3C, etc. mainly focus on the white-collar class, providing instant delivery services for fashion and quality goods. However, the immediate needs of groups such as students on university campuses and workers in factories have long been ignored. If instant retail companies can pay attention to this overlooked group and accurately meet their immediate needs, they will open up a new market space and form a differentiated competitive advantage.
Channel flank: digitization of offline touchpoints
Traditional instant retail players mostly rely on APP traffic to obtain orders, but offline physical touchpoints such as husband and wife stores and community stations contain huge order potential. For example, the elderly in the community may not be familiar with online shopping operations, but by cooperating with the owner of the husband and wife store, the store owner can help the elderly purchase drugs and other immediate demand goods, and place orders and distribute them through the instant retail platform to realize the conversion of offline traffic into online orders. This model of digitizing offline touchpoints can not only activate the dormant traffic pool offline, but also expand the service boundaries of instant retail, provide consumers with a more convenient shopping experience, and also bring new profit growth points to offline physical stores, achieving deep integration and coordinated development of online and offline.
The end of the flanking battle: the transition from the edge to the home court
Throughout the business development process, all companies that have successfully implemented flanking warfare have followed a similar development path. First of all, it took root in the marginal field, focusing on fruit sales in the early stage, and using the low-price group model to accumulate a user base in the sinking market; Meituan started from the group buying business in second- and third-tier cities, avoiding fierce competition in first-tier cities and gradually cultivating the market.
With the continuous expansion of brand influence and user base, category expansion began. Pinduoduo has gradually expanded from agricultural products to the sales of all categories of goods such as white-label department stores, enriching product types to meet the needs of different users; Meituan has extended from the takeaway business to a number of local life service categories such as wine and tourism, fresh food, etc., and has built a huge local life service ecosystem.
When a company occupies a certain share of the market and forms a unique competitive advantage, it launches a strategic counteroffensive. Pinduoduo challenged Taobao in the e-commerce market with its “low-price mentality”, and competed for e-commerce market share by continuously strengthening the advantage of low prices and improving user experience; With “local life” as its core strategy, Meituan has continuously consolidated its leading position in the field of local life services.
For the instant retail industry, the short-term breakthrough point lies in accurately identifying market gaps. In the “counties that are not fully covered by Meituan Lightning Warehouse”, there is a problem of insufficient supply of instant retail services in these areas, and enterprises can take the lead in seizing market share by establishing a localized supply and distribution system; In “categories that Ele.me has not set foot in”, such as agricultural equipment and other professional categories, professional instant retail services are created according to the needs of users in specific industries.
In the long run, instant retailers should aim to translate their differentiation capabilities into industry standards. For example, in terms of cold chain distribution, if enterprises can establish an efficient and accurate medical cold chain distribution system to ensure the quality and safety of special commodities such as drugs, they can promote the formulation of relevant standards through industry associations and other channels, so that their own advantages become the entry threshold of the industry and force giants to follow, so as to realize the role change from a pioneer in the marginal market to an industry leader.
As Yan Yisheng, partner of IDG, said: “Entrepreneurship must fight a flanking battle and occupy consumer awareness in subdivided categories in order to take away all profits.” In the highly competitive market of instant retail, only by accurately gaining insight into market trends, decisively implementing flanking strategies, and working hard in subdivided fields to establish unique competitive advantages can we stand out in the market and achieve a gorgeous leap from the edge to the home field.
Finally: the cruelty and romance of the indisputable zone
Flanking warfare is by no means an easy shortcut, but a severe test of accurate prediction of industry trends and ultimate execution capabilities. In the early days of entrepreneurship, Pinduoduo accurately understood the trend of the times of “consumption downgrading + WeChat infrastructure improvement”, and decisively chose low-priced white-label products and WeChat social fission marketing as its core strategy. However, in the process of development, Pinduoduo had to endure the infamy of “low price and poor quality” due to uneven product quality in the early days, and gradually won the trust of consumers by continuously optimizing the supply chain and improving the quality of goods.
In the early days of its business, Meituan bet on the trend of “digitization of local services”. In the cruel competitive environment of the Hundred Regiments War, many group buying platforms have closed down, and corpses are everywhere. With its accurate judgment of market trends and strong execution, Meituan insists on focusing on the market in second- and third-tier cities and continuously optimizes the service experience, so that it can start coldly and gradually develop and grow in the fierce competition.
At present, the flanking window of instant retail is gradually closing. Giants such as Meituan, JD.com, and Taobao have made every effort to seize market share, and whether it is the front warehouse, or the upturned husband and wife stores, convenience stores, supermarkets, etc., they have also opened the involution mode. In such a severe competitive situation, the only chance for merchants to settle in the instant retail platform to win this war is: dig deep into the “can’t do” areas, such as the field of non-standard products, due to the difficulty of standardizing their goods and the large demand for personalized needs, it is difficult for giants to quickly replicate and operate on a large scale; For low-margin categories that are “unwilling to do”, giants often ignore these niche and low-profit businesses for profit considerations; and the emotional connection level of “can’t do”; Merchants can achieve differentiated competition by creating personalized product and service experiences and establishing emotional resonance with consumers. Enterprises need to keenly capture these tactical opportunities and carefully upgrade them into their survival strategies in order to gain a place in the fierce market competition.
After all, the ultimate law of commercial warfare has never changed: “Victory does not belong to the side with more troops, but to the side that is better at concentrating forces in key positions.” ”
