The most passionate 24 hours in the history of food delivery: the birth of 200 million "massive" orders

Taobao: Dual-Line Battle, Launching an Offensive

On July 5th, an ordinary summer Saturday was anything but ordinary for Xiao Yu.

As a delivery person for Ele.me in Yuzhong District, Chongqing, she received the "battle" signal two or three days prior: all morning shift staff were to arrive an hour earlier than usual because "the order volume in the coming days will be very high."

At 9 AM that day, Xiao Yu was pulled into a DingTalk meeting, where she synchronized important notes with her colleagues and immediately called her team, "Hurry up and come out to earn money; there are tons of orders!"

At the same time, the Taobao Flash Purchase "war room" in Hangzhou's Xixi Park was already filled with personnel from various business lines, analyzing data, observing trends, communicating with merchants, distributing subsidies in rhythm, and advancing towards their goals.

This was a meticulously planned campaign—on July 5th, the first Saturday after entering the peak season for food delivery, Taobao Flash Purchase decided to launch an offensive against the food delivery giant Meituan.

Speculations about the order volume for the offensive had been circulating in the industry early that morning. According to 36Kr, Alibaba internally estimated that the order volume could reach 70 million that day, while Meituan's usual daily order volume is around 90 million.

Top merchants on Ele.me had received notifications at least a week in advance: prepare sufficient goods and personnel. Some Meituan employees also received intelligence; some chuckled, believing that Taobao's capacity could not support such an order volume, while others became anxious, closely monitoring data from both sides that morning to gauge the opponent's strength.

Earlier, on June 23rd, Taobao Flash Purchase's daily order volume had already exceeded 60 million. This impressive performance had secured a substantial investment of 50 billion from the higher-ups, giving Taobao Flash Purchase the confidence to challenge the industry leader Meituan.

The ambition of Taobao Flash Purchase in this campaign is to elevate the retail order volume to a new level beyond just food orders.

This also represents a larger blueprint for e-commerce companies venturing into food delivery—using near-field e-commerce to support far-field e-commerce.

Jiang Fan once stated at an Alibaba earnings conference, "Flash Purchase is a high-frequency scenario for Taobao, where user activity and scale can be better reflected, and there will be more possibilities for integration between Taobao and near-field e-commerce." JD.com founder Liu Qiangdong also mentioned in a recent discussion, "The money we lose in food delivery is still more cost-effective than spending on traffic from Douyin or Tencent."

"With an investment of 50 billion, the company certainly hopes that not only food orders will increase, but retail orders also need to be rapidly boosted," a Taobao employee told 36Kr.

Tension and anticipation intertwined among the employees. On the evening of July 4th, many in the retail line of Taobao Flash Purchase barely slept, hastily waking up at 7 AM the next morning to monitor the situation. One employee involved in the operation told 36Kr, "Many of the opponent's business personnel arrived in the cities of top merchants a day in advance and settled in the merchants' offices that day, attempting to disrupt this offensive."

The first wave of "pressure intelligence" came back at 9 AM. Some top retail merchants reported being asked to raise their "minimum order price" on the Taobao platform—subsidies directly affect user orders, but the "minimum order price" is also crucial; retail orders are not as "essential" as food orders. If the minimum order price is too high, users will not place orders; if it is too low, it results in low-quality "rough orders" for the platform At around 10 o'clock, the Ele.me staff arrived at the office of key merchants. At many merchant locations, sales representatives faced off against each other. Despite a consensus of "no physical conflict," the merchants still felt very awkward under the pressure from both sides.

Looking back, it was on July 5th, a "calm" day for JD.com, that sparked the initial fuse for this delivery battle.

In the food delivery industry, Meituan and Ele.me had coexisted peacefully for many years. Until this year, no one could have predicted that JD.com would become the disruptor in the new round of food delivery wars.

JD.com's moves were swift and decisive: waiving commissions for merchants, paying social insurance and housing funds for delivery riders, founder Liu Qiangdong personally delivering food, and subsidizing consumers... As a result, order volumes surged—on April 15, April 22, May 14, and June 1, JD.com announced that its food delivery orders had surpassed 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, and 25 million, respectively.

By raising the banner of "e-commerce food delivery," JD.com objectively created favorable terrain for Alibaba. "We are also betting on educating the market with JD.com, establishing the mindset for consumers to order food delivery through e-commerce apps, so they won't need to install food delivery apps in the future," a Taobao employee told 36Kr.

From another perspective, Alibaba could not sit idly by while JD.com rapidly became the second-largest food delivery service.

Compared to JD.com, which started from scratch, Alibaba already had many cards in hand. Ele.me, Hema, and other established businesses of Alibaba were all part of the ongoing layout in the instant retail sector. At the February 2024 earnings conference, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu once again emphasized the strategic value of near-field e-commerce.

In the same year, Taobao launched "Taobao Hourly Delivery," integrating Ele.me's Fengniao delivery service, starting to deliver digital 3C products, clothing, and supermarket goods within 30 minutes on Taobao—this was an important "prelude" and preparation for Taobao's official entry into food delivery.

The aggressive JD.com accelerated the launch of "Taobao Flash Purchase."

"Taobao Flash Purchase" is an upgraded version of "Taobao Hourly Delivery," with the core change being the introduction of Ele.me's food delivery supply, occupying the largest primary traffic entry on the Taobao app homepage.

The name "Flash Purchase" is also quite meaningful, as it shares the same name as Meituan's non-food business. The reason for using "Flash Purchase" instead of directly using "food delivery" is that Meituan already has a strong mindset in food delivery, but the mindset for "Flash Purchase" is still being contested—whoever captures it first wins, a senior industry insider told 36Kr.

According to 36Kr, this product was launched nearly two months ahead of the originally planned June 18th—going live in 50 cities on April 30th. "Taobao and Ele.me's products had just completed integration and hadn't had time for optimization; at one point, the food delivery shopping cart couldn't be directly seen on the Taobao page," a Taobao employee close to the project told 36Kr.

Subsidies for consumers were also temporarily finalized at a high-level Taobao meeting in the last week of April: the amount was increased from the original tens of billions to over 100 billion During the May Day holiday, many people went out to play, while fewer ordered takeout, but the initial results were unexpected. According to 36Kr, Taobao had internally assessed that it would take more than ten days for Taobao Flash Purchase 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 wartime state.

Alibaba's determination is not only reflected in the order volume. 36Kr learned that in late May, Alibaba began discussing the possibility of integrating the Taotian and Ele.me businesses. Three days after the end of the 618 shopping festival, Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu announced that Ele.me and Fliggy would be merged into the reorganized Alibaba China E-commerce Group, reporting to Taotian CEO Jiang Fan.

"Ele.me and Fliggy will continue to maintain a corporate management model, with business decision-making aligned with the centralized goals of the China E-commerce Group," Eddie Wu said. He also specifically mentioned that this is a strategic upgrade "from an e-commerce platform to a large consumer platform."

Just 21 days away from 10 million orders, Taobao Flash Purchase surpassed 40 million orders on May 26. According to 36Kr, due to the very short time between 30 million and 40 million orders, only a few days apart, Taobao Flash Purchase didn't even have time to create promotional posters for the 30 million orders.

"Skipping 20 million and 30 million and directly announcing 40 million orders (20 million each from Taobao and Ele.me) has another significance, which is that Taobao achieved in just over 20 days what JD.com took more than two months to accomplish," a Taobao employee told 36Kr.

Earlier, Meituan was closely monitoring the rapidly growing JD.com. One example is that JD.com hoped to set a benchmark for "catching up" in Liu Qiangdong's hometown of Suqian, using concentrated subsidies and aggressive marketing to achieve a "turnaround," while Meituan also established a dedicated subsidy team in Suqian to fiercely protect its market share.

"Objectively, Meituan is quite grateful to Alibaba," a mid-level Meituan executive told 36Kr. "Generally speaking, it should be the leader spending money to balance the third place, but unexpectedly, the second place acted quickly."

However, it was the "jumping" achievements of 10 million and 40 million orders that made many at Meituan realize for the first time that Taobao was going all out to "launch a second world war," and it was the faster opponent closing in.

Meituan: Fierce Competitors, Ready to Fight Back

Many Meituan employees returned to the office on the afternoon of July 5 on short notice.

"We need to charge forward." That afternoon, Meituan's core local business CEO Wang Puzhong finally made the call. The offensive was commanded by Xue Bing and Xiao Kun, with Xue Bing being the head of Meituan's takeout business and Xiao Kun being the head of Meituan Flash Purchase, both reporting to Wang Puzhong. Dozens of key personnel were urgently recalled to Meituan's headquarters in Hengdian, and a large conference room quickly became the operations center.

Internally, Meituan discovered that Taobao's subsidies were becoming increasingly aggressive and strategic—offering substantial subsidies for non-food items in the morning, directly eliminating minimum order thresholds, waiving delivery fees, and stacking cash vouchers to boost volume, then shifting large subsidies to food during peak dining hours. By noon, during the "meal time," orders surged rapidly "Not only did they replenish particularly fiercely, but even the orders that needed to wait an hour in the order hall were still being dispatched, indicating a strong determination, possibly really aiming for 80 million." A Meituan employee participating in the battle that day told 36Kr.

Once Taobao Flash Sale achieves 80 million orders, Meituan, which maintains a daily order volume of around 90 million, will see its market share plummet that day. "Consumer mindset, market mindset, and capital markets will all be affected."

Meituan's summer campaign this year is themed "Fight for Summer, Determine the Universe," and was originally progressing in an orderly manner—led by the strong growth of Pin Hao Fan and Shen Qiang Shou, with a planned subsidy wave from July 5 to July 8, "which is more than double the previous subsidies."

"We also made preparations, but didn't expect that on the afternoon of the 5th, they suddenly ramped up subsidies on the C-end." The founder of a Chinese fast-food chain told 36Kr.

"Our bottom line is that we absolutely cannot lose in order volume." Within 2 to 3 hours, Meituan's delivery service concentrated the subsidies that were originally to be rolled out gradually by rhythm and region, launching them nationwide. "It was so exciting," described a Meituan employee about the feeling at that time.

Around 4 PM, Meituan's subsidies began to be released on a large scale. Starting with free milk tea vouchers, users who successfully participated in "0 Yuan Purchase" cheered on social platforms. Soon after, Meituan's large vouchers expanded from tea drinks to more categories, with "18 off 18" and inflated red envelopes almost forming a "saturation attack," making it hard for users not to place an order once they opened the app.

Riders were also a key target for subsidies. A Meituan rider told 36Kr that usually, the average delivery fee during peak hours is 4.7 yuan, but on July 5, he received at least 10 yuan per order.

With the two major platforms jointly subsidizing, many cities across the country saw tea and coffee shops overwhelmed with orders, "the orders were as thick as books, with dozens of delivery workers waiting at the food preparation counter," said Ele.me rider Xiao Yu to 36Kr. Riders and store staff encouraged each other, with Xiao Yu telling a fellow rider, "Let's not rush them, let them take their time."

The utilization rate of delivery capacity was also pushed to the limit. Xiao Yu recalled that orders that usually took 30 minutes for 700 to 800 meters took as long as 2 hours and 50 minutes on July 5, "which had never happened before; we joked that this was the longest battle we've ever fought."

Around 4 PM, Xiao Yu received a notification stating "no penalty for being late by more than 10 minutes," and "the brothers around me were extremely happy." A Meituan Le Pao rider remembered that from 5 PM to midnight that day, Meituan launched an activity offering "180 yuan reward for completing 40 orders," saying, "I completed more than 30 orders and earned over 90 yuan."

The online business leader of a beverage brand told 36Kr that the order volume that day severely exceeded expectations, and the headquarters opened an "emergency restocking channel" for the stores, but some stores still faced situations where they "couldn't handle" the volume and had to temporarily arrange for nearby stores to divert orders while also increasing manpower Meituan's past order peaks were often established with subsidy plans in advance and executed with clear expectations, while also placing great emphasis on risk control mechanisms to prevent merchants from faking orders and to avoid malicious "shearing sheep" of products. However, the sprint on July 5 was different from usual; no one knew how many orders there would be, and "the risk control factor was somewhat overlooked."

At 6 PM, Weibo saw the trending topic #MeituanCrashed#, with many merchants posting on social media about being flustered while completing orders but unable to see the settlement prices. Users also experienced payment anomalies for about five minutes. Meituan's official account first sent messages to merchants to stabilize their anxious emotions, and then at 8 PM, released an urgent announcement stating that "the order volume exceeded historical peaks, triggering server throttling," assuring affected merchants that their settlements would be backtracked and would not be impacted.

Taobao Flash Sale hoped to leverage takeaway traffic to drive non-food orders and even e-commerce GMV growth, but Meituan's internal judgment had always been that Taobao's foray into takeaway did not significantly boost retail business.

Therefore, an insider from Meituan told 36Kr that on July 5, if the order increase from Taobao Flash Sale came from food and drinks, it wouldn't be too concerning, but a sudden surge in non-food orders like rice and cooking oil was "still quite alarming."

Meituan is the initiator of this wave of "instant retail." Using food delivery to drive a wider range of categories such as fresh food, daily necessities, home appliances, digital products, and even clothing, "pulling both retail supply and users in," is something Meituan has been diligently cultivating and advocating for. At the instant retail conference in October 2024, Wang Puzhong stated, "Instant retail is not emergency retail, but a high-certainty lifestyle."

The goal set at that conference was to reach 100,000 Meituan lightning warehouses by 2027, with the GMV of flash sales hitting 200 billion. At that time, Meituan had no strong competitors in this field, and industry insiders believed "this goal was too conservative for Meituan."

Now, Taobao has emerged halfway through this journey. Alibaba's determination to turn Taobao into a super entrance is evident; among the three main entrances for takeaway, "the subsidy rate for the Taobao Flash Sale entrance (the proportion of subsidy amount to the order price) is far higher than that of Ele.me and Alipay," a knowledgeable source told 36Kr.

In addition to providing traffic and funds, Taobao Flash Sale is also accelerating the integration of near-field retail supply. "Take Nongfu Spring as an example; what needs to be done is to integrate its resources in warehouses, convenience stores, water stations, and supermarkets to supply consumers together." Taobao is also negotiating with brands in clothing and cosmetics to open a dedicated area in stores for flash sale operations.

If Taobao succeeds, Meituan's dominance in food delivery may not be shaken, but the new story of "instant retail" could be rewritten.

200 Million Orders: Is Instant Retail Coming Faster?

At 8:45 PM, Meituan sent an internal report to employees, stating that "the daily order volume for instant retail has exceeded 100 million orders." Subsequently, at 10:54 PM, it officially announced that "the daily orders for instant retail have surpassed 120 million." In the operations room with a hundred people, Meituan's HR also organized a small celebration, releasing two rounds of colorful confetti “These past two days have been the most abundant and craziest days.” Reflecting on that weekend, a Meituan delivery rider said. While continuously scrolling down the income interface for the day, he couldn't hide his excitement: “I've earned so much that I can't even calculate it precisely; my daily income is definitely over a thousand.”

On the following Monday, Taobao Flash Sale announced that its daily order count exceeded 80 million. Meituan, Taobao, along with JD.com, completed a staggering 200 million orders in the takeaway industry during this confrontation.

Behind the 200 million orders, the supply capacity and delivery capability of the food delivery sector are also undergoing comprehensive pressure testing.

In the food delivery field, Meituan's refined operational capabilities have always been praised by the outside world. 36Kr learned that since the launch of Meituan membership, the distribution of subsidies has become more systematic than before; for instance, large subsidies are usually pushed to Black Diamond members.

In this confrontation, the delivery capacity of Taobao Flash Sale has visibly improved. Xiao Yu is a rider for Ele.me's "Preferred Mode," characterized by riders being unable to refuse orders. Previously, there were often issues like detours due to unscientific order dispatching, but recently in the "difficult areas" of Chongqing, it has been relatively smooth, “It’s clear that the platform has optimized the process.”

JD.com did not participate in this heated battle but chose to provide funds to high-quality chain merchants. “If a merchant makes more profit from one order on JD.com than from two orders on other platforms, although the order volume is low, the stickiness is strong. This is also a relatively cost-effective 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 always occurred on the day of the beginning of autumn, with "the first cup of milk tea in autumn" having become a newly created festival. In 2024, on the "beginning of autumn," Meituan set a record of 98 million instant delivery orders. A former Meituan employee specially came to the company to celebrate with colleagues by cutting a cake, “Pu Zhong also briefly spoke, discussing goals and milestones.”

“The peak order volume occurs during 'Autumn Milk Tea,' while the GMV peak may happen at another time, such as during Qixi Festival, but past peaks could never occur on an ordinary Saturday; that day was just too mundane,” the aforementioned employee lamented to 36Kr.

According to 36Kr, on this "ordinary day," the combined losses of Meituan Takeaway and Taobao Flash Sale exceeded 1 billion. A comparative data point is that in 2024, Meituan Takeaway's profit per order was approximately 1.5 yuan.

In the competitive ecosystem, Meituan still has to compete with Taobao. However, a mid-level employee at Meituan also stated that instant retail is not a business that can be quickly executed or driven by subsidies; it needs to be nurtured slowly. “We can hit peak values, but the business will ultimately return to normal days.”

Meituan founder Wang Xing likes to set a big goal for the business, and the target of 100 million orders originated from this.

When disclosing the first-quarter report of 2020 in May, Wang Xing said, “Meituan Dianping's goal of reaching 100 million orders per day remains unchanged, aiming for an operating profit of 1 yuan per order.” The target timeline is set for 2025, at which time Meituan's daily orders were still at the 30 million level. Employees were filled with confusion about how to achieve this, and Wang Pu Zhong stated internally, “100 million orders is just a moment; it will definitely come, and we need to consider how to manage better after achieving it.” In the subsequent annual financial report meetings, the topic of 100 million orders would always be discussed, and the management consistently stated, "We will stick to this goal." However, later on, this goal was downplayed, and the peak of 98 million orders in 2024 did not receive widespread attention.

"But this year's environment is different, competition has intensified, and everyone needs such milestones to build confidence," said a former employee.

Behind the 200 million orders is a broader imagination for instant retail business.

An insider in the delivery industry told 36Kr that only the demand for food and beverage is rigid, especially for meals, which must be delivered on time within 30 minutes. Therefore, only the companies with the strongest fulfillment capabilities have a chance to win. However, the demand for non-food items is not as rigid, and no single company will dominate the instant retail business; everyone has a chance.

After the high-pressure situation, everything briefly returned to calm.

During this week, employees of Taobao Flash Purchase were taking time off in batches, while Meituan was conducting team reviews internally. On the night of July 5, Xiao Yu arrived home after 2 a.m., but she still took advantage of the subsidy craze and ordered herself a bubble tea delivery.

The battle for instant retail is still hard to determine, but the vitality of both companies has been reignited.

Similar to previous major battles, Alibaba has once again employed the "integration, subsidies, primary entry" strategy. Quick decision-making for entry, lightning-fast organizational adjustments, and sufficiently strong subsidy efforts reflect a speed and determination that have not been seen for a long time. In the past week, employees of Taobao Flash Purchase have expressed, "That day was exhilarating."

Taobao Flash Purchase aims to turn every Saturday into a new holiday—Super Saturday. An insider told 36Kr that Meituan also intends to reach a higher peak this summer. The next round of offensives may be just around the corner.

Summer has always been a peak season for delivery, but a Meituan employee said, "This year, I see it as a peak season, with no off-season." He and his colleagues are also happily participating, gaining a long-lost sense of cohesion amid one peak after another, "Let's fight; only soldiers in battle are valuable."

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 dissolved.

The mobile internet has no peace, and thus it has vitality.

Author: Ren Cairu, Peng Qian, Source: 36Kr, Original Title: "The Most Passionate 24 Hours in Delivery History: The Birth of 200 Million 'Sky-high' Orders" Risk Warning and Disclaimer

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