Bloodbath in Instant Retail, Alibaba Recreates "Super Saturday"

Author | Liu Baodan

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

Ten years later, the smoke of the takeaway war has reignited. The duel of the past has now evolved into a final battle among the three giants: Alibaba, Meituan, and JD.com, surrounding the trillion-yuan instant retail market.

On July 14, Taobao Flash Sale broke records again with 80 million daily orders for two consecutive weeks, approaching Meituan's 150 million orders in just two months. This lightning battle, personally supervised by Jack Ma and internally codenamed "Super Saturday," is tearing apart the old pattern of instant retail under heavy capital investment.

This is not merely a cash-burning raid, but a "self-revolution" concerning the future.

Through this campaign, Taobao is completing a fundamental transformation from traditional shelf e-commerce to a "large consumption platform." The ultimate experience of instant retail with "30-minute delivery" poses a "substitution effect" on traditional e-commerce, making it a high-frequency traffic entry and future stronghold that Alibaba must seize.

As hundreds of billions in capital flood in, a core question has emerged: Will this be another cycle of burning money for scale, or will it truly give rise to more advanced business models, thereby defining the future of local life in China?

Alibaba Strikes Back, Better Late Than Never

On July 5, an ordinary summer Saturday turned into a turning point in the instant retail war due to Taobao Flash Sale's strategic surprise attack.

Taobao meticulously planned this charge in its operations room in Hangzhou's Xixi Park, aiming for 80 million orders to challenge Meituan's dominance in takeaway. Taobao notified top merchants a week in advance to prepare stock and launched an aggressive subsidy strategy with no minimum order requirement, free delivery, and additional cash vouchers, especially focusing on non-food sectors, attempting to elevate retail orders to new heights.

On that day, Taobao Flash Sale's daily order count first surpassed 80 million, and this scale was replicated the following Saturday. According to insiders from Ele.me, excluding self-pickup and zero-yuan purchases, Taobao Flash Sale's daily order volume on July 12 set a new record.

This move stemmed from the pressure brought by JD.com's disruption in April, where Richard Liu made a high-profile entry, allowing JD.com’s takeaway orders to soar from 5 million to 25 million in just two months through strategies like zero commission and providing five social insurances and one housing fund for delivery riders, directly threatening Ele.me's market position, prompting Alibaba to strike back.

About ten years ago, the first takeaway war broke out, with Meituan, Ele.me, and Baidu Takeaway competing for market share through capital-driven "cash-burning subsidies." Ultimately, Baidu Takeaway was acquired by Ele.me, which was fully acquired by Alibaba in 2018.

This war formed a duopoly between Meituan and Ele.me. Essentially, Meituan dominated the takeaway market, while Ele.me's market share remained around 20% for a long time.

Ten years later, the flames of war have reignited, but the focus has upgraded to all-category instant retail, which requires collaboration among merchants, riders, and consumers to achieve 30-minute delivery. Achieving 80 million orders consecutively for Taobao Flash Sale is no easy feat.

Behind this is a significant test of Taobao Flash Sale's supply and fulfillment capabilities. Wall Street Insights has learned that since the launch of Taobao Flash Sale, the number of riders has increased by 78% year-on-year, with an order punctuality rate stabilizing at 96%; on the merchant side, over 240,000 new merchants have registered, most of whom are small and medium-sized businesses Taobao has also learned from the last disastrous defeat of Ele.me. According to informed sources, Jack Ma personally supervised the efforts and requested that Taobao Flash Sales improve its basic service capabilities at the level of 80 million orders before continuing to sprint.

In fact, Taobao Flash Sales achieved a doubling of order volume in just over two months.

On May 2, Taobao Flash Sales officially launched, with daily orders exceeding 40 million by the end of the month and surpassing 60 million by the end of June. At the same time, Taobao initiated a 100-day flash sales growth plan named "Huaihai Campaign." On July 5, Taobao launched a full-scale offensive, with daily orders breaking 80 million for the first time.

Clearly, Taobao is determined to win this upgraded food delivery battle.

Taobao Leads the Collaborative Battle

If JD.com opened up the imagination for instant retail, then Taobao, as the main attacker, must capture more territories. To this end, Taobao has made ample preparations.

After 22 years, Taobao's positioning has undergone a significant change, shifting from e-commerce to a comprehensive consumption platform. Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu stated that in the future, Alibaba will optimize and integrate business models and organizational forms more from the user's perspective to create a richer and higher-quality consumption experience for users.

The "Almighty Taobao" is no longer just a slogan but is beginning to enter a substantive implementation phase.

In terms of organizational structure, Ele.me has been incorporated into Alibaba's China E-commerce Business Group, with Ele.me Chairman and CEO Wu Zeming (Fan Yu) reporting to E-commerce Business Group CEO Jiang Fan. Ele.me will continue to maintain a corporate management model while aligning its business decision-making and execution with the unified combat strategy of the China E-commerce Business Group.

Finally, there is significant investment. On July 2, Taobao Flash Sales announced a subsidy plan of 50 billion yuan. At the same time, Taobao Flash Sales officially announced its brand ambassadors, Li Xian and Yang Mi. Earlier, Taobao Flash Sales also sponsored the "Su Super" Changzhou team.

For Taobao, attacking the instant retail market not only stabilizes Ele.me's market position but is also a key move for future layout.

As a high-frequency business, food delivery is a natural traffic entry point, which is very attractive to traditional shelf e-commerce. In recent years, Taobao, which has been anxious about traffic, has frequently collaborated deeply with content platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu to reach audiences.

Last month, Liu Qiangdong stated that selling meals can be unprofitable forever, and JD.com currently has 40% of its sales as cross-selling, where consumers can buy e-commerce products after coming over. "The money we lose is still more cost-effective compared to buying traffic from Douyin or Tencent." This situation is also applicable to Taobao.

According to Wall Street Journal, Taobao insiders revealed that last Saturday, the daily active users of Taobao Flash Sales exceeded 200 million, and based on this, the daily active users of Taobao Flash Sales saw a net increase of 15% week-on-week.

The reason why food delivery is a winning battle for Taobao lies in the advanced nature of its business model. Compared to the traditional e-commerce represented by Taobao, instant retail with 30-minute delivery offers a better shopping experience and can cover categories like daily necessities and fresh produce that Taobao finds difficult to effectively cover.

Taobao's data shows that the order structure of Flash Sales continues to expand deeply across all categories, with over 3,074 merchants and more than 260,000 stores seeing order volume growth exceeding 100% in non-food categories. Among them, the growth rates for grains, oils, rice, noodles, household cleaning, and snacks all exceeded 300% To a large extent, instant retail has a certain substitutive effect on traditional e-commerce. Taking clothing as an example, since the beginning of this year, brands under the Lintai Group such as JACK & JONES, VERO MODA, ONLY, and Decathlon have successively entered Taobao Flash Sale, allowing consumers to receive their goods within 30 minutes, while traditional e-commerce takes at least 1 to 2 days.

The aforementioned informed sources told Wall Street Insight that Taobao's entry into the takeaway market is not merely to seize the instant retail market; the company views instant retail as a part of the broader consumer sector, serving consumers through online, physical stores, and local services, essentially combining e-commerce with the concept.

Next, the evolution of the instant retail market landscape largely depends on the strategies and market investments of Alibaba, Meituan, and JD.com. Wall Street Insight has learned that Taobao plans to invest 50 billion yuan in the next year, JD.com is also investing around 10 billion yuan, and Meituan's investment scale in the next three years is about 100 billion yuan.

The rhythm of the three parties' investments reflects strategic differences: Alibaba's 50 billion yuan subsidy aggressively targets market share, Meituan's 100 billion yuan investment over three years consolidates fulfillment barriers, and JD.com focuses on high-margin areas, such as fresh produce, with investments in the hundreds of millions. Liu Qiangdong previously revealed that in late July, JD.com will launch a business model completely different from Meituan.

However, the flip side of burning money for scale is the increased risk of losses. HSBC estimates that Alibaba's takeaway business will lose 2.7 yuan per order in FY26, and instant shopping will lose 3.7 yuan per order, with the overall local life service business expected to lose 55 billion yuan.

"The peak of investment is expected in the September quarter, after which it will gradually normalize in the second half of FY26." HSBC has raised its revenue expectations for Alibaba for FY26-28 by 3% to 8%, reflecting accelerated growth in instant retail and takeaway order volumes, but at the same time, it has lowered its profit expectations by 7% to 22%.

80 million orders have become a new milestone for Alibaba, marking its strategic extension from e-commerce to local life. It is important to be cautious that while short-term cash burning may catalyze the market, sustainability relies on fulfillment optimization, and Taobao still has significant room for improvement