Any new thing is like throwing a stone into a lake—some see ripples and run away; others crouch down to study the water's patterns. Instant retail is such a 'stone': it disrupts the calm of traditional retail but also creates new opportunities. Brands standing on the shore shouldn't worry about 'whether to touch the water' but 'how to swim without drowning' or 'how to swim farther.' In an era of shrinking volumes, facing the trend dividend of instant retail, is it a windfall or a trap? Should brands embrace it? The author shares some thoughts, hoping to inspire brand manufacturers. Instant Retail Is Not a 'Choice Question' but a 'Required Question' Before writing this article, I consulted several FMCG veterans. Some said: 'Instant retail is essentially an e-commerce platform, constantly sending coupons and offering discounts—it will ruin your brand!' Others said: 'E-commerce platforms are competing in a 'new battlefield,' mostly with takeout meals, milk tea, and snacks; our traditional beverages don't have much significance.' Some even slammed the table in urgency: 'Look at Master Kong and Tsingtao Beer—they're selling like hotcakes on these platforms. If you hesitate any longer, you won't even get the soup!' Actually, there's no need to argue—the trend of instant retail has already been written into consumers' lives. First, the opportunity is real. Think about it: the e-commerce giants, as retail disruptors, are not philanthropists. Their collective bet on instant retail is backed by massive consumer data. This data contains consumption scenarios that brands find hard to discover, such as 'office workers' meal preferences' and 'late-night snack choices while binge-watching.' If brands can truly capture these, they'll find a new growth curve. Second, the increment is tangible. Nowadays, young people's purchasing is less planned and more 'buy immediately when needed.' The fierce competition among major platforms will ultimately enlarge the instant retail pie, cultivating more consumers' habit of ordering instantly. In 2024, the market size of instant retail reached 780 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 46% over the past five years, and it's expected to exceed 3 trillion yuan by 2030. Three Major Pain Points for Brands: But 'Fear' Is Not as Good as 'Change' The three things that most often make brands frown when facing instant retail, I've summarized for you: First fear: Price subsidies disrupt the rules. In the past, e-commerce platforms' 'low-price dumping' directly disrupted regional price systems, making traditional distributors, brands, and even retailers hate it. Second fear: Traffic monopoly harms the brand. Nowadays, young people have three or four food delivery apps on their phones, and opening them shows 'limited-time big red envelopes.' If brands rely on platform traffic, they're easily 'kidnapped by algorithms'—today promoting Product A, tomorrow Product B, messing up brand tone. Worse, with frequent low-price promotions, consumers might think: 'This brand sells for 6 yuan offline, but only 3 yuan during the promotion—maybe the quality isn't good?' Brand premium is thus diluted by 'instant discounts.' Third fear: Channel involution hurts customer relationships. Traditional salespeople visit retail outlets relying on 'personal connections.' But now outlet owners might directly order on Meituan, and the manufacturer's salesperson doesn't even get a chance to 'visit.' More critically, some platforms, to boost volume, bypass distributors and source directly from brands. The salesperson's 'supply price' is compared with the platform's, and customer relationships collapse instantly. But the question is: Are these 'fears' really more terrifying than the current predicament? Look at the current state of brands: warehouses piled with near-expiry products that haven't moved in six months; core outlets have invested in freezers, paying monthly for stacking, end-cap displays, and purchase incentives, yet sales remain unsatisfactory. Facing unadjusted sales targets, some even resort to constantly changing distributors to solve problems. In this situation, I believe breaking through is more important. Sticking to old rules won't preserve the existing market share; you must dare to embrace new channels and new things. Learn through change, progress through learning. Your customers' habits have changed, consumption scenarios have changed, so you must change and dare to enter the game. What Can Instant Retail Actually Bring? Not 'Stealing Business' but 'Creating New Scenes' Many people treat instant retail as 'another sales channel,' but I prefer to call it a 'scenario marketing machine'—it can insert products into moments when consumers 'just need them' and engrave the brand into 'life fragments.' First, it's all-weather rapid reach, turning 'accidental needs' into 'inevitable consumption.' Late-night overtime needing Red Bull for energy, watching a ball game without beer, weekend binge-watching with chips... These 'emergency fragment scenarios' that traditional channels can't cover are precisely captured by instant retail. For example, a beer brand reached the 'late-night snack scenario' through instant retail, with nighttime orders rising from 5% to 20%, and repurchase rates 15% higher than traditional channels. Second, it reshapes consumption habits: from 'single product shelf' to 'scenario package.' Luosifen paired with iced sour plum juice, chips with cola, hotpot ingredients with Wanglaoji, spicy strips with beer, etc. Young people aren't just buying products; they're buying 'life solutions.' Instant retail's 'one-click ordering' turns these habits into 'consumption instincts.' For example, a snack brand launched a 'binge-watching package' (chips + duck neck + cola), and after launching on a flash-sale platform, monthly sales exceeded one million units, also boosting 'combo displays' in offline supermarkets. Additionally, instant retail fights with data, turning 'guessing needs' into 'calculating needs.' Traditional brands do research by paying research firms to send out questionnaires. Now, the backend of instant retail platforms can precisely analyze data such as a brand's peak consumption hours, target audience preferences, and regional differences, enabling 'thousand-store, thousand-face' precise supply. This data is also extremely useful for offline business and new product launches. How Should Brands Do It? Seven Tips to 'Embrace Without Compromise' 1. Proactively cooperate; don't be an 'outsider.' Many traffic brands resist cooperating with platforms, but platforms have ways to source your products through other channels. Informal cooperation can easily lead to a 'whack-a-mole' situation where manufacturers ship goods wholesale and then shirk responsibility. Instead, formal, standardized cooperation, putting both parties' concerns and demands on the negotiation table and establishing a two-way interactive supervision and control system, is more beneficial. Small brands without influence should especially take the initiative to sit at the table, seek cooperation, and amplify their brand voice. For example, a condiment brand signed a 'regional exclusive agreement' with Meituan Flash Purchase. The platform handled promotion, regional distributors handled supply, and both shared profits. Within six months, they increased market share in the Southwest region by 15%. But note: during cooperation, brands should reasonably participate in platform activities like full-reduction and flash sales, avoiding blind subsidies that affect channel pricing. Also, assess the platform's price and goods flow control capabilities; if they don't meet requirements, terminate cooperation immediately. 2. Set rules; don't let 'low-price cross-channel dumping' happen. In cooperation, agree on rules and set red lines for price promotions. For example, if the promotion discount exceeds 10%, limit the purchase quantity (e.g., max 3 boxes); for larger promotions, the brand manufacturer must be notified in advance for evaluation. For customers whose cumulative purchases repeatedly hit the cap, the platform should share shipping data with the brand manufacturer so offline sales staff can verify on-site, preventing B-end customers from hoarding at low prices. Manufacturers with conditions can use 'anti-dumping chips' or 'manual box coding' to unify platform shipping batch numbers and keep records for quick identification and control. 3. Provide platform 'exclusive packs'; don't 'compete for resources' with offline. Offline channels need to make money, and online should have a 'sense of exclusivity.' For example, a beverage brand customized a '200ml mini pack' for instant retail platforms, sold only online, while offline still sells the traditional 500ml pack. This avoids price conflicts and satisfies the 'instant trial' need—consumers buy the mini pack as a 'trial size,' and if they like it, they stock up on large bottles offline. Some manufacturers run offline channel promotions, such as in-box codes with 5-10 yuan per box discounts. It's recommended to differentiate from online to avoid overlapping promotions. In such cases, supply regular packs online or label boxes with 'Flash Purchase Exclusive Pack.' 4. Partner with other industries; cultivate 'consumption CPs.' Products sell better when paired with 'scenario companions,' and it can blur promotional prices. For example, War Horse (energy drink) partnered with a hotpot base brand to launch a 'Instant Hotpot Refreshing Package'; a nut brand co-branded with a milk tea shop, offering free nut samples with milk tea purchases. These combinations let consumers 'solve needs with one click,' and also cross-promote between brands, cultivating brand fans. 5. Regularly review data; build smart distribution. Brands should ideally establish a 'scenario department' with dedicated personnel to interface with platform channel partners and analyze retail data across scenarios. Which products sell well after 8 PM? Which regions have high repurchase rates for 'hotpot ingredients + alcoholic drinks' packages? Compile this data into experience reports, replicate and promote it, and also use it to guide offline marketing strategies. For example, a flash-sale platform added a business data analysis service. By identifying key factors, it finely segments market demand, helping brands keenly洞察 the high-demand coverage of different products across channels, customizing key products and new products for each market region, greatly optimizing operational efficiency and distribution coverage. 6. Empower terminals; make salespeople retail experts. Traditional salespeople shouldn't just focus on 'pushing inventory.' They can teach eligible outlet owners to integrate into instant retail systems, similar to how restaurants cooperate with food delivery platforms. For example, a beer brand's salesperson guided a liquor store owner to set up a shop on a flash-delivery platform and helped design a 'spend 30, save 5' package. Once the outlet owner tastes the benefits, they're more willing to deeply bind with the brand. 7. Allocate resources precisely; tailor strategies for a thousand cities. Platforms have precise user profiles. Brands can invest resources in targeted 'precision planting.' For example, a skincare brand targeting '25-30-year-old working women' launched a 'late-night overtime rescue mask package' (mask + steam eye mask), precisely delivered to office buildings in 'internet parks,' saving 80% of traditional advertising costs and achieving conversion rates over 3 times higher. A leading beverage brand collaborated with an instant retail platform for new product launches, leveraging new product promotion resources to finely distribute brand coupons and various activity mechanisms to cities, channels, and even single stores, precisely customizing promotional strategies, while synchronizing with traditional offline channels for visible distribution, achieving effective resource focus and truly activating regional market heat for new products. In the era of growth, we compete on channels; in the era of shrinkage, we compete on scenarios. Previously, the brand logic was 'more channels, more sales'; now, in the shrinking era, the logic is 'more precise scenarios, more loyal users.' Embracing instant retail doesn't mean 'abandoning traditional channels' but 'activating old users with new scenarios and feeding old channels with new data.' In the current channel transformation, those who ultimately lead are the enterprises that dare to get into the water and continuously cross the river by feeling the stones. Xing Renbao, with 18 years of marketing management experience, has served at Coca-Cola, Yili, Red Bull, and other renowned FMCG companies. Currently, he is the Assistant to the Executive President of Marketing at Huabin FMCG Group, focusing on corporate marketing diagnosis, manufacturer-distributor relationships, channel operations, and digital transformation.