--- title: "Squirrel Convenience vs Taobao Convenience Store: Is the Final Outcome of Instant Retail Already Decided?" description: "As food delivery competition cools, Alibaba and Meituan are battling in the instant retail arena within a 3-kilometer radius. Meituan's self-operated Squirrel Convenience uses a tightly controlled lightning warehouse model, while Taobao Convenience Store, backed by 1688's supply chain, enters with a light-asset strategy. The outcome hinges on winning consumer mindshare for instant delivery." author: "茶白" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2026-01-23" categories: "E-commerce & Instant Retail, Retail Formats" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/squirrel-convenience-vs-taobao-convenience-store-is-the-final-outcome-of-f4998d84/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/squirrel-convenience-vs-taobao-convenience-store-is-the-final-outcome-of-f4998d84.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-E0eIiR52u_SCjU0hEyM8g" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%9D%BE%E9%BC%A0%E4%BE%BF%E5%88%A9vs%E6%B7%98%E5%AE%9D%E4%BE%BF%E5%88%A9%E5%BA%97-%E5%8D%B3%E6%97%B6%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE%E7%BB%88%E5%B1%80%E5%B7%B2%E5%AE%9A-f4998d84.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/squirrel-convenience-vs-taobao-convenience-store-is-the-final-outcome-of-f4998d84/" citation: "茶白. “Squirrel Convenience vs Taobao Convenience Store: Is the Final Outcome of Instant Retail Already Decided?.” New Distribution, 2026-01-23. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/squirrel-convenience-vs-taobao-convenience-store-is-the-final-outcome-of-f4998d84/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Squirrel Convenience vs Taobao Convenience Store: Is the Final Outcome of Instant Retail Already Decided? > As food delivery competition cools, Alibaba and Meituan are battling in the instant retail arena within a 3-kilometer radius. Meituan's self-operated Squirrel Convenience uses a tightly controlled lightning warehouse model, while Taobao Convenience Store, backed by 1688's supply chain, enters with a light-asset strategy. The outcome hinges on winning consumer mindshare for instant delivery. **Source** | Lao Zhang Talks Retail Tea Bai: "Working overtime until dawn, I wanted an ice-cold beer to unwind. Within 20-plus minutes of ordering on my phone, the doorbell rang." This is a daily routine for many urban white-collar workers, and what supports this "instant gratification" is the "lightning warehouse" that has swept the retail circle in the past two years. As the food delivery war cools down, old rivals Alibaba and Meituan have moved the battlefield to the instant retail track within 3 kilometers. On one side, Meituan has personally launched its self-operated brand Squirrel Convenience, conquering territory with a tightly controlled lightning warehouse model. On the other side, Taobao Convenience Store, though late, is formidable, shouting the slogan "No warehouses, no stores, no competing with merchants for profits," and entering the fray with the trump card of the 1688 supply chain. # Lightning Warehouse Battle: # Another Game Between Alibaba and Meituan In the second half of 2025, two "warehouse" terms dominated the retail circle. On October 30, Meituan announced the launch of "Official Flagship Lightning Warehouse," aiming to build an instant retail battlefield with tens of thousands of brands. Meituan provides the commercial infrastructure, including warehousing, delivery, and digital systems. Brands basically don't need to worry about much—just join and start operating. Almost simultaneously, Taobao Flash Purchase announced the launch of "Taobao Convenience Store," creating flash purchase warehouses. Lightning warehouse and flash purchase warehouse differ by only one character, but their operating models are vastly different. Taobao Flash Purchase played its cards openly: no warehouses, no stores, no competing with merchants for profits. Hearing this, many merchants tacitly understood—isn't this aimed at Meituan? Squirrel Convenience holds high value in Meituan's lightning warehouse business. To join Squirrel Convenience, franchisees must pay service fees, brand usage fees, and bear rent, utilities, and other expenses. Additionally, they need to prepare initial funds for the first batch of product procurement. More critically, the supply source is tightly controlled by Meituan—they must purchase from Meituan's self-built central warehouses, and even product selection must follow headquarters' directives. The advantage of this tight control is clear: whether you're in Guangzhou's Pearl River New Town or Changsha's Wuyi Square, the refrigeration temperature of the beer and the quality of snacks are trustworthy. Meituan has turned the front warehouse into a "family bucket": besides Squirrel Convenience for daily necessities, there's Waima Songjiu for alcohol and Xiaoxiang Supermarket for fresh produce. However, Meituan's "personal entry" operating model makes many merchants uneasy. Although data once showed that Meituan's self-operated lightning warehouses account for only 5% of the total, it still causes anxiety among merchants. # A Money-Losing Business, # Why Are Giants Fighting Over It? A report by Guosen Securities in August laid bare the industry's "family assets": It is estimated that by 2030, instant retail could bring Alibaba a trillion-level GMV, but with almost no profit. Excluding the 3.68 billion yuan profit from e-commerce synergies, the overall situation remains grim, with losses as high as 17.5 billion yuan. Since it's a "money loser," why are the two companies fighting to do it? The answer is simple: driven and constrained by various factors, they dare not not do this business. Guosen Securities predicts that by 2030, if instant retail penetration reaches over 20%, companies that haven't laid out plans in advance may fall into negative GMV growth. For Meituan and Alibaba, instant retail is not a "multiple-choice question" but a "life-or-death proposition." Furthermore, the advent of Squirrel Convenience also hides a "private intention" of Meituan. In previous years, Meituan's lightning warehouse business advanced rapidly, with a batch of regional leading brands emerging. These "local lords" hold local supply resources, but for the platform, this is not good: they can't unify operating standards, control prices, and even see bad money driving out good. So, Squirrel Convenience was born with a mission. In its early days, Squirrel Convenience's core strategy was "recruitment": as long as you agree to rename to "Squirrel Convenience" and promise to purchase from Meituan, the best-performing lightning warehouse stores in the region can enter Meituan's own system, with benefits—lower commission rates, more activity subsidies, and dedicated operational support. Before this, many lightning warehouses sourced goods from 1688. Through this method, Meituan gradually took control of the product mix, quality control, and pricing. From a simple "lightning warehouse procurement platform" in 2022 to an upgrade to "Lightning Help 2.0" in 2024, Meituan's supply chain capabilities have evolved—not only supplying goods but also using data analysis to precisely capture consumer demand, helping merchants with targeted restocking and product mix upgrades. In plain terms, Meituan's personal involvement in Squirrel Convenience aims to firmly grasp supply chain initiative. However, its supply chain is at risk of being constrained by Alibaba. Under such circumstances, Meituan's future path is indeed noteworthy. Taobao Flash Purchase's boldness in shouting the "asset-light" slogan stems entirely from the powerful supply chain system of 1688. In contrast, Meituan, despite laying out lightning warehouses four years earlier, only connected its flash purchase ERP tool Morning Glory with 1688 in the first half of 2024. What worries Meituan more is that Alibaba is highly likely to leverage 1688's unique advantages to cooperate directly with production areas, creating a differentiated product mix, which could bring competitive pressure to Meituan. According to insiders, to fill gaps and eliminate imbalances in development, Meituan has recruited many talent from Pinduoduo, who are mainly responsible for Squirrel Convenience's merchant recruitment and city expansion. These people are best at "getting results," and Squirrel Convenience's expansion speed is indeed astonishing—not opening stores one by one, but rolling out in batches, from Jining, Shandong, to Nanjing, Jiangsu, and Hefei, Anhui. North of the Central Plains and in East China, Squirrel Convenience stores are everywhere. Beyond strengthening supply chain hard power, Squirrel Convenience has also found a unique breakthrough point—doing "emotional business." In 2024, French non-alcoholic sparkling wine brand Vodian chose to cooperate with Squirrel Convenience. By upgrading from "meeting consumption needs" to "providing solutions for emotional value," it quickly achieved widespread distribution in the Guangzhou-Shenzhen region, and second-half performance took off. Think about it: consumers ordering at midnight—are they really buying a bottle of beer or a bag of chips? Not entirely. It might be self-healing after overtime, atmosphere enhancement for a gathering with friends, or emotional release for late-night insomnia. Squirrel Convenience seized the selling point of emotional value, linking consumers' immediate needs with emotional needs. A combination of "cost-effectiveness + immediacy" has solidified Squirrel Convenience's position in consumers' minds. # The Final Battle: # Consumers' 3 Kilometers In the lightning warehouse battle between Alibaba and Meituan, ultimately, the goal of both is the same—to make brand products reside in consumers' 3-kilometer living circle. Both Meituan and Alibaba have more than 50,000 lightning warehouses (flash purchase warehouses). They are evenly matched in quantity, but the key to victory lies not in who has more warehouses, but in who can first form the consumer mindset of "when buying, check lightning warehouses first." For consumers, being able to have the beer they crave at midnight, snacks needed for overtime, or urgently needed daily necessities delivered to their doorstep within half an hour is the real benefit. This 30-minute lightning warehouse battle is smokeless but extremely fierce. Who will laugh last? The answer lies in every consumer's phone, behind the door knocked on late at night. On March 17, 2026, in Chengdu, we will hold the "CFC Second Instant Retail Supply Summit and Instant Retail Warehouse-Store Product Matchmaking Conference." This edition focuses on one thing: selling the right goods into the right warehouses and making them move faster. Key topics and outputs will revolve around the following: 1. 100+ top warehouse-store distributors share their product mix logic; 2. 70+ warehouse-store founders share procurement logic on site; 3. Latest brand-operated instant retail practical cases; 4. Warehouse-store matchmaking: on-site exchange between brands, warehouse-stores, and service providers. Make supply more controllable and growth more certain. Friends who care about instant retail channels should not miss it. Interested friends, scan the QR code below for details. --- ## Citation metadata - Publisher: New Distribution - Author: 茶白 - Published: 2026-01-23 - Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/squirrel-convenience-vs-taobao-convenience-store-is-the-final-outcome-of-f4998d84/ - Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-E0eIiR52u_SCjU0hEyM8g ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671