---
title: "The New Battlefield of Instant Retail: Meituan's Lightning Warehouse Supply Business"
description: "Consumer habits have shifted towards instant gratification, driving the growth of instant retail. Meituan's Lightning Warehouse model addresses the mismatch between online demand and offline supply, offering support to merchants and new channel opportunities for brands."
author: "美团闪电仓"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-11-15"
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# The New Battlefield of Instant Retail: Meituan's Lightning Warehouse Supply Business

> Consumer habits have shifted towards instant gratification, driving the growth of instant retail. Meituan's Lightning Warehouse model addresses the mismatch between online demand and offline supply, offering support to merchants and new channel opportunities for brands.

**01**
**Consumer Lifestyles Have Changed**
In recent years, consumer lifestyles have been changing, with significantly higher expectations for delivery speed. Consumers' expectations for online shopping delivery have shortened from three days to next-day delivery, and now they even hope to receive products within an hour. As consumers' time becomes more precious and the cost of time increases, the demand for "I want it now" continues to grow. Next-day delivery no longer fully satisfies shopping needs, giving rise to the demand for "fastest 30-minute delivery."

**Consumer behavior has shifted from "browsing," "stockpiling," and "treasure hunting" to "staying home," "urgency," and "busyness."**
In the past, offline experiences and B2C e-commerce were the primary choices, with a clear habit of stockpiling. Ample time allowed consumers to browse e-commerce platforms and discover new things and products. However, as the pace of life accelerates and working hours extend, consumers no longer have time to visit physical stores. On weekends, they prefer to stay home and rest. The abundance of goods and improved delivery capabilities now meet consumers' urgent needs.

**Consumer Demand Drives the Scale of Instant Retail**
The demand for instant retail in FMCG will continue to grow, and a single category can even support an entire industry. In terms of consumption scale, FMCG is increasingly becoming the main category for instant retail. It is estimated that by 2025, the market size for fruits, fresh ingredients, alcoholic beverages, and dairy products will exceed 70 billion, 130 billion, 210 billion, and 60 billion yuan, respectively.

Meituan has identified opportunities in instant retail and provides empowerment and support for consumers' instant shopping needs. Meituan Flash Purchase already has a vast array of SKUs, covering 2,800 districts and counties nationwide. Leveraging Meituan's delivery capabilities, it offers 24/7 fulfillment services, with products delivered in as fast as 30 minutes.

**02**
**Opportunities in Instant Retail**
**Mismatch Between Online Consumer Demand and Offline Supply**
Meituan Flash Purchase has been operating for several years but has found a significant gap between current supply and consumer demand. For example, consumers may want to buy a skincare gift set for a friend's birthday, purchase fresh fish or hairy crabs, or urgently need pet food when it runs out. However, most existing offline supply rarely meets these immediate needs, creating a mismatch between online demand and supply.

In response, Meituan launched Meituan Lightning Warehouse in 2020, a pure online convenience store front-warehouse model focused on serving online users. Consumers place orders on the Meituan or Meituan Delivery app, and delivery is completed within half an hour. Merchants in Meituan Lightning Warehouse offer a rich assortment, with each warehouse carrying over 4,000 SKUs to meet various consumer needs. Most operate 24/7, with delivery in as fast as 30 minutes, using digital systems to improve service efficiency and provide faster instant delivery.

The cooperation model for Meituan Lightning Warehouse involves joint construction between the platform and partners. Leveraging Meituan's traffic and delivery systems, partners set up front warehouses, procure a complete supply chain, and manage in-warehouse operations. To support merchants, Meituan Lightning Warehouse provides assistance in three areas:

**First, before opening a warehouse.**
Merchants partnering with Meituan Lightning Warehouse undergo a capability assessment before opening. This assessment selects suitable merchants with retail or online operations experience. Additionally, based on Meituan Lightning Warehouse's digital operations capabilities, merchants receive support in site selection and product procurement.

**Second, during operations.**
Meituan Lightning Warehouse provides operational support to help stores grow. In the instant retail industry, many merchants hit a ceiling of around 300 orders per day. Through empowerment, Meituan Lightning Warehouse helps merchants break through operational bottlenecks, reaching 600 or even 900 orders per day.

**Third, supporting long-term development.**
Long-term development is a challenge for merchants. Meituan Lightning Warehouse offers support from pre-opening to operations and long-term growth. A key aspect is organizational development: as merchants grow and open more stores, they need appropriate organizational structures. Meituan Lightning Warehouse provides advice and guidance on building organizational systems. It also assists with long-term operations, including where to open stores, what types of stores to open, chain strategies, and financial management and cost control, helping merchants achieve sustainable operations.

Additionally, Meituan Lightning Warehouse has a digital operations system for front warehouses, improving efficiency in delivery, picking, order management, product management, inventory management, and fulfillment, thereby helping merchants succeed.

This support model has shown results. For example, a store in Beijing exceeded 10,000 orders within 30 days of launch and now averages around 700 orders per day.

**03**
**A New Choice for Brands to Realize Channel Value**
Meituan Lightning Warehouse has also innovated in channel value. Brands can sell directly through the platform, operate their own brand warehouses, or adopt a B2B2C model where the platform creates new channels and builds the B2B2C chain. Compared to self-operated models, brands now have more options.

In traditional channels, obtaining feedback from C-end consumers is costly and time-consuming, a pain point in the industry. However, by partnering with Meituan Lightning Warehouse, brands can expand into new industrialized consumption channels while gaining direct access to C-end insights through digital operations. This is the overall B2B2C chain of Meituan Lightning Warehouse.

Brands aiming to promote new products can directly reach consumers through Meituan Lightning Warehouse's B-end merchants, with a very short chain that eliminates many intermediary distribution steps.

Meituan Lightning Warehouse partners with a wide range of merchants, including retail startup teams, traditional offline suppliers, and individual retailers, making it a new option for merchants and brands to expand their businesses.

Over the next three years, Meituan Lightning Warehouse will remain a key business segment for Meituan, with supply chain construction as its core focus. Meituan will invest 5 billion yuan to support business development. The goal is to have over 1,000 merchants with annual revenue exceeding 10 million yuan, 200 merchants with revenue over 100 million yuan, and 10 merchants with revenue over 1 billion yuan.

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