Source | Dingjiao One ID | dingjiaoone Author | Dingjiao One Team
Regarded as the last "trillion-yuan" stock market in e-commerce, instant retail is becoming the main battlefield of this year's Double 11. According to estimates from Ministry of Commerce data, the instant retail market size will surge to 1.5 trillion yuan in 2025; by 2030, this market is expected to reach 2 trillion to 3.6 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of around 25%. From food delivery to general merchandise, "30-minute delivery" is far from exclusive to the restaurant industry; it is a new entry point that major platforms are competing to invest in. Previously, the market landscape had largely taken shape. According to Star Chart data, during Double 11 in 2024, instant retail total sales reached 28.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.1%. Meituan Flash Purchase ranked first among instant retail platforms, with JD Seconds and Ele.me in second and third place respectively. In 2025, competition among platforms continues to escalate:
On October 29, Meituan Flash Purchase announced the co-building of "official flagship flash warehouses" with over 10,000 brands, helping brands deploy instant retail with light assets, and participating in Double 11 promotions for the first time through both online and offline channels;
At its Double 11 launch event, JD.com announced that it would include instant retail in this year's "Double 11" promotion, by launching activities such as "Seconds Delivery Good Deals as Low as 50% Off" and "Super Food Delivery Day" to increase its instant retail efforts;
For Alibaba, 2025 marks the first time Taobao Flash Purchase participates in Double 11. It is reported that Taobao Flash Purchase will soon launch "Taobao Convenience Store," a chain convenience store brand, selling goods 24 hours a day with SKU levels exceeding 10,000. In the food delivery war, platforms burned cash on subsidies; now, they are calculating a different account. Guosen Securities predicts that if the penetration rate of instant retail reaches over 20% by 2030, the growth rate of far-field e-commerce will be lower than the overall retail market, and companies that fail to deploy instant retail may fall into negative GMV growth. This means that instant retail is not just a "supplement" but a necessary choice for platforms to maintain growth. Currently, the track is divided into three paths: the front-warehouse self-operated model represented by Dingdong Maicai and XiaoXiang Supermarket; the store-warehouse integrated self-operated model represented by Hema and Sam's Club; and the platform aggregation model composed of Meituan Flash Purchase, JD Seconds, and Taobao Flash Purchase. The latter is becoming the main battlefield and the focus of all discussions about speed and scale; we will also focus on this model. Besides food delivery, what other categories are platforms betting on? What new growth and new challenges will this trillion-yuan competition bring to platforms and brands? Essential Needs Battlefield: Medicine and Flowers: Time-Sensitive Tests Under Urgent Demand Cough due to seasonal changes, receive cold medicine 18 minutes after ordering; off-duty date, the pre-ordered roses arrive 3 minutes early... These are the survival rules for "essential categories" in instant retail. Image source / pexels As one of the earliest battlefields for instant retail, categories such as medicine, flowers, and emergency daily necessities, although smaller in scale than daily general merchandise and not high-frequency consumption, are fiercely contested by platforms. They hold dual significance for platforms. First, they are a "trust entry point." Medicine and flowers are the categories most likely to establish "instant trust": the former concerns health, the latter concerns emotions. Whoever can provide services to users at critical moments will retain users. Therefore, platforms have given these categories core entry positions: whether it's Meituan's homepage "See a Doctor and Buy Medicine," JD Seconds' "Buy Medicine," or Taobao's "Flash Purchase" flower and gift section, all reinforce the "30-minute delivery" mindset. Data also reflects that instant retail is becoming the preferred entry point for essential scenarios. In the first week of Double 11 2025, JD.com's "Buy Medicine Seconds Delivery" saw a 175% year-on-year increase in customer traffic and a 160% increase in order volume. During last year's Double 11, Meituan Medicine and Health revealed that sales of chronic disease drugs, nutritional supplements, and other categories grew by over 100% compared to the same period in previous years; in 2024, Meituan Medicine's instant retail business achieved annual GMV exceeding 50 billion yuan, with nighttime order volume growing over 40% year-on-year. Taobao Flash Purchase data shows that this year's Qixi Festival flower pre-sale orders surged, with a 132% increase compared to last year. Second, they offer "high gross margins." Compared with offline stores or traditional e-commerce, price is not the primary consideration for consumers in such purchases; the certainty guaranteed by "30-minute delivery" is the key to completing the order. From a profitability model perspective, although these categories do not constitute the overall market scale, they provide relatively considerable gross profit. Taking flowers as an example, according to data from the China Flower Association, the domestic flower retail market size has approached 220 billion yuan in 2024. The market generally believes that flower gross margins are above 50%. A flower shop merchant confirmed this to [Dingjiao One], stating that flower order gross margins fluctuate due to season, logistics, and other factors, with basic bouquets generally maintaining gross margins above 50%, and some high-end custom bouquets even exceeding 80%. High gross margins combined with high timeliness make these categories high-quality categories in the instant retail model that are both sustainable and profitable. The medicine category is more reflected in the transformation of "channel efficiency." In the first quarter of this year, 7,118 new pharmacies opened nationwide, while 10,284 closed, a net decrease of about 3,000. However, according to Zhongkang CMH data, the proportion of pharmacy O2O channels has risen from 3.5% in the first quarter of 2023 to 8.2% in the first quarter of 2025. Some pharmacies leveraging instant retail platforms have achieved sales growth. According to media reports, Yingpan Pharmacy near Galaxy Square in Jinzhou, Liaoning, saw monthly orders exceed 10,000 through instant retail. Pharmacy O2O channel share has increased year by year Image source / Guosen Securities However, behind the high growth of these essential categories, there are common industry challenges. Medicine delivery has extremely high requirements for timeliness, especially during nighttime or promotional peak periods, when rider capacity is tight and pharmacies face a surge in orders, posing a significant test for platform fulfillment capabilities. Once delayed, it directly affects user trust in the platform. The flower category cannot escape the "loss curse." Flowers have extremely high requirements for temperature, humidity, and transportation conditions. Once encountering adverse weather such as high temperatures or heavy rain, the probability of loss increases significantly. During Double 11, order volumes increase, making loss issues more likely. Even if some platforms launch "broken item compensation" services, they still fail to solve the problem at its root. For instant retail platforms, competition in essential categories ultimately comes down to the stability and certainty of fulfillment capabilities. Even "3 minutes faster" or "3 minutes slower" can mean tens of millions in cost differences and shifts in platform reputation. High-Frequency Categories: Daily Necessities and Snacks: Price Competition Under Strong Repurchase After the essential battlefield cultivates the user mindset of "order and receive immediately," the next step for platforms is to seize users' habit of "frequent ordering." This is the value of categories such as daily necessities, snacks, home and personal care, which are "high-frequency, strong repurchase, and low decision." In terms of scale, according to Guosen Securities estimates, supermarkets, convenience stores, and fruit and fresh produce are the two largest instant retail categories in 2024, accounting for 50% and 26% respectively. From user consumption behavior, data shows that daily necessities and food ordered online have long accounted for a large proportion, becoming a stable base for instant retail. Supermarkets, convenience stores, and fruit and fresh produce are the two largest instant retail categories in 2024 Image source / Guosen Securities Data from Double 11 validates the explosive power of high-frequency categories: on the first day of this year's Double 11, Taobao Flash Purchase saw order growth of over two times in multiple categories, with supermarket convenience in retail general merchandise increasing by over 670% year-on-year; Meituan Flash Purchase saw sales of hundreds of brands' official flagship flash warehouses increase by 300%, with multiple milk powder brands such as Friso and liquor brands such as Moutai achieving year-on-year transaction growth of over 100%; JD Seven Fresh achieved online order growth of 179% year-on-year and online transaction growth of 118% year-on-year... For instant retail platforms, the significance of high-frequency categories is not only a single transaction contribution, but also the core for maintaining daily active users and increasing repurchase rates. Platforms need these high-frequency, low-unit-price products to continuously trigger user ordering behavior, thereby driving linked growth in other high-margin categories. Changes on the brand side are equally evident. Some brands have achieved order growth in the short term after integrating with instant retail channels. Since Liangpin Shop integrated with Taobao Flash Purchase in May this year, orders have grown 285% year-on-year in just 4 months, new customer share increased by 51.2%, and overall repurchase rate increased by nearly 20% year-on-year; Miniso has connected over 4,000 offline stores to instant retail platforms, and in the first half of this year, Miniso's sales on Meituan Flash Purchase achieved a 73% year-on-year increase. However, unlike essential categories such as medicine and flowers, consumers of daily necessities and snacks are more price-sensitive and more tolerant of delivery time. Therefore, for instant retail to differentiate in this category, the key lies in price and assortment. First, let's look at price. To maintain prices close to traditional e-commerce, instant retail platforms often compress costs through various means: front warehouses are mostly located in low-rent, remote areas, and shelf products are mostly white-label. According to a report by LatePost, currently, comprehensive flash warehouses have 80% of SKUs as white-label products, contributing only 20% of revenue but creating most of the profit. However, behind the high profits are low repurchase rates and quality decline, and merchants are prone to falling into a vicious cycle of "price war - low profit - quality decline." This means that if platforms want to continue expanding, they must balance low prices with quality, otherwise they risk falling into a "low-price red ocean." Next, let's look at assortment. Compared with price competition, platforms are accelerating transformation, trying to reduce dependence on white-label products. In terms of brand mindset building, instant retail platforms introduce branded products and use their own offline channels and distributor channels for unified price control to ensure price transparency. Taobao Flash Purchase plans to launch "Taobao Convenience Store," selecting quality merchants through a brand authorization model, requiring 24-hour operation and strict control of out-of-stock and return rates; Meituan Flash Purchase has launched "Brand Official Flagship Flash Warehouse," attracting brands such as Proya and Sony to replace white-label products with branded goods. JD.com, positioned as a quality e-commerce platform, has also cooperated with daily consumer brands such as Feihe, Mengniu, and Liushen in its Seconds Delivery channel. In addition, Guosen Securities points out that platforms can also achieve low prices through reasonable product assortment and refined operations. Currently, flash warehouse operations often use best-selling products to attract traffic, and to meet the minimum order amount, they bundle other products to earn profit. With a reasonable product mix, merchants can ensure profit margins while offering low-price bestsellers. These actions reflect that the long-term outcome of the high-frequency track depends not only on who is "faster," but also on who can provide more category choices at the same price. Incremental Arena: 3C, Beauty, and Apparel: Scenario Breakthroughs Under New Demand If essential categories are "I must buy" and high-frequency categories are "I often buy," then there is also an incremental category in the instant retail track: "I am willing to pay for quality." This category is represented by 3C digital products, large appliances, apparel, and beauty, with high average order value, complex decision-making, and high fulfillment requirements, but it is becoming a breakthrough for instant retail growth. This year, Taobao Flash Purchase's apparel and home category orders rank second in instant retail, second only to supermarket daily necessities; Meituan Flash Purchase data shows that since June this year, sales of running shoes, sports T-shirts, basketball shoes, and other sports footwear and apparel have grown by over 200% year-on-year. On the first day of Double 11, Meituan Flash Purchase's 3C home appliance flash warehouse transaction volume increased by over 559% year-on-year, and search volume for apparel brands such as Anta and Jordan increased by over four digits year-on-year; JD Seconds' 3C digital product transaction users grew by up to 350% year-on-year. The breakthrough of these non-essential categories relies on the "instant stories" created jointly by platforms and brands. For brands, instant retail is no longer a supplementary channel but a new channel for deep connection with consumers. This Double 11, apparel brands such as Li-Ning and Hongxing Erke announced their official entry into Meituan Flash Purchase; brands such as Veromoda and Only selected seasonal bestsellers to integrate with Taobao Flash Purchase's instant delivery service. These deployments have also brought tangible sales. On the first day of Double 11, mobile phone brands such as Apple, Xiaomi, and OPPO saw year-on-year transaction growth of over three digits on Meituan Flash Purchase; in Haier's latest third-quarter report, revenue from channels such as content e-commerce and instant retail grew by over 100% year-on-year. For platforms, these high-unit-price categories carry the dual expectations of "growth" and "profit." On one hand, the average order value of 3C digital products, large appliances, and branded beauty products is much higher than daily necessities and snacks. Their adoption can directly and efficiently increase the platform's overall transaction volume and contribute higher commission income. On the other hand, when users can reliably receive a brand-new phone, a high-end cosmetics set, or a large appliance, their perception of the platform will upgrade from "food delivery service" to "trustworthy comprehensive retailer." This mindset will form a competitive barrier that is difficult to replicate. Platforms are also forming their own characteristics: JD.com, with its years of supply chain accumulation in 3C and home appliances, has a first-mover advantage in large appliance installation and delivery services; Taobao Flash Purchase relies on Alibaba's brand resources in beauty and apparel, attracting many brands; Meituan, although lacking e-commerce genes, is also compensating for its shortcomings through "Brand Official Flagship Flash Warehouse," leveraging its fulfillment advantages in food delivery to attract well-known brands including Apple, Midea, and Nike, trying to narrow the gap with competitors in high-unit-price areas. Image source / pexels However, this most valuable cake also comes with the most severe challenges. The growth story of apparel and 3C categories is still constrained by practical issues. First, consumer mindset has not been fully established; when purchasing high-unit-price goods, consumers are still more accustomed to comparing prices on traditional e-commerce platforms. In addition, issues such as product authenticity for non-official flagship stores, after-sales returns and exchanges, and installation and delivery of large appliances are important factors affecting consumer decisions. For these, platforms and brands are jointly breaking through from the two dimensions of "goods" and "scenes": for example, platforms are building a trustworthy product pool by introducing more brand official flagship stores, strengthening "official genuine product" commitments, and opening up nationwide warranty service systems; through live streaming to launch new products to achieve "see and get immediately," and binding holiday marketing, transforming the consumption logic of bulk purchasing during promotions into the psychology of immediate ownership. For platforms, these high-value categories are not just about current sales; they determine the height of their future ceiling. Final Thoughts From the time-sensitive breakthrough of medicine and flowers, to the scale foundation of daily necessities and snacks, to the scenario breakthrough of 3C and apparel, the instant retail battlefield of Double 11 2025 has long moved beyond the initial competition of "who delivers faster" and entered a deep competition stage of supply chain and ecosystem. Image source / pexels Looking back at industry development, from the 28.1 billion yuan Double 11 sales in 2024, to the expected 1.5 trillion yuan market size in 2025, and the growth potential of 3.6 trillion yuan by 2030, the high growth rate of instant retail is a test of supply and technology. The strategic paths of the three major platforms are also becoming clear: Meituan, with its strong ground promotion and fulfillment network, attempts to replicate the "food delivery" mindset for "everything"; JD.com, relying on its supply chain and 3C genes, emphasizes "quality instant retail"; Alibaba's Taobao Flash Purchase aims to connect online and offline, revitalizing its vast ecosystem resources. Their joint exploration is pushing instant retail from an emergency service to a mainstream lifestyle. The ultimate goal of the industry is not to subvert far-field e-commerce, but to complement it. Planned, cost-effective consumption flows to traditional e-commerce; immediate, certain needs are handled by instant retail. The true winners in instant retail will not rely solely on short-term subsidies, but will find the optimal solution among "fulfillment timeliness, product price, and consumer mindset." As the products in the delivery box become increasingly diverse, the competition in this trillion-yuan market is not just about the category question of "what else besides food delivery," but also the value answer of "how to use instant supply to reconstruct the essence of retail."