It is starting to fight Meituan head-on. Will Jingdong, which is officially announced to enter takeout, repeat the same mistake of Douyin?

Wen| Chopsticks Playing Thinking Zhao Gang

Takeout is already so crowded, but Jingdong still has its head sharpened and wants to dig in. What is the business logic behind this? Will Jingdong takeout repeat the same mistake of Douyin takeout?

Yesterday, Chopsticks Play Thinking (www.kwthink.cn) noticed that Jingdong Takeout has officially launched the recruitment of quality restaurant catering merchants! Merchants who settled before May 1, 2025 can enjoy free commissions throughout the year, and Meituan’s (03690.HK) share price fell 5.44%.

It is worth noting that in order to better meet consumers ‘pursuit of food safety and quality takeout, Jingdong Takeout currently only recruits quality restaurant restaurants. According to people familiar with the matter, commissions from contracted merchants will also be free throughout the year starting from 0:00 on February 11.

As of press time, catering SaaS service providers such as Ao Qiwei and Tiancai Shanglong have completed docking with Jingdong takeout, allowing the system to automatically accept orders.

Officially launched the takeout area, and the long-dormant Jingdong takeout experience is not satisfactory

The reporter entered Jingdong APP and found that its seconds delivery channel has been launched in the takeout area. The catering brands that have settled in Beijing include Haidilaoxian Hot Pot, Xiaoka Coffee, Kiln Chicken King, Huaxiao Xinjiang Fried Rice Noodles, Juewei Duck Neck, Yunhai Yao, etc.

However, the sales data of many settled stores are obviously unsatisfactory. Most store user reviews have not exceeded three digits, and there are a large number of system default reviews, and even many stores have failed to form store scores. According to a merchant who launched Jingdong takeout in January, the store has so far received less than 5 orders on the Jingdong platform, which is almost negligible.

Currently, Jingdong has not launched a separate takeout APP, but has incorporated it into the instant delivery page in the Jingdong APP. This also means that if a customer wants to order a takeout on Jingdong, it takes at least six steps: enter the Jingdong APP, click, open, and deliver in seconds, enter the takeout, find and enter the catering store to select products to place an order for payment, and then wait for the delivery. With the gradual improvement of Jingdong’s takeout and the expansion of its market share, it is believed that Jingdong will launch a separate takeout app.

After ordering the same takeout at Meituan, Enimeima and Jingdong, the reporter found that the money spent was different, but the difference was platform subsidies. Meituan has always been the platform with the largest subsidy, and even if you are hungry, there are subsidies. However, Jingdong, which is a newcomer, does not seem to have shown enough sincerity in customer subsidies.

In May last year, JD. com fully upgraded its instant retail business to JD. com Instant Delivery, which can be delivered in 9 minutes at the fastest. On September 17 last year, Dada Group announced that JD had completed the purchase of the shares of Dada Group held by Wal-Mart subsidiaries. So far, JD’s shareholding has increased to 63.2%.

With the launch of Jingdong Instant Delivery to the market in May last year, Dada also announced that its business will accelerate its full integration into the Jingdong ecosystem. According to JD data at the time, the number of active riders in Dada Instant Delivery was nearly 1.3 million annually, and the cumulative number of registered riders reached tens of millions. At the same time, the number of restaurant chains cooperating with Dada Instant Delivery was increasing day by day.

Dada CFO Mao Jun said at last year’s Q2 earnings call that in the second quarter, the overall revenue of the chain merchant business increased by nearly 50% year-on-year, of which the net income of restaurant chain merchants increased by nearly 80%, and the number of new stores more than doubled year-on-year.

Mao Jun said that from the perspective of business development trends, the demand for on-demand takeout services in catering, beverage, supermarkets and other industries is still growing rapidly, and the key catering customer business is the top priority in the future.

Jingdong wants to make takeout, but it has actually been planning for a long time.

As early as June 2022, Xin Lijun, then CEO of Jingdong Retail, bluntly stated that Jingdong had considered entering the takeout business. ldquo; As for when to start doing it, it depends on our ability and when we can form a talent team. Jingdong insiders also revealed that the takeout business has been deployed within Jingdong for a long time. When Xin Lijun was CEO of Jingdong Retail, he was already deploying new catering and distribution, such as light food and coffee.

Mining the incremental market, e-commerce and takeout platforms are invading each other and business boundaries are constantly blurred

“E-commerce delivers takeout, and takeout platforms are also doing e-commerce. In recent years, leading Internet platforms such as Jingdong and Douyin have frequently entered the takeout business, and established takeout platforms such as Meituan and Eliamo are also constantly expanding various Internet services in local life. business. Major platforms are trying to expand new sources of revenue through new business formats in order to enhance the overall competitiveness of the platform. E-commerce and takeout platforms are invading each other and business boundaries are constantly blurred.

As a vertical extension of Meituan’s and Enimao’s distribution business, instant retail will undoubtedly become the next focus of Meituan and Enimao’s efforts.

From the perspective of chopsticks and toys, the instant retail market, with its rapid development momentum and huge market potential, has attracted leading e-commerce platforms such as Jingdong, Taobao, Meituan, and Douyin to increase investment in an attempt to find new business. Increment.

In July last year, the homepage of Taobao APP was revised and updated, adding a new level of traffic portal to Henda, elevating Henda’s business to a position parallel to the recommendation window. This means that merchants in the Haida Channel will welcome a large wave of public domain traffic from Taobao APP; Jingdong’s instant retail business will be fully upgraded and launched in seconds; Meituan’s flash shopping business has become a strategic growth point, with a total transaction volume in 2023. At the same time, JD. com and Meituan resumed competition after purchasing medicines online for medical insurance on July 1 last year.

Douyin will give independent entry to the instant retail hourly delivery business in October 2023. Last year, Douyin launched the Douyin Mall version of the APP, and the entrance to the home page was available for hours. Douyin has also launched a new model of live broadcast + instant retail, which combines real-time live broadcast and instant delivery services. Users can enjoy hour-long services when placing orders in the live broadcast room.

At present, real-time retail has evolved into three forms: one is the warehouse and store integrated model represented by Box Horse; the other is the small pre-warehouse model represented by Dingdong Shopping and Meituan Shopping, and the large pre-warehouse model represented by Park Park Supermarket; the third is the platform model represented by Jingdong and Meituan.

Instant retail will gradually realize that everything can be taken out. Some people say that instant retail is just a new shell for takeout.

Leading companies such as Jingdong, Douyin, SF Express, and Wahaha have tried their own takeout business. This is based on comprehensive considerations such as market demand, user base, market competition, strategic layout, technology-driven and innovative capabilities. With the help of take-out business, these platforms can not only expand new sources of revenue, but also enhance the user experience and overall competitiveness of the platform, further consolidating their market position in the e-commerce field.

There are many newcomers who have entered the restaurant for catering and takeout. Although they each have confidence, they all have shortcomings.

Everyone in the catering industry knows that Zhang Yiming has persisted in chewing on the tough nut of takeout for eight years, but he finally relented.

Chopsticks Play Thinking noticed that last year, Douyin’s local life home-based group purchase and distribution (commonly known as Douyin takeout) was officially assigned to Douyin’s instant retail business. After users turn on Douyin and click on the home page, they still need to swipe left to see the hidden food takeout entrance.

Douyin takeout has suddenly shrunk from an important business that previously had a first-level entrance to a special area for Douyin e-commerce for hours. The volume has been reduced and the traffic exposure has to be reduced a lot. Douyin takeout has been transferred from the local life department to the e-commerce department, which can be said to mark the official beginning of shrinking the takeout service that Douyin has been fighting for many years.

In fact, everything had a warning. As early as the end of the year before, there were rumors that Douyin had given up takeout, but they were denied by the government. In June last year, no new merchants began to settle in the group purchase and distribution of Douyin Life Service. The original group purchase and distribution products were removed from the shelves on July 15, and there were no new orders.

Over the past three years, Douyin has continued to eat into Meituan’s takeout cakes. Meituan, feeling the pressure, has also tried to divide Douyin’s Short Video and live broadcast users through modes such as live delivery and delivery. The two sides alternate offensive and defensive, and continue to fight secretly.

In the eyes of insiders, Douyin’s inbound group purchase and distribution is actually not optimistic, and it is difficult to make up for shortcomings in terms of performance delivery capabilities, user habits, and number of merchants settled in in a short time.

At present, there is still no excellent solution for Douyin’s compliance issues. Before this solution was born, Douyin takeout would definitely not dare and cannot be rolled out on a large scale.

It is undeniable that although many newcomers have entered the catering and takeout service in recent years, and each has its own confidence, they are also facing fatal shortcomings.

In contrast, Jingdong, which has both capacity and user intelligence, may be a competitor that requires more attention and is more difficult to deal with. Although it has just begun, at least for now, Jingdong does not have many fatal shortcomings.

However, as a new entrant, Jingdong itself failed to seize the lead in Live streaming eCommerce, and it was unable to compete with Douyin and Meituan in Short Video and live traffic. From this perspective, the pressure on Jingdong to take out food is also considerable.

On the whole, although JD. com has a certain foundation for inbound takeout, it undoubtedly faces many difficulties if it wants to gain living space under the absolute advantage of Meituan and Enma Duopoly. Unless JD can make great decisions in terms of investment, or learn from JD’s self-operated model to bring users a higher-quality and disruptive new takeout experience, it will be difficult for JD to make too big a difference in takeout and serve other businesses. The idea of diverting traffic is even more impossible to talk about.

conclusion

Industry insiders believe that China’s takeout market is shifting from dividing cakes to the profound logic of making cakes. When the existing market fell into a zero-sum game, giants began to look in three directions: sinking the capillaries of the market, horizontal expansion of multiple categories of business formats, and vertical upgrading of user experience. This time, Jingdong’s entry into the takeout market will make it difficult to break the existing takeout market pattern in the short term. It does not want to simply compete for the food delivery business, but is targeting the real-time retail market that is closer to the e-commerce business.

According to the “Instant E-commerce Development Report (2024)” released by the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, in 2023, the scale of my country’s instant e-commerce market will reach 2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36%. It is expected that by 2027, this figure will exceed 5 trillion yuan. Nielsen IQ report shows that young people under the age of 35 account for 72% of instant retail users. Especially for the post-95s consumer group, instant consumption has become daily.

As a representative player in the borderless concept, Meituan will extend its business to Jingdong’s territory in 2021. Meituan’s flash shopping business has made Jingdong feel vaguely threatened.

Some industry insiders also pointed out that Jingdong’s takeout plan is intended to encircle Wei and save Zhao, using Didi’s approach to contain its arch-rival Meituan.