Buy Dingdong Maicai, Meituan Eyes More Than Just Instant Retail

The retail sector has been stirred once again. On February 5, Meituan announced the completion of its acquisition of 100% equity in Dingdong Maicai’s China business for an initial consideration of approximately USD 717 million. Dingdong Maicai’s established fresh-produce supply chain and more than 1,000 front warehouses are expected to strengthen Meituan’s capabilities. Industry observers interpret the transaction as a defensive measure by Meituan in response to competitive pressure from JD.com  and Alibaba.

With instant retail as the principal battleground, the e-commerce industry has entered a phase of comprehensive confrontation among major players. Supply chain strength, delivery networks, and digitalized operations have become decisive factors for platforms seeking market share, intensifying the differentiated competition among Meituan, JD.com, and Alibaba.

Meituan Retail further expands its footprint. The company’s announcement emphasized the strategic importance it places on instant retail and stated that the acquisition will enable both parties to leverage advantages in product assortment, technology, and operations to deliver improved consumer and delivery experiences. Public information indicates that as of September 2025, Dingdong Maicai had over 7 million monthly purchasing users.

Dingdong Maicai’s overseas operations are excluded from this transaction, and during the transition period the business will continue to operate under its pre-transaction model. On February 5, founder Liang Changlin wrote in an internal letter that Dingdong Maicai’s business and team will remain stable.

Fundamentally, Meituan’s move represents a strategic reinforcement of its position in the instant retail segment. Over recent years, Meituan has explored new retail formats, evolving from the initial “Meituan Maicai” initiative to upgrading to “Xiaoxiang Supermarket” after 2023. The company’s shift from meal delivery toward a broader “deliver everything” retail ambition marks a pivotal transition from single-category operations to comprehensive, full-scenario retail. As China’s instant retail market continues to grow, competition has shifted from expansion of scale to contestation over existing market share, with front warehouses—central to self-operated instant retail—becoming a critical asset for leading firms.

Meituan’s acquisition of Dingdong Maicai will not only bring front-warehouse assets under its control and rapidly address regional coverage gaps, but also integrate Dingdong Maicai’s mature fresh-supply-chain capabilities with Meituan’s existing network, positioning Meituan more favorably in competition with Taobao Flash Sale and JD.com’s instant retail offerings.

Renowned economist Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee on Information and Communication Economy at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, observed that acquiring Dingdong Maicai’s China business will broaden Meituan’s ecosystem boundaries and materially strengthen its offline fresh-delivery network layout by leveraging Dingdong Maicai’s existing warehouse network to achieve more comprehensive coverage.

Dingdong Maicai did not reach its tenth anniversary as an independent operator. Founded in 2017, it entered a Shanghai market that already hosted more than a dozen fresh e-commerce firms, making Dingdong a relatively late entrant. In subsequent years, Dingdong Maicai completed a public listing, outlasted MissFresh, and navigated the difficult transition from scale expansion to efficiency improvement, yet ultimately could not sustain itself amid intense competition from larger rivals.

A pivotal turning point occurred in 2021. At that time, the fresh-ecommerce sector was embroiled in a cash-burning contest, and Dingdong Maicai’s net loss in 2020 expanded to nearly RMB 3.18 billion. In 2022, MissFresh delisted and collapsed, and the front-warehouse model faced market skepticism. Dingdong Maicai adopted a strategy focused on improving efficiency while maintaining scale to pursue profitability. As Liang Changlin stated, “This decision cost Dingdong Maicai the opportunity for rapid expansion, but it preserved the company’s survival.”

Dingdong Maicai rapidly contracted its national footprint to concentrate on Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, closing operations in Hebei, Tianjin, and Anhui, and withdrawing from the Southwest market in 2023. In 2024, the company closed 38 sites in Guangzhou and Shenzhen but achieved its first full-year profitability. Financial statements show that Dingdong Maicai’s net operating cash flow in 2024 reached RMB 929 million, the highest level since listing.

Subsequently, Dingdong Maicai focused on markets with stronger consumer spending power in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, increasing outlet density in its core regions and opening front warehouses in smaller cities such as Xuancheng. The company’s Q1 2025 financial report indicated year-on-year growth across all cities within the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region.

Concurrently, Dingdong Maicai expanded product categories and upgraded its supply chain. Higher-margin private-label products contributed meaningfully to performance, accounting for approximately 20% of GMV in 2024. Several private-label lines have developed into standalone food brands, with offerings such as rice and flour products, bakery items, and snacks under the “Liangxin Craftsman” brand entering online and offline retail channels and reaching export markets.

Although strategic adjustments led to profitability in recent years, Dingdong Maicai’s net profit declined by 34.96% year-on-year in Q1 2025. The company attributed the decline to costs associated with opening new warehouses in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region and to seasonal and external factors such as consumption fluctuations during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Liang Changlin framed the response to pressure from larger competitors as a shift from head-to-head confrontation to cooperative alignment. Rather than engaging in unsustainable competition, Dingdong Maicai’s core strengths—product assortment, a long-cultivated fresh-supply-chain, and more than 1,000 front warehouses—will now serve to reinforce Meituan’s competitive moat in instant retail.

With Dingdong Maicai now part of Meituan, the fresh-retail arena has effectively become a contest among major platforms.

Since last year, JD.com, Alibaba, and Meituan have intensified competition across organizational structure, operational lines, fulfillment, timeliness, and product assortment. Each player has adjusted business layouts using their respective resources, escalating competition from subsidy-driven battles and category expansion to deeper ecosystem collaboration.

Yuan Shuai, Deputy Director of the Investment Department at the China Urban Development Research Institute, commented that the e-commerce market has entered a consolidation phase dominated by major firms; smaller players are either acquired or gradually exit, and market share is increasingly concentrated among leading companies such as Meituan and JD Daojia. He noted that while past competition centered on delivery speed and price, future rivalry will emphasize ecosystem collaboration and user experience.

The industry’s refined competitive phase highlights divergent strategic approaches among Meituan, Alibaba, and JD.com..

Meituan, as an industry leader, emphasizes comprehensive defensive measures. Offline, it accelerated expansion of formats such as Happy Monkey Supermarket and Xiaoxiang Supermarket to counter incursions from JD Discount Supermarket, Hema NB, and Qixian stores. Online, Meituan decisively discontinued underperforming initiatives such as Meituan Youxuan and Tuanhaohuo, exiting community group-buying and long-distance e-commerce segments to refocus on core operations. Record-breaking food-delivery order volumes and the aggressive “Everything to Home” strategy reflect defensive responses to pressure from Alibaba and JD.com..

JD.com  has pursued disruption through quality differentiation, supply-chain cost reduction, and targeted market entry. Beginning in February of the prior year, JD.com  implemented measures such as zero merchant commission and full social-insurance coverage for full-time riders, rapidly achieving 25 million daily food-delivery orders and stimulating engagement in lower-frequency product categories on its main platform. JD.com  subsequently developed new formats including Qixian Kitchen, Qixian Food Mall, and JD Discount Supermarket, and reactivated its travel business, leveraging supply-chain capabilities to reduce costs and improve efficiency while compressing market-expansion expenses.

Alibaba, with substantial financial resources, has adopted a more aggressive posture focused on strategic restructuring to regain momentum, combining ecosystem collaboration with full-category upgrades. In late June of the prior year, Alibaba merged Fliggy and Ele.me  into its e-commerce division, signaling a transition toward a broader consumer platform. Six months later, Ele.me  was rebranded as Taobao Flash Sale, accelerating the influx of non-restaurant merchants as well as Tmall Supermarket and Taobao Convenience Store offerings and enabling Taobao Flash Sale’s expansion from food delivery into full-category retail. In 2025, Alibaba integrated its Qianwen AI app with Amap, Fliggy, and Taobao Flash Sale to enable consumers to place orders with minimal manual input. By combining AI capabilities with consumer services, Alibaba elevated competition from a two-dimensional contest of online traffic and offline fulfillment to a higher-dimensional rivalry focused on end-to-end efficiency, ecosystem synergy, and user-value creation, with the objective of securing market leadership.

In summary, competition among the major platforms has evolved beyond single-metric order-volume contests to strategic, ecosystem-level considerations. Meituan is reinforcing fulfillment infrastructure and the local-life ecosystem to consolidate core barriers. Alibaba is leveraging ecosystem synergies and technology to pursue breakthroughs. JD.com  is capitalizing on self-operated models and supply-chain strengths to target quality-focused segments. As subsidy-driven competition recedes, supply density, service quality, and unit economic efficiency will become the primary competitive differentiators.

Wu Zewei, Special Researcher at Suzhou Commercial Bank, indicated that market concentration is likely to increase further among leading firms, with supply-chain capability, delivery networks, and digital operations as decisive factors. Category offerings are expected to expand from fresh produce to general merchandise, service scenarios will diversify, and deeper application of technology and data will drive cost reduction and efficiency improvements.

By Beijing Business Daily Reporters Guo Binlu, He Qian, and Intern Mao Siyi

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