Latest news with #onDemandDelivery
South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
JD.com's US$1.4 billion plan heats up on-demand delivery battle with Meituan, Alibaba
has pledged more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) under its ambitious 'Double Hundred Plan' to support so-called benchmark brands across various categories, further heating up China's on-demand delivery sector, as industry-wide daily orders reached a new high of more than 200 million. Advertisement The Beijing -based e-commerce giant's latest initiative seeks to elevate sales of select brands beyond one million items on its platform via measures that include increased traffic, marketing incentives and enhanced after-sales service. The new plan reflects determined effort to unseat Meituan as mainland China's top on-demand local delivery services provider, while also trying to fend off a strong challenge from online shopping rival Alibaba Group Holding . Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. plan was unveiled after a weekend price skirmish between Alibaba and Meituan, which involved discount coupons that allowed more consumers to buy milk tea at unusually low prices. A surge in orders led to overwhelming demand, which prompted delivery riders to work extended shifts and temporarily crashed Meituan's servers in certain regions. Advertisement Taobao reported on Wednesday that in the previous week, 4,124 restaurant brands on its platform set record sales and orders, while orders for 2,318 non-food categories doubled. Non-food orders surged 143 per cent compared with the platform's initial launch figures, according to Taobao.
South China Morning Post
7 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Taobao's daily on-demand orders soar as China's instant e-commerce war heats up
The Taobao figures were released a day after rival Meituan reported record orders for its instant delivery service Alibaba Group Holding is seeing a rapid acceleration in the volume of on-demand delivery transactions, the latest sign of growing rivalry with Meituan and in China's instant e-commerce market. Combined daily orders on Taobao Instant Commerce – the company's latest push into on-demand delivery – and food delivery app reached 80 million, Taobao said on its official WeChat account on Monday. Daily active users on Taobao Instant Commerce surpassed 200 million. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. The figures were released a day after Meituan, Alibaba's bigger rival in the on-demand delivery sector, announced it had achieved record orders for its instant delivery service. On Saturday, Meituan said daily transaction volume covering food and retail goods had reached an all-time high of 120 million, briefly crashing its servers in certain areas. The Alibaba figures reflect the rapid progress achieved by Taobao Instant Commerce, which was launched in late April as the company's answer to Meituan's Instashopping and food delivery service. The service reached 10 million daily orders within its first week and 40 million within the first month. A group of Meituan food delivery couriers wait for new orders on March 22, 2025 in Chongqing, China. Transaction volumes have accelerated over the past few weeks as e-commerce players started to offer more discounts and subsidies to boost consumption during the peak summer season. It took the platform nearly a month to grow daily orders from 40 million to 60 million, but just 12 days to gain another 20 million. Alibaba, which is seeking new growth beyond its traditional e-commerce business, has been betting big on on-demand delivery. It just announced a consumer and merchant subsidy programme totalling 50 billion yuan (US$7 billion) that will run over the next 12 months. Newsletter Saturday China Future Tech By submitting, you consent to receiving marketing emails from SCMP. If you don't want these, tick here {{message}} Thanks for signing up for our newsletter! Please check your email to confirm your subscription. Follow us on Facebook to get our latest news. Last month, it announced the merger of and its online travel agency Fliggy into its core e-commerce operations, describing the move as a 'strategic upgrade from an e-commerce platform to a comprehensive consumer platform'. 'Synergies between food delivery, instant commerce and traditional commerce are [the] next focus,' Jefferies analysts said in a research note on Sunday about Alibaba's latest order figures. Alibaba reiterated that its strategy was to avoid 'involution', referring to increasingly intense competition that leads to diminishing returns, a phenomenon seen across various parts of Chinese society in recent years, raising concerns from the central government. The rapid growth of Taobao Instant Commerce has elevated the market size of China's instant delivery sector, boosting the total daily order volume across different platforms from around 100 million in May to 200 million, Alibaba said.
South China Morning Post
7 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Taobao's daily on-demand orders soar as China's instant e-commerce war heats up
Alibaba Group Holding is seeing a rapid acceleration in the volume of on-demand delivery transactions, the latest sign of growing rivalry with Meituan and in China's instant e-commerce market. Combined daily orders on Taobao Instant Commerce – the company's latest push into on-demand delivery – and food delivery app reached 80 million, Taobao said on its official WeChat account on Monday. Daily active users on Taobao Instant Commerce surpassed 200 million. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post. The figures were released a day after Meituan, Alibaba's bigger rival in the on-demand delivery sector, announced it had achieved record orders for its instant delivery service. On Saturday, Meituan said daily transaction volume covering food and retail goods had reached an all-time high of 120 million, briefly crashing its servers in certain areas. The Alibaba figures reflect the rapid progress achieved by Taobao Instant Commerce, which was launched in late April as the company's answer to Meituan's Instashopping and food delivery service. The service reached 10 million daily orders within its first week and 40 million within the first month. A group of Meituan food delivery couriers wait for new orders on March 22, 2025 in Chongqing, China. Transaction volumes have accelerated over the past few weeks as e-commerce players started to offer more discounts and subsidies to boost consumption during the peak summer season. It took the platform nearly a month to grow daily orders from 40 million to 60 million, but just 12 days to gain another 20 million.
South China Morning Post
06-07-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Meituan gets record orders as China's e-commerce war fuels demand for delivery service
Meituan said daily transaction volume on its dominant on-demand delivery reached an all-time high since its inception in 2010, briefly crashing its platform as online purchases surged amid a fresh round of price war among China's e-commerce leaders. Daily orders of food and retail goods for its instant delivery service surpassed 120 million on Saturday, according to the company, with food orders accounting for 100 million or 83 per cent of them. Meituan's delivery services suffered a technical breakdown in certain areas during the day as 'the number of user orders exceeded the historical peak', triggering temporary protective measures from its servers, Meituan said in a statement on Saturday. The problem was resolved within hours, it added. The surge in volume came as China's major e-commerce players – Alibaba Group Holding, and Meituan – stepped up their bets on instant delivery services in mainland China to compete for consumers. The rivalry is set to spur anaemic spending, which has dwindled amid concerns about China's economic outlook. Meituan and delivery workers are seen waiting at a traffic junction in Shanghai. Photo: Shutterstock Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, pushed into the sector through its service known as Taobao Instant Commerce. It earlier this week announced a 50 billion yuan (US$7 billion) one-year subsidy programme. Meituan on Saturday offered discounts that cut the price of a cup of coffee to as low as 2 yuan, media reports showed.
Entrepreneur
23-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Delhivery Launches On-Demand Intracity Delivery
It offers a mix of transport options, from two-wheelers for small parcels to three and four-wheelers for larger shipments You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Delhivery has rolled out its on-demand intracity delivery service, Delhivery Direct, in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, following a trial run in Ahmedabad. The company confirmed the launch marks its official entry into the rapidly growing space for same-day, hyperlocal logistics in India's two largest urban markets. Delhivery Direct allows customers to schedule local deliveries with pickup times as short as 15 minutes. It offers a mix of transport options, from two-wheelers for small parcels to three and four-wheelers for larger shipments. The service is geared toward a broad range of users, including individual consumers and small businesses, reflecting a shift in the logistics landscape as convenience and speed become baseline expectations. "We are now fully live with Delhivery Direct across NCR and Bengaluru—two of the largest markets for on-demand intracity service in India—and will rapidly expand to key metros," said Sahil Barua, managing director and CEO of Delhivery. "This launch completes the spectrum of offerings to our customers who can now use us for intracity needs as well." The company is positioning the service not only as a logistics solution but also as a platform to generate income and flexibility for delivery partners. According to Delhivery, its existing network infrastructure will be used to support flexible working hours and new earning opportunities. Available via mobile app on both Android and iOS, Delhivery Direct also enables intercity parcel shipments, expanding its reach beyond local deliveries. Users can send packages to over 18,800 pin codes across India directly from their doorstep, leveraging the same app interface. Delhivery's move comes amid a wider race among logistics providers to dominate the last-mile delivery space in urban India. The expansion of Delhivery Direct could signal a broader push by the company to entrench itself deeper into the consumer delivery space, traditionally dominated by food and grocery like Swiggy, Zomato, and Zepto etc.
