Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, less than a week after launching an on-demand delivery service, has achieved an early win with daily orders reaching 10 million during one of the company’s largest promotional campaigns.
The technology conglomerate leveraged its vast resources in online shopping, delivery and algorithms to buttress its dominant position in China’s e-commerce market at a time when it faces fresh competition in the relatively new “instant commerce” segment. Alibaba announced the milestone just days after rival JD.com, which ventured into food delivery in February, said its daily orders reached 10 million on April 22.
Continuing its campaign, Alibaba’s Taobao, the largest shopping platform in China, announced it would offer 100 million free drinks – including milk tea and coffee – to users of its new Taobao Instant Commerce service, which launched on April 30. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Competition in instant commerce – which involves the delivery of everything from food to electronics, often within an hour – has become extremely fierce in recent weeks. Alibaba is the latest entrant into a market now largely dominated by three firms: JD.com, Meituan and itself. Alibaba is using its Ele.me food delivery couriers to ramp up its presence in this segment.
JD rolled out its “Miaosong” channel – a term meaning “sent in seconds” – in 2024, initially covering non-food items before expanding to food delivery this year. Meituan, China’s food delivery leader, launched its “Shangou” feature – a term meaning “flash shopping” – last month, promising to deliver everything from food and cosmetics to toys and electronics to buyers’ homes within 30 minutes.
