Since the third quarter, competition among food delivery platforms has become more rational. While media attention has cooled down, Taobao Flash Shopping/Ele.me has not been idle. Leveraging the robust growth momentum in Q3 delivery orders, it has amplified its ecosystem advantages, addressed delivery capacity shortcomings, and attracted a surge of merchant sign-ups. Facing the upcoming Double 11 shopping festival, Taobao Flash Shopping appears to be the most well-prepared player.

**From Trailing Behind to Neck-and-Neck: Taobao Flash Shopping's 3-Month Transformation**

Before this year, Meituan held approximately 70% of the food delivery market share. In May, "Taobao Same-Day Delivery" was officially upgraded to "Taobao Flash Shopping." In July, Alibaba took decisive action, using low-unit-price bubble tea orders to drive delivery volume and spreading this momentum to high-unit-price dining and non-food categories, achieving beyond-expected success.

According to Goldman Sachs predictions, Taobao Flash Shopping's Q3 average daily order volume surged to 75 million orders, significantly narrowing the gap with Meituan (approximately 90 million daily orders in Q3). Another report indicated that during promotional campaigns like "Autumn's First Cup of Bubble Tea," "88 Membership Day," and "Super Saturday 6," Taobao Flash Shopping's daily orders exceeded 100 million for three consecutive days from August 7-9.

By mid-August, Taobao Flash Shopping's delivery order share rose to 45%, historically surpassing Meituan for the first time. BABA-W e-commerce business group CEO Jiang Fan revealed in the Q2 earnings call that "Taobao Flash Shopping's peak daily orders reached 120 million, with weekly average daily orders of 80 million. Monthly active users reached 300 million, growing over 200% in four months."

**The Ultimate Winner in Instant Retail**

Who will ultimately prevail in instant retail? Some believe Meituan will continue leading with efficiency advantages, while others think Alibaba's momentum will persist. Among various viewpoints, Goldman Sachs provides the most objective analysis with substantial evidence.

In the research report "The Battle for 'Daily Use Apps' in E-commerce: Food Delivery & Instant Delivery," Goldman Sachs presents three scenarios based on different assumptions: Meituan maintains leadership, Alibaba continues gaining ground, and JD.com stages a comeback. The predicted market share ratios for Meituan, Alibaba, and JD.com are 5.5:3.5:1, 4.5:4.5:1, and 5:3:2, respectively.

Regardless of which scenario unfolds, Meituan's near-monopolistic dominance in food delivery will become history. Among the three scenarios, I believe Alibaba's continued momentum to achieve parity with Meituan is most likely.

Goldman Sachs attributes "Meituan maintaining leadership" to factors like user loyalty, delivery network advantages, and lower-tier market dominance. However, QuestMobile's "2025 Instant Retail Industry Traffic Competition Analysis Report" reveals that as younger generations become the primary consumer force, combined with normalized subsidies in instant retail, consumers habitually compare prices across platforms, replacing platform loyalty with user experience and value propositions.

In May this year, Meituan's loyal user percentage dropped from 30.8% in the same period last year to 20.5%. This likely relates to Meituan's high proportion of local lifestyle orders and intensified cross-platform competition. However, May was a "mild period" in instant retail competition, far less intense than July and August. In an era where value proposition reigns supreme, even brand utility is diminishing, let alone platform loyalty.

While Meituan currently leads in delivery networks and lower-tier markets, these aren't insurmountable barriers. Alibaba, with its e-commerce origins and global warehouse network, can replicate these advantages.

Goldman Sachs bases its "neck-and-neck" judgment between Alibaba and Meituan on Alibaba's ability to continuously integrate Ele.me and Taobao resources. Under this assumption, Taobao Flash Shopping holds the initiative without depending on competitors, making this scenario more achievable.

After months of exploration, Taobao Flash Shopping has established preliminary operational experience:

**Traffic Advantages**: Taobao App features an independent Taobao Flash Shopping entrance, 88VIP members receive joint coupons through Ele.me connections, plus cross-platform traffic from Alipay and Amap. On September 10, "Amap Street Ranking" launched. During the 8-day National Day holiday, Amap brought over 100 million visitors to offline dining establishments. On October 1, Amap's daily active users hit a record high of 360 million. By October 3, "Amap Street Ranking," online for just 23 days, surpassed 400 million users.

**O2O Integration**: After integrating the "Alibaba China E-commerce Business Group," Alibaba can leverage both far-field and near-field capabilities for flash shopping. Users enjoy both comprehensive online shopping value and convenient after-sales service, while merchants benefit from Alibaba's massive online traffic pool and precise LBS technology guidance.

**Warehousing**: Taobao Flash Shopping has partnered with 800 brands to open 5,500+ instant retail specialty stores. Lightning warehouses integrate third-party front warehouses covering tens of thousands of SKUs, combined with Tmall Supermarket's fresh food same-day delivery capabilities. Currently, Taobao Flash Shopping's "Lightning warehouses" exceed 50,000 locations, approaching Meituan's front warehouse count, driving order volume growth of 360% year-over-year (25% of supply comes from Alibaba's ecosystem supply chain).

Deep integration between self-operated supply chains and instant retail ensures product quality while improving fulfillment efficiency. After Freshippo front warehouses joined flash shopping, online orders increased 70% year-over-year. Future integration may include millions of Tmall brand offline stores.

**Delivery Capacity**: Taobao Flash Shopping now operates a four-tier delivery network including Fengniao delivery, Ele.me crowdsourcing, Cainiao station affiliates, and social crowdsourcing, with over 2 million daily active riders—nearly triple the April count. During July-August, Taobao Flash Shopping increased delivery infrastructure investment, achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvements.

A Tianjin restaurant owner mentioned in a third-party media interview during the National Day holiday: "Only Ele.me flash shopping has riders accepting orders during rainy weather. Meituan processes under 100 daily orders, JD.com over 100, while Taobao Flash Shopping handles 400-500 orders." This likely indicates Taobao Flash Shopping's delivery capacity leadership in core cities.

**Pricing**: Taobao leverages supply chain value advantages to create stable pricing benefits for merchants. Taobao Flash Shopping employs weekend subsidy increases with expandable designs and issues targeted coupons to high-frequency users. Users also receive various free order vouchers and discount coupons.

**Competitive Resources**: This represents Taobao Flash Shopping's core advantage! Based on Q2 segmented business profitability indicators, the three platforms' instant retail investments appear similar. While Meituan's single-quarter losses exceeded expectations, Alibaba's diversified business support makes local lifestyle subsidies manageable. Meituan's subsidies haven't caused exponential growth in Alibaba and JD.com's subsidy expenses.

Regarding ecosystem synergy, Jiang Fan stated in the Q2 earnings call that August instant retail monthly active buyers reached 300 million, up 25% year-over-year, while Taobao App's August daily active buyers also grew 20%! Alibaba executives predict the group's CMR will maintain considerable growth in subsequent quarters of fiscal year 2026.

Based on long-term cross-selling projections for Taobao Flash Shopping, it could potentially contribute 2-3% growth to Alibaba's CMR (corresponding to over 10 billion yuan in annual incremental revenue). In cost management, Taobao Flash Shopping helps Alibaba acquire new customers, reduce churn, and lower related expense investments.

The "Merchant and Consumer Behavior Survey Report During Food Delivery Subsidy Wars" shows over 90% of consumers increased delivery spending due to subsidies. 82% indicated they would maintain or increase delivery consumption if subsidies continued; if ended, 13% would maintain post-promotional consumption levels while 53% would return to pre-promotional levels.

Subsidies significantly influence consumer delivery ordering enthusiasm at this stage. With Taobao Flash Shopping's significant synergy advantages with Alibaba, even as delivery competition becomes more rational, Taobao Flash Shopping maintains initiative whether focusing resources for decisive competition or adopting a "still waters run deep" approach.

**Effective Promotion of Offline Merchant Vitality**

Some argued that "food delivery would squeeze offline merchants' survival space." However, renowned institution research shows instant retail led by food delivery not only doesn't harm offline merchant survival but actually provides peak-shaving, volume-supplementing, and business vitality-stimulating effects.

Peking University Guanghua School of Management's July research report showed every 1 yuan of effective flash shopping subsidies generated 6.76 yuan in additional consumption. Flash shopping penetration positively correlates with regional restaurant merchants' average offline weekly revenue, with no evidence of flash shopping cannibalizing dine-in business.

The research also found flash shopping coupons positively impact participating merchants' online and offline revenue, with the strongest effect on the bottom 25% of merchants by revenue scale. For merchants in early operational stages, Taobao Flash Shopping provides off-peak traffic supplementation, order structure optimization, and operational efficiency improvements.

Based on actual merchant operational data after joining Taobao Flash Shopping, leveraging overall traffic advantages and collaborative marketing activities like "Super Popular" explosive product campaigns, Lucky Coffee's daily orders increased over 10-fold year-over-year during the National Day period, maintaining double-digit month-over-month growth.

Ma Liu Ji's average daily orders grew over 240% year-over-year, with nearly 30% month-over-month growth. Beyond dining brands, non-food products also experienced "qualitative changes" on the Taobao Flash Shopping platform.

In July, 395 non-food brand merchants achieved monthly transactions exceeding 1 million yuan on Taobao Flash Shopping, with 66 brands surpassing 10 million yuan. Good Kids has seen 285% order growth year-over-year in the four months since joining Taobao Flash Shopping in May, with new customer ratios increasing 51.2% and overall repurchase rates growing 20%.

**Double 11 Game-Changer: Has Taobao Flash Shopping Secured Alibaba's Victory?**

Beyond ecosystem synergy, warehousing, and delivery capacity factors, user stickiness also appears to favor Taobao Flash Shopping. QuestMobile data reveals intriguing insights: Among post-2000 generation monthly active users across platforms in May, Ele.me had 37.05 million while Meituan Delivery had 20.18 million.

Despite Ele.me's smaller total user base compared to Meituan, its young monthly active users significantly lead Meituan. Value-seeking behavior likely explains why post-1990s and post-2000s users prefer ordering through Ele.me.

Young people drive consumption, and youth-preferred consumption patterns have created multiple market opportunities. "Grain economics" and traditional gold craftsmanship all validate this perspective.

On October 12, Taobao officially announced "Taobao Flash Shopping" would enter Double 11 promotions for the first time. From October 15 to November 14, users can search "Flash Shopping Double 11" to access activity pages and claim 10 million free order red packets. For 88VIP users, the platform provides two daily 50% discount red packets.

Simultaneously, users ordering through Taobao Flash Shopping receive 500 Taobao gold coin rewards, with additional 1,000 gold coin rewards for payments exceeding 30 yuan. Brands with offline store networks will integrate inventory from stores nearest to users, enabling consumers to obtain desired items quickly at lower prices.

This month, Ele.me officially began providing pension and medical insurance subsidies to riders in the first batch of 10 cities nationwide, gradually providing free complete equipment sets including new uniforms, helmets, and delivery boxes for every active, stable rider.

As the saying goes, "Before troops move, provisions must be prepared first." Ele.me's "pre-battle mobilization" atmosphere for this year's Double 11 has reached its peak! With advantages in traffic, warehousing, delivery capacity, ecosystem models, and user stickiness, Taobao Flash Shopping/Ele.me is expected to be this year's Double 11 standout performer!