Recently, Douyin E-commerce has quietly launched several online self-operated flagship stores named after cities within its app. Currently, key cities such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan are already included, with store names directly indicating "Douyin E-commerce Shanghai Self-operated Flagship Store," focusing on the sale of local quality products.

From the front-end perspective, this represents a precise segmentation by category and region. However, analyzing the back-end fulfillment chain reveals that Douyin E-commerce is further delving into the "deep waters" of traditional e-commerce, where goods are shipped from Douyin's own stores or partnered warehouses. The system prioritizes dispatching from nearby cities or local warehouses based on the delivery address, enabling "next-day delivery" or "second-day delivery" in some areas, significantly compressing logistics timelines.

This is not an isolated business trial but a critical move by Douyin E-commerce to fully integrate local and nationwide e-commerce operations by 2026, addressing fulfillment shortcomings. The concentrated launch of Douyin's city self-operated flagship stores has been foreshadowed. Just over a month ago, on April 1, Douyin E-commerce underwent a major underlying structural adjustment: the independent "next-day delivery" store system for immediate retail was completely discontinued, with related merchants required to migrate to Douyin E-commerce's main platform system, continuing their operations by activating the "next-day delivery" service. This indicates that Douyin has abandoned the dual-line strategy of separating immediate retail from its main platform, instead fully integrating local supply into the vast traffic pool of the main platform.

Against this backdrop, the logic behind the newly launched "city self-operated flagship stores" becomes clear. Douyin E-commerce aims to eliminate systemic barriers between nationwide and local e-commerce within the same backend and app. For the platform, a single short video or live stream can now drive traffic for both "next-day delivery" local products and nationwide products shipped via standard couriers, maximizing traffic utilization.

Choosing core cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan to pilot the self-operated model also reflects Douyin's exploration of a "heavy-asset" approach. Self-operation means the platform must directly engage in product selection, pricing, warehousing, and delivery. While this increases operational costs, it maximizes control over product quality and fulfillment timelines, fostering user habits for "daily repeat purchases" on Douyin through reliable services.

Reviewing Douyin E-commerce's development over the past two years, 2025 is regarded within the industry as a year of systematic "addition and subtraction." During this period, it enhanced shelf scenarios, reduced reliance on top influencers, and, most crucially, addressed fulfillment and service gaps. The underlying logic of interest-based e-commerce is "products finding people," relying on algorithms to stimulate users' unplanned impulse purchases.

However, unplanned purchases often come with higher return rates and low tolerance for fulfillment delays. As GMV surges to a certain scale, growth models relying solely on traffic monetization inevitably hit bottlenecks. The ultimate competition in e-commerce returns to a comprehensive contest of supply chain, trust relationships, and logistics fulfillment.

Focusing on "local quality products" and achieving "next-day/second-day delivery" represents Douyin E-commerce's key effort to build "deterministic demand" beyond interest-based e-commerce. When purchasing local specialty goods or high-frequency daily necessities, consumers often have clear expectations for delivery speed. By pre-positioning goods in local or nearby partnered warehouses, Douyin not only reduces the costs of cross-province long-haul logistics but also uses the "next-day delivery" label to directly enter the "near-field e-commerce" territory dominated by JD.com Supermarket, Tmall Supermarket, and even Meituan.

Compared to Meituan's focus on "half-hour delivery" immediate retail, Douyin's current strategy of "next-day/second-day delivery" is a compromise. It avoids the heavy last-mile delivery costs associated with food delivery riders while being 1–2 days faster than traditional nationwide couriers like "San Tong Yi Da," striking a delicate balance between cost and user experience.

Despite possessing massive daily active traffic and achieving unified traffic scheduling on the front end, Douyin E-commerce faces underlying concerns in this "near-field fulfillment" battle. First, city self-operated stores and "next-day delivery" test the limits of integrated warehousing and distribution capabilities. This cannot be solved by a few lines of algorithm code but requires substantial investment in warehouse node construction, optimization of inventory turnover rates, and complex system integration with third-party logistics providers like SF Intra-city and Dada. The traditional "air force" traffic strategy must transform into a grounded "infantry" advance.

Second, local quality products and self-operated models deeply challenge the supply chain. How can the platform accurately predict localized consumption demands in different cities? How does it manage the shelf life and loss of high-frequency consumer goods? Facing the strong regional grid warehousing established by Tmall Supermarket and JD.com, Douyin, as a latecomer, has a significant learning curve to overcome.

Overall, the launch of self-operated flagship stores in cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan signifies that Douyin E-commerce has moved beyond the simple stage of traffic monetization, now directly competing with established e-commerce giants in heavy-asset supply chains and localized fulfillment. Moving from "far-field" to "near-field," using "next-day delivery" fulfillment capabilities to meet localized demand, is an essential step for Douyin E-commerce's maturation and a prolonged battle testing endurance and operational granularity.