WHY DID ALIBABA, JD AND MEITUAN START AN INSTANT RETAIL WAR IN 2025? These three companies burned more than RMB 150 billion ($22 billion) dollars on consumer subsidies for milk tea and meals last year. Why!? A snippet from a masterclass during a recent study tour I delivered ... Find the full video here: chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

According to The Business Times from Singapore, Alibaba has made a $1.5 billion bid to acquire Pupu Supermarket. As it happens, I am putting the finishing touches on a detailed report about Pupu's business. It will be published on China Digital Retail Report in the coming week. The report will cover its business model, cost-saving strategies, competitive environment, and its expansion into various Chinese cities. All you need to read up on this important chess piece in the instant retail battle. If you don't want to miss it, subscribe here: chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT QUICK COMMERCE IN CHINA Last April, ChinaTechTrip and K5 - Future Retail took a group of senior managers back to China for a second study tour about retail and e-commerce in China. We kicked off the journey with a thorough update on the latest developments in retail and e-commerce in China. This update included a 25-minute briefing on the latest in instant retail (quick commerce). A slidecast of this briefing will be available to paid subscribers on China Digital Retail Report tomorrow. On China Digital Retail Report, I post weekly articles, reports and videos on the online and offline retail initiatives of China's internet companies. This includes frequent content on e-commerce, live commerce, quick commerce, cross-border e-commerce (Temu, TikTok Shop, Shein, Joybuy, etc) and more. Some posts are free to read, and the most exclusive reports and videos are available to paid subscribers at a very reasonable price, given the wealth of information. To receive the weekly free and paid updates in your mailbox, please subscribe through the link in the comments. chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

我很好奇他们怎么在欧洲推广和立足，库迪和瑞幸在中国本地有极其疯狂且完备的供应链，能通过低至9.9人民币的咖啡去抢夺星巴克的市场，他们在欧洲还能维持这个优势吗..

As part of a recent ChinaTechTrip retail study tour with K5 Future Retail, I gave a 25-minute briefing about the development of instant retail in the past 12 months. A slidecast video of this briefing is available for paid subscribers. I discuss the following topics: ▶️ The impact of the meal delivery war on revenue, profits and the supposed synergy with traditional e-commerce. ▶️ Involution among lightning warehouses. ▶️ Why have major supermarket chains started opening up front-end warehouses (dark stores)? ▶️ Changes in market shares of instant retail companies. chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

Interesting development, considering the hype around AI-generated live commerce hosts.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM MY XINPINMU REPORTA few weeks ago, I published Temu Watch #14 about Temu/Pinduoduo's Xinpinmu project. The insights in the report came from three expert interviews with people close to Pinduoduo in the Six Degrees Intelligence network. Here are a few key takeaways from the report: ▶️ New Private Label Division: PDD Holdings launched Xinpinmu in March 2026 as a dedicated division to manage its own self-operated brands for both domestic (Pinduoduo) and global (Temu) markets. ▶️ Competitive Benchmarking: The project draws operational inspiration from Costco’s private-label logic and Shein’s global model but prioritises building a massive user base over immediate profit realisation. ▶️ RMB 100 Billion Investment: PDD plans to invest 100 billion yuan over three years to deepen its integration into China’s supply chain and “recreate” its growth curve. ▶️ Shift to Platform-Owned Risk: In a departure from the “fully managed” model, PDD assumes full responsibility for procurement, unsold inventory, quality issues, and after-sales liabilities for Xinpinmu products. ▶️ Targeting Higher-Tier Cities: In China, the strategy focuses on capturing first- and second-tier city consumers who prioritise product quality over the ultra-low prices typically associated with white-label goods. ▶️ Full-Category Ambition: While starting with apparel and bags, Xinpinmu aims to create a full-category matrix that eventually includes electronics, home appliances, and industrial goods. ▶️ Preferential Traffic Allocation: Platform-owned brands receive significant advantages in search rankings and organic traffic, potentially increasing the operating burden on third-party “semi-managed” merchants. ▶️ Strict Supplier Selection: Suppliers must meet rigorous standards, including high DSR scores and low return rates, and are often required to sign exclusivity agreements to prevent sales on competing platforms. ▶️ Major Compliance Risks: The report identifies intellectual property disputes and the complexity of international regulatory compliance as the most significant threats to the project’s long-term success. ▶️ Ambitious GMV Objectives: PDD’s long-term goal is for Xinpinmu to contribute 10% of total GMV, forming a “trillion-yuan” synergy alongside its “10 Billion Yuan Supermarket” and “Instant Retail” lines. To read the full report, head for China Digital Retail Report: chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

HOW DO YOU LIKE MY NEW WORK OUTFIT? No, I didn't really become a delivery courier for Taobao Instant Commerce, but I do have a strange hobby of collecting the uniforms of these guys. After all, instant retail (quick commerce) is the most important trend in the Chinese e-commerce market, and I've been reporting on it since 2023. This month, I'm focusing on all weekly China Digital Retail Reports to give you an update about instant retail in China. ▶️ Earlier this week, I tried to answer the question 'Can self-operated dark stores ever be profitable?' This question isn't just highly relevant in the competitive landscape of instant retail business models in China; it also offers important lessons for companies that want to pursue quick commerce in the West. ▶️ Next week, I'm publishing a slidecast video of a recording of a debrief about the status of instant retail after last year's disastrous price war, as presented during our April ChinaTechTrip tour with K5 - Future Retail. Where is the market now, and did anybody gain from that battle? ▶️ The week after, I'm doing a deep-dive report about Pupu Supermarket. You might not have heard about them before, but there are rumours that Alibaba, JD and Meituan are interested in buying the company. Pupu has been highly successful in southern China and has 70% (!) penetration in Fuzhou. It's also the last big, independent player after Meituan acquired Dingdong Maicai. In other words, an important chess piece in the game of instant retail. ▶️ At the end of the month, I'm wrapping up with a media coverage summary of where the instant retail marketplace sector is going after last year's price war has come to an end. The battle is done, but the war is far from over. Some of these posts will be (partially) free to read, while the most exclusive content will be available to paid subscribers. So, if you want to make sure you receive these four updates, subscribe, and they will be delivered to your mailbox. chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

JD STRENGTHENS OFFLINE FOOTPRINT WITH JD SPACE JD is expanding its offline footprint with JD Space (京东天地, Jingdong Tiandi). It will combine self-operated and branded businesses that “integrate quality retail, cultural and artistic experiences, and light social interaction, and strive to create a new benchmark for offline lifestyles.” The first location will open in Suqian (Jiangsu Province) in September, and more JD Spaces will follow in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Read more on China Digital Retail Report: substack.com/@chinadigitalre…

For years, there have been discussions about whether pure-player front-end warehouse companies (often called ‘dark stores’ in the West) can be truly profitable. In China, there are three cases that seem to prove profitability: ▶️ Dingdong Maicai ▶️ Pupu Supermarket ▶️ Yonghui’s front-end warehouses in Chongqing Still, a recent analysis by Liansheng claims that none of these cases has sufficiently demonstrated the model's profitability. What’s more, recent iterations of the model and developments among traditional supermarkets seem to prove Liansheng is right. In this article, I’m summarising Liansheng’s article while combining it with my own on-the-ground research. Besides shedding light on the situation in China, there are many valuable lessons for quick commerce platforms and traditional supermarkets seeking to offer 1-hour delivery. chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

While Xinjiang might not be the most representative province to measure VPN usage, this article is interesting nevertheless. As other estimations before it, it comes to the conclusion that VPN usage in China is at most 3%. chinafile.com/reporting-opin…

A 15-SQUARE-METER WALMART? One of the fun things about following grocery delivery in China on a daily basis is seeing a constant stream of new delivery model iterations that try to optimise margins. Over the years, I have seen next-day, same-day, and instant retail delivery. Front-end warehouses, lightning warehouses, stores with integrated warehouses and stores with ‘cloud warehouses’. I’ve seen community group buying, marketplaces, pick-up store concepts and more. The latest thing that made me smile is this 15-square-meter Walmart that instant retail expert Lao Zhang shared in a post. Quite a change from the enormous hypermarkets found all over China 15 years ago, but which have been in decline while Walmart shifts towards the Sam’s Club model. But the location in the picture isn’t really a shop. You can’t browse the shelves for products there. It is basically a last-mile fulfilment station. Customers within a 10-minute walking radius can pick up orders they place online. It also works with delivery services for home delivery. The sign says “Walmart is expanding its delivery network! Fresh food can now be delivered to your door.” The advantage of these ‘stations’ is the low rent and labour costs. Replenishment is done by the larger Walmart supermarkets, which creates a certain dependency. Is it completely new? Probably not. It reminds me a lot of Alibaba’s Hema Linli (Neighbourhood) stations before they closed down (see: techbuzzchina.substack.com/p…). It remains to be seen if these new Walmart stores will become a common sight in China’s upper-tier city streets.

CHINA'S COTTI COFFEE NOW HAS 30 STORES IN EUROPE In October 2023, I noticed how Cotti Coffee had started recruiting franchisees in Germany on WeChat (see image). It took a while, but it opened its first stores in Berlin in February 2026. I just noticed that Cotti has been expanding to other German cities. It now has 9 stores in Germany. According to information on Google Maps and Gemini, Cotti also has stores in France (5 in Paris and 1 in Lyon), Spain (3 in Madrid, 4 in Barcelona), Belgium (2 in Brussels and 3 stores scheduled to open in Antwerp, Ghent and Namur) and the UK (5 in London). Read more on China Digital Retail Report: substack.com/@chinadigitalre…

NEXT WEEK ON CDRR: ARE SELF-OPERATED DARK STORES SUSTAINABLE I've got an exciting new publication coming up next week. In this article, I will once again try to answer the question of whether front-end warehouses (dark stores) that are self-operated by companies like Dingdong, Meituan and Pupu will ever be sustainably profitable. Several cases seem to point to a positive answer. But a recent article by Liangshang begs to differ. And looking at recent developments in instant retail/quick commerce in China, the actual behaviour of market players suggests they might be right. In the article, I will describe: ▶️ Three cases in which self-operated dark stores turned a profit. ▶️ The limitations of the model. ▶️ The way in which various models for instant retail are converging to a new format. ▶️ What Western companies in quick commerce can learn from this. And last but not least, paid subscribers get a 25-minute video briefing on developments in instant retail over the past 12 months as bonus content. To ensure you receive this article in your inbox or Substack app, please take a free or paid subscription: chinadigitalretailreport.sub…

Another hint for the people participating in Monday's China Pub Quiz with the VNC.