Introduction: JD.com has been 'boxed in' by Meituan.

Liu Qiangdong secured the entrepreneurial popularity MVP for the first quarter of 2025!

From distributing money back to his hometown before the new year, to JD.com's Takeout division offering social insurance at the beginning of the year, to the recent announcement that JD.com delivery workers can 'withdraw hundreds of thousands of yuan in housing provident fund at once + an average monthly pension of 5350 yuan + full medical insurance coverage' upon retirement, Brother Liu has garnered immense favor among netizens, prompting many to give him a thumbs-up.

Notably, according to Chengdu's 2024 data, a civil servant with 37 years of service at the department-level position receives a pension of 6079 yuan. Compared to this, JD.com delivery workers enjoy a 'deputy department-level' treatment, which is enviable to anyone.

I. JD.com, with its glowing reputation and revenue, must proceed with caution

Brother Liu has truly excelled in this regard. Just like how Liu Bei's double-edged sword in 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' was titled both the 'Sword of Benevolence' and the 'Sword of Righteousness', JD.com's public relations also wields two powerful weapons: 'social insurance' and 'distributing money back to the hometown'.

Whether it's Brother Liu's 'distributing money back to the hometown' before JD.com's New Year festival, or this year's 'social insurance' for JD.com Takeout, or even the 'deputy department-level' pension this time around, these are all blatant business strategies. However, can you say Brother Liu is doing something wrong? Being grateful and giving back to the hometown and society, who dares to say it's not righteous?

In terms of actions, these endeavors are well-executed. In terms of intentions, these practices have been in place since the inception of JD.com Logistics. Their corporate image is upright, their actions are genuine, and their promotions are not stingy with costs. They deserve to succeed financially. The more of these good deeds for society, the better.

The market has also responded positively to JD.com. On March 6, JD.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: JD, 09618.HK) released its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024.

The financial report reveals that JD.com's total revenue for the full year of 2024 was 1,158.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%; among them, the fourth-quarter revenue was 347 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.4%. Both JD.com Retail and JD.com Logistics achieved revenue growth in 2024, with year-on-year increases of 7.5% and 9.7%, respectively, while new business revenue declined by 28% year-on-year.

However, amidst this financial success, we should remind JD.com to be more vigilant against the shadows lurking in the sunlight amidst overwhelmingly positive public opinion.

According to data from Tianyancha APP, while JD.com made profits in the first two quarters of 2024, they were not particularly strong. Instead, the core growth came in the fourth quarter, with total revenue increasing by 13.4% year-on-year. This robust growth is not solely due to JD.com's excellent performance capabilities but also due to government subsidies in the consumer electronics industry.

Therefore, for JD.com, it is crucial to recognize its own strengths while also acknowledging the objective market conditions in order to think and plan more calmly. Be optimistic about the present and cautious about the future.

Moreover, regarding the currently popular takeout business, the core logic is not to operate takeouts but to defend against Meituan. Just like when Didi ventured into takeouts and Meituan into ride-hailing, the original intention was for defense.

What happened later? Meituan's ride-hailing business became a sideshow, and Didi's takeout business faded away.

For riders, JD.com Takeout's entry into the market has promoted the implementation of social insurance for takeouts, which is a win-win situation welcomed by all. However, for merchants, doing business with Meituan is similar to doing business with Ele.me; adding JD.com as a channel does not make a significant difference since JD.com Takeout's volume is still small and its influence limited.

For merchants, JD.com Takeout's current formality is more significant than its practicality. There are still many areas to cultivate. Only when its volume truly increases in the future will JD.com Takeout's zero-commission model be able to bring more tangible benefits to merchants.

In the short term, JD.com's strategy is correct, winning the public opinion war and achieving a phased victory. However, in the long run, JD.com still needs to return to its core e-commerce business.

After all, takeouts themselves do not make money.

Many analysts have found in their research on Meituan that 'Meituan's takeout business actually does not make money.' After excluding various subsidies, Meituan's takeout business is inherently low-margin, with some even claiming that 'delivering one order results in a loss for one order.' Some analysts estimate that in H1 2014, 11.6 billion orders were delivered, with a loss of 0.34 yuan per order.

The real role of Meituan Takeout is to drive traffic to other businesses. The same is true for JD.com. By entering the market with such high treatment, where is the profit to be made from the shouting and promotion?

II. In the 'Contest on Mount Hua' of Instant Retail, 'Speed' and 'Price' are Just Entry Tickets

I personally believe that JD.com Takeout's strategic dance aims at instant retail.

The reason JD.com is doing takeouts to defend against Meituan is that the pressure from Meituan's instant retail is immense. In fact, the competition between JD.com and Meituan Takeout is far from as early as that in instant retail.

In the second half of last year, JD.com 7FRESH launched the operation of its first front warehouse in Beijing, which is only 1 kilometer in a straight line from Elephant Supermarket, a subsidiary of Meituan. Coincidentally, the second front warehouse is located near Shilihe in Beijing, where Elephant Supermarket also operates a store.

Competition has long existed, but the issue of takeout social insurance has clarified the stakes and established a position.

After all, China's instant retail market reached 650 billion yuan in 2023, with a year-on-year increase of 28.89%. Based on this development trend, by 2025, China's instant retail market will reach the trillion-yuan level. With such a large pie, everyone naturally wants a slice.

In 2023, JD.com Group established the 'Innovative Retail Department', which integrated businesses such as JD.com 7FRESH and front warehouses. Then, in 2024, instant retail was identified as one of JD.com's three must-win battles, with a focus on speed.

In the previous seven years, JD.com 7FRESH only reached seven cities, with 54 supermarket stores and 17 lifestyle stores. Its benchmark at that time, Hema, had already covered more than 30 cities with over 400 stores and a GMV exceeding 68 billion yuan.

After learning from its mistakes, JD.com 7FRESH completed the integration of stores and warehouses in October 2024, improving delivery time to within 30 minutes and boldly proposing a 'price breakthrough'. This year, there have also been reports that JD.com 7FRESH plans to add 20 warehouse stores in Tianjin by the end of June and at least dozens of stores in Beijing.

On March 19, 2025, on the JD.com APP, the entry for 'JD.com Fresh Food' was officially renamed 'JD.com 7FRESH'. In fact, since October 2024, JD.com 7FRESH has already achieved integration with JD.com Fresh Food. These measures also demonstrate JD.com's determination and speed in developing instant retail.

However, it is evident that JD.com's speed is not as fast as that of Meituan and Alibaba.

Meituan benefits from its 30-minute instant delivery network built through its takeout business and its leading position in flash warehouses. As of the end of 2024, Meituan Flash has reached cooperation with over 5,600 large chain retailers, 410,000 local small merchants, and over 570 brand merchants.

Ele.me, a subsidiary of Alibaba, is also vigorously laying out instant retail. At the Instant E-commerce Future Business Summit in October 2024, Ele.me's plan for its instant retail business was to continue upgrading 'nearby brand official flagship stores', aiming to open 100,000 official flagship stores within the next three years.

While JD.com's instant retail is still honing its basic skills, Meituan and Alibaba have already begun studying internal strategies and innovative moves.

With years of operational advantages, Meituan and Ele.me have accumulated deep experience in the LBS field. Through further exploration with AGI, they have innovative strategies within the '3-kilometer living circle'.

In 2024, Meituan invested 21.1 billion yuan in research and development. Based on vast user data, it built a large instant retail model and reconstructed the retail traffic of the '3-kilometer living circle' as a business partner. Ele.me is also not to be outdone, relying on LBS entry points such as Alipay and Gaode Maps to further analyze the traffic distribution rules of the '3-kilometer living circle' and improve conversion rates.

Even Meituan has started experimenting with drones. According to financial report data, as of the end of 2024, Meituan's autonomous delivery vehicles and drones had completed 4.91 million and 450,000 orders, respectively.

Objectively speaking, it is difficult for JD.com to catch up. Even if it decides to win in a timely manner, it will require a significant injection of resources and personnel. It is still unknown whether this will affect its core e-commerce business.

Not to mention instant retail veterans like Meituan and Alibaba, JD.com also needs to carefully consider big rivals like Douyin and its old opponent SF Express.

Douyin's Hourly Delivery recently announced the opening of its live streaming permissions to all e-commerce influencers. As long as e-commerce influencers obtain complete live streaming permissions, they will automatically qualify to use Hourly Delivery products for live streaming and add products through the release of short videos, images, or live broadcasts.

SF Express is also continuously making efforts in instant retail. During the Double 11 shopping festival in 2024, data showed that SF Express's average daily delivery volume of all categories increased by 43% year-on-year, with the volume of beauty, supermarket, and beverage categories doubling, and the overall volume during the 'National Day' holiday period increasing by over 81% year-on-year.

In addition, there are also competitors such as Pinduoduo Fresh and Missfresh. It can be said that if JD.com wants to achieve its 'must-win' strategy in instant retail, relying solely on the speed and price wars under previous thinking is far from enough.

How to apply its logistics experience and technology to instant delivery and how to transform the traditional 3C retail profile into a '3-kilometer living circle' model are the 'oil fields' that JD.com needs to explore.

When 'speed' and 'price' are no longer the only killer moves, whoever first understands the strategy of 'precise demand forecasting + dynamic inventory allocation' will be invincible in the 'Contest on Mount Hua' of instant retail.

Therefore, JD.com's instant retail journey still has a long way to go. It needs time and patience to gradually expand its territory, break information silos, achieve algorithmic reconstruction, and build user lifecycle value.

As consumers, we also hope that Brother Liu will bring more benefits to instant retail and even more fields, allowing more frontline workers to do valuable and secure work, and spreading JD.com's red color to more areas.