A quick tap on your phone on your way to work has your usual coffee arriving at the office before you do. Preparing for an evening event, a new foundation shade arrives in under 30 minutes, no store visit required. At a weekend picnic, pet treats show up from across town just as easily as lunch. Wake up at 2 a.m. with a sick child? Medicine is at your door within minutes. This is life with China’s rapidly developing sales model known as instant retail.

Instant retail is an evolution of traditional food delivery, expanding the concept from meals to virtually anything consumers might need. By integrating online ordering with rapid local fulfilment, it connects digital platforms with bricks-and-mortar stores and leverages efficient delivery networks to bring goods to consumers within 30 to 60 minutes. With its speed, flexibility, and broad range of offerings, instant retail is rapidly becoming an everyday feature of urban life and is transforming the future of retail.

According to the 2024 Instant Retail Industry Development Report, released by the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, under the Ministry of Commerce, China’s instant retail market reached 650 billion yuan ($89 billion) in 2023 – a year-on-year increase of 28.89 percent. This growth rate far outpaced the 11-percent rise of online retail sales. The report projects that the sector will maintain strong momentum in the years ahead, with the market size expected to surpass 2 trillion yuan ($274 billion) by 2030.

The new battlefield

On 15 April, on-demand delivery-service provider Meituan officially launched its instant retail brand, Meituan Shangou, or Meituan Flash Buy, positioning it as “a next-generation shopping platform that stays with consumers around the clock.”

“In response to the growing demand for instant consumption, we launched Meituan Flash Buy with the aim of fulfilling consumers’ expectations to receive their purchases within 30 minutes,” Xiao Kun, Meituan’s Vice President and head of the Flash Buy division, said.

Non-food orders on Meituan’s instant retail service now exceed 18 million per day, according to Xiao. “Consumer loyalty and purchase frequency are steadily rising across categories such as fresh produce, beverages, household essentials and consumer electronics,” he added.

Currently, Meituan’s network of flash warehouses – small distribution centres located close to consumers – has already reached 30,000 locations, with projections estimating that number will surpass 100,000 by 2027.

Meituan’s Flash Buy business was first launched on a pilot basis in 2018. In 2024, Flash Buy’s order volume for consumer electronics reportedly approached 40 percent of that of leading e-commerce platform JD.com.

In the same year, Meituan also expanded its partnership with household appliances retailer Suning, officially launching a service that promises air conditioner delivery and installation within two hours.?

As Meituan ramps up its instant retail operations and moves aggressively into JD.com’s core territory of 3C digital products – computers, communications and consumer electronics, JD.com is simultaneously launching a swift offensive into the food delivery market – Meituan’s original stronghold.

Just hours after Flash Buy’s debut, JD.com also rolled out its own instant retail service – Miaosong, or Seconds Delivery. The service integrates more than 100,000 JD-branded offline stores nationwide and boasts an average delivery time of under 30 minutes, according to the company.

JD.com also announced that its daily food delivery orders had surpassed 5 million. Looking to scale up even further, the company revealed plans to recruit an additional more than 50,000 full-time couriers in the second quarter alone.

JD.com is investing heavily in its instant retail business, offering substantial subsidies to drive growth. These aggressive incentives have paid off. On 24 April, the company reported that daily order volume for Seconds Delivery had exceeded 10 million, spanning 166 cities across China.

The escalating showdown between Meituan and JD.com has pushed instant retail to a new peak.

No bystanders

Instant retail is far from a two-player game. Short-video platform Douyin has launched an Hourly Delivery feature that leverages its signature content-driven discovery plus the instant purchase model to drive rapid growth. Data available show that in 2024, Douyin’s instant retail gross merchandise volume grew by more than 50 percent.

E-commerce giant Alibaba, through its food delivery arm Ele.me, is another major player in the instant retail sector. By partnering with supermarkets and offline retailers, Ele.me offers a late-night express service, covering urgent needs like medicine and convenience store goods.

Facing relentless pressure from online platforms, physical retailers are working to reinvent their business models and build autonomous, self-operated instant retail ecosystems. Sam’s Club, for example, has adopted a front-end warehouse model, with smaller warehouses positioned closer to the customer enabling ultra-fast delivery within a six-km radius.

As a key third-party delivery provider, SF Express has declared its ambition to build the “new infrastructure” for the trillion-yuan instant retail market. The company has already partnered with major online platforms including Douyin, Alibaba’s Tmall and Weixin, enabling services such as Douyin’s livestream-driven hourly delivery.

The rise of instant retail not only caters to sudden consumer needs, upgrading traditional next-day delivery to minute-level fulfilment, but also boosts the performance of bricks-and-mortar stores.

For example, after joining Meituan Flash Buy, Japanese lifestyle brand MUJI saw its online orders increase 68-fold within just one week.

Policy support

Instant retail creates a win-win-win dynamic among platforms, vendors and consumers, stimulating consumption and contributing to the broader goal of expanding domestic economic activity, Hong said.

As a result, instant retail has become a key lever for local governments to cultivate and expand new forms of consumption. Shenzhen in Guangdong Province includes developing instant retail in its 2025 priorities and has launched an action plan to promote the high-quality growth of the sector.

By 2026, Shenzhen will see that over 40,000 retail merchants open online businesses, cultivate five e-commerce platforms, each generating more than 5 billion yuan ($714 million) in annual instant retail sales, and foster at least 30 enterprises with annual instant retail sales exceeding 100 million yuan ($14.2 million).

Shenzhen’s advanced infrastructure has become a critical foundation for accomplishing its targets. Cutting-edge technologies – such as drone delivery and AI-powered logistics optimisation – are enhancing delivery efficiency.

According to the China Development Institute, the city’s expansive consumer base and diverse consumption scenarios create a rich and adaptable environment for instant retail. It estimates that Shenzhen’s instant retail sector has a growth potential of 25 percent to 35 percent.

“The instant retail market is becoming increasingly competitive, and platforms are continually improving their services,” Hong said. “Looking ahead, the key to winning in this sector will lie in optimising the user experience, expanding service coverage and enhancing supply chain efficiency.”

To support the healthy development of the industry, Hong emphasised technological innovation, logistics optimisation and sound delivery performance.

At the same time, he called on governments and industry associations to introduce clear standards and regulations – both to ensure fair competition and to protect consumer rights – thereby unlocking the full potential of instant retail as a driver of consumption.