Go fetch! JD.com enters the food delivery business (part 1)
A venture into food delivery that isn’t really about food delivery.
Image taken from JD.com video Joy and Heron.
Contents
Things that caught our attention
Here are some things we shared on notes in the past week.
Auto Retailers in 2024: Surviving the Storm, Betting on Reinvention
Instant retail: Alibaba’s Hema (Freshippo) launched ‘1 Store + N warehouses’ format.
Who will come out as the winner? Temu, Shein or TikTok Shop?
Insights into Meituan’s moves into Saudi Arabia with Keeta from Rest of World.
Joybuy = Ochama. A further look into the launch of JD.com’s launch of a UUK B2C webshop.
Also, Rui has been sharing some of her thoughts on humanoid robotics on her Twitter feed in the past week.
Introduction
China’s food delivery industry has been relatively quiet since the dust of the war between Meituan and Douyin settled. As our previous reports on Douyin’s ventures into the local services market described, Douyin captured a substantial part of the in-store group buying market. Still, it failed to challenge Meituan significantly in the delivery market. Meituan remained the undisputed leader with around 70% market share, while Ele.me is still second with a much smaller market share.
Some eyebrows must have been raised when one of China’s earliest e-commerce companies, JD.com, announced its expansion into the food delivery market. At Tech Buzz China, we have analysed the background of this move, which actually isn’t JD’s first step into the sector. What were its earlier attempts? How does it tie into its ever-changing ecosystem of local services? Why is JD doing this, and will it have a chance of success?
The content of this report is based on expert interviews with people close to JD and Meituan and several articles in the Chinese tech media. The resulting writing was voluminous, so we split it into two parts. This week, we look into the background of JD’s decision and the details of its expansion plan. Next week, we will publish the second part, which evaluates JD’s strengths and weaknesses, challenges, and results so far, as well as the required investments and responses of market leaders Meituan and Ele.me.
In this first report, the background of JD’s ventures is free for all subscribers to read. The section on JD’s motivation (which isn’t really about the food market at all) and its expansion plan are available to paid subscribers. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber yourself (if you have not yet done so) to support our work and become more informed about China tech.
Enjoy,
Ed Sander – Research Editor
JD enters the food delivery market … again
On February 5th, a rumour spread that JD was entering the food delivery business with JD Takeaway (京东外卖, Jingdong Wai Mai), charging merchants only 5% commission. Meituan reacted by claiming their commission wasn’t the rumoured 30% but 6%-8%. One week later, on February 11th, JD announced the recruitment of ‘quality dine-in catering merchants’. While this would seem to be aimed at in-store group buying business, JD actually hoped to gather high-quality restaurants for food delivery this way. [1] JD wanted to position its services as mid- to high-end and differentiate itself from Meituan and Ele.me. [2]
To some, the news of JD’s sudden entrance into the catering market might have been a bit of a shock, while in fact, JD already started food delivery 3 years ago …
In 2022, a senior JD executive suggested entering the food delivery field. JD CEO Richard Liu had a positive attitude toward JD.com's local business, which had three main parts: local retail (JD Daojia), local life services, and local catering. Integrating these three businesses into the local business department was one of JD Retail's strategic priorities that year.
What’s in a name? From JD Daojia to JD Miao Song
To fully understand JD’s local business and the strategic importance of Takeaway, we need to take a step back and look at how JD’s instant retail services has undergone many name changes in recent years. Let’s have a look at what’s what.
In 2015, JD launched its local retail brand JD Home Delivery (京东到家, Jingdong Daojia).
In 2016, JD Home Delivery and crowdsourcing delivery platform Dada (达达) Nexus merged into Dada Group (达达集团), forming an integrated O2O platform. JD Home Delivery is the digital platform of the business, and Dada Kuai Song (大大快送) is the courier business. [3]
In 2021, launch of JD Shop Now (京东小时达, Jingdong Xiao Shi Da, literally JD Hourly Delivery) functionality, moving from same-day delivery to delivery in an hour. [4] See our 2023 report on Instant Retail for more information on Shop Now. Through ‘Shop Now’, JD Daojia was integrated into the main JD Retail app, opening it to 500 extra buying customers.
In 2023, JD’s instant retail business is formally renamed ‘JD Shop Now’.
In August 2023, Dada Group was fully connected to JD Now, realising data connectivity between 4,000 warehouse outlets and 5.5 million retail terminals across the country. [1]
In May 2024, JD.com fully upgraded its instant retail business, integrated JD Shop Now, JD Home Delivery, JD Grocery (京东买菜, JD Mai Cai) and Medicine and launched JD Now (京东秒送, Jingdong Miao Song, literally ‘seconds/instant delivery’). Confusingly, the JD Home Delivery app remains operational with its old name, while there is also a separate JD Miao Song app.
Along with introducing the new brand, JD Now got a prominent new touchpoint on the landing page of the JD app, showcasing five main categories: fresh produce, flowers and cakes, supermarkets, coffee and milk tea, and medicines. [5]
· In September 2024, JD.com disclosed a 63% stake in Dada Nexus after acquiring Walmart’s 9.3% interest in the company. In January 2025, JD submitted a non-binding proposal to take Dada private. [6]
JD's acquisition of Dada Group aims to enhance its instant delivery capabilities. In the future, Dada may be integrated by JD Logistics and managed by JD Logistics. However, given the differences in business directions, the two teams will continue to operate independently.
Although JD Logistics and Dada Group may share resources in areas such as R&D and product operations to reduce expenses, there is currently little overlap in personnel between the two companies. JD Logistics is mainly committed to the management of e-commerce supply chains, including the delivery of large items; while Dada Group focuses on instant delivery services in the same city. The two business models are significantly different. If e-commerce delivery personnel are forced to merge with food delivery tasks, efficiency may be reduced due to the complexity of the process. Therefore, the two systems cannot be fully integrated and can only reduce costs by sharing some resources. This approach can not only maintain the professionalism of each, but also achieve resource sharing and cost optimization to a certain extent.
Note: Because the similarities in the English names can be confusing, we will continue to use the pinyin writing of the Chinese names in this article (JD Daojia, JD Xiao Shi Da, JD Miao Song).
JD Takeaway relaunch
Let's return to 2022, when JD made arrangements in the field of same-city catering services, which were announced to the outside world as ‘JD Takeaway’ (京东外卖, Jingdong Wai Mai). At the end of 2021, JD had invested 800 million US dollars in a controlling stake in Dada Group, further strengthening JD Daojia's strategic layout in local life services.
JD Daojia initially focussed on the top 100 retail chains, mainly doing grocery delivery for the likes of Walmart and Yonghui. Since 2021, it has also attracted a new high-value consumer profile, different from grocery shoppers, by offering instant delivery of mobile phones. It now provides smartphone delivery from 6,000 stores. [2] JD Daojia was focused on the “Shop Now” project, which was integrated into the JD app, and was also constantly supplementing and enriching product and service categories to meet consumer needs.
For Takeaway, JD tended to cooperate with merchants with a high degree of standardisation first, such as well-known chain brands such as McDonald's and KFC. However, there was no clear definition for the overall GMV target of the local business department, and the business volume in catering and life services (such as housekeeping and door-to-door services) remained limited. According to some, it failed due to resource allocation issues
After a reevaluation in 2024, the company decided to enter the market officially. It was piloted in the capital and JD planned to expand its business to coastal first-tier cities and key provinces. The company regarded the food delivery business as an important innovation and planned to invest heavily in its development.
When JD Miao Song launched, it started offering delivery for coffee and milk tea brands (including Luckin, Tim Horton’s, and Cotti) and fast-food chains like Burger King. Discounts were often more significant than on Meituan’s or the brands’ own apps. [1]
By the end of 2024, JD Miao Song had already started to add coffee and tea brands and food delivery to its offerings, while its instant retail moved beyond supermarkets to many different categories. In early 2025, most merchants in the food delivery section were large chain restaurant brands, including Papa John’s, Haidilao, etc. Recruiting large chains does not require much initial investment but requires the ability to provide sufficient traffic to the merchants. [7]
Looking back, the JD.com food delivery project has undergone a long preparation period from conception to implementation. Due to the cautious attitude of management and the emphasis on profitability, the project's official launch was eventually postponed until the beginning of 2025. In 2024, JD.com completed the formation of the food delivery team, successfully absorbed professional talents in the catering industry, and improved the service provider system. The project is led by former Meituan top manager Guo Qing, and the team members are mainly composed of former Meituan executives, who will be responsible for driving business progress and achieving important goals.
When Guo Qing joined Dada Group, he proposed a development plan that benchmarked Meituan Shangou. [2] JD's entry into the food delivery field is not only because of strategic considerations (which we will discuss below) but also because the team is fully prepared.
On February 11, 2025, JD.com officially launched JD Takeout, with delivery mainly being handled by Dada Express. [8] The JD app now includes a section called ‘Daojia’ that offers fresh food and supermarket categories, and ‘Miaosong’ for catering and supermarkets. Since Miaosong has a broader offering than Daojia, the latter brand might disappear over time. [1]
In the JD app the green shopping basket leads to JD Daojia. A menu item leads to Miao Song, where users can click on ‘quality takeaway’ to reach the takeaway screen.
JD.com is expanding its local service business in many ways. First, they mainly use the JD.com main app for traffic diversion, and relevant app menus have been opened in key cities. In addition, a new life service menu will be added to the JD.com Mall homepage to integrate various local services. This new entrance may replace existing channels but will not affect major promotional activities.
At the same time, JD.com is conducting independent testing of the "JD Takeaway" app. It also uses artificial intelligence technology to help merchants conduct live broadcasts, while service providers are responsible for the marketing function settings in the background (see ‘Outsourcing model’).
The rest of this article, which explains JD’s motivations for entering the food delivery business and its expansion plan, is available for paid subscribers only.