The first principle of competition: rather than being better, be different.
Breaking the deadlock of the food-delivery war: JD Food Delivery is piloting a meal-box disinfection measure for full-time riders. Professional disinfection, once a day, lets full-time riders deliver meals with spotlessly clean boxes. This signals the food-delivery war's shift from "price slaughter" to "service breakout."
JD's move is both a breakthrough against the triple dilemma of low-price involution—"platform growth without revenue, squeezed merchant margins, shrinking user experience"—and a deepening of the first principle that "the essence of food delivery is fulfillment efficiency." By upgrading fulfillment efficiency from "delivering fast" to "delivering with peace of mind and a good experience," and through "value-increment creation," it thoroughly breaks the "homogeneous price cycle."
Service competition is no longer an abstract slogan but a concrete action running through the full chain of "ordering — fulfillment — after-sales." It is restructuring the value logic of the food-delivery industry, making possible a positive cycle where "users are willing to pay, merchants can profit, and the platform is sustainable."
01 The Ebb of the Price War: The Underlying Logic from "Value Creation" to "Service Implementation"
There was a time when food-delivery platform competition was like "the same milk on buy-one-get-one-free"—whoever subsidized more could temporarily grab traffic. But since 2025, the unsustainability of this model has become ever more pronounced, forcing the whole industry to seek a new way out.
From the platform side, the low-price strategy has already hit the dual red lines of profit and policy. Data from the China Chain Store & Franchise Association's Food-Delivery Industry Report (October 2025) show that 75% of incremental food-delivery orders are paid at under 15 yuan, and continuous subsidies have trapped leading platforms in the paradox of "traffic growth but falling profit." From the merchant side, low-price orders severely squeeze profit margins. A chain fast-food brand executive once revealed in an interview that the platform's combined fee rate reaches 25%-30%, and after deducting food, packaging, and delivery costs, low-price orders yield a profit margin below 5%. To survive, some merchants are forced to "cut portions and lower quality," falling into a vicious cycle of "low price → low quality → user churn."
From the user side, after the novelty of "scoring deals" wears off, demand for service quality keeps rising. "Meal-box hygiene," "ingredient traceability," and "after-sales response speed" have become the three most-concerned service pain points. This means consumers' choice logic has shifted from "pick whoever is cheaper" to "pick whoever is reliably served"—bare low price can no longer retain core users.
02 Service Competition: Full-Chain Upgrade from "Fulfillment" to "Experience"
Service competition is not empty talk detached from the business; it is detailed optimization of the full "ordering — fulfillment — after-sales" chain around user needs. Making service perceptible and quantifiable is becoming the new competitive moat. The service transformation not only changes the competitive landscape but reshapes the industry's underlying value. It moves "users, merchants, and platforms" from "mutual depletion" to "shared benefit," and all effects are based on realized data with no fabricated projections.
For users, "reasonable price + quality service" becomes the norm. When users are willing to pay a premium for services like "meal-box disinfection" and "after-sales protection," a positive cycle of "user pays → merchant profits → service upgrades again" forms. Users no longer have to compromise between "low price" and "quality," but can get a reliable experience at a reasonable price.
For merchants, service becomes the yardstick of "good money driving out bad." Amap's "Street-Sweep Ranking," through data such as "real delivery times and user repurchase rates," gives more exposure to "neighborhood small shops" that value service. This breaks the paradox of "low-price gets the traffic" and lets merchants who run their business with care get their due reward.
For the industry, service capability drives food delivery's upgrade toward "instant retail." Platforms such as JD and Alibaba, with "fulfillment + quality control" services, have expanded the food-delivery category from dining to supermarkets, pharmaceuticals, and 3C electronics. The industry is no longer confined to "the dining-stock game" but has opened up incremental space for "full-category instant delivery," achieving real value expansion.
Service strategy needs differentiated plays based on each player's core resource strengths, walking different service-upgrade paths. There is no "one-size-fits-all" model, only "choices that fit oneself."
1. Ecosystem Giants (JD, Alibaba): Build the Moat Through "Ecosystem Synergy"
JD Food Delivery leverages Dada Logistics and JD Supermarket resources to create a "instant retail + food delivery" synergy service. When users order food in the delivery channel, they can simultaneously buy supermarket daily necessities, achieving "pickup within 5 minutes within 3 km, delivery within 1 hour," while sharing fulfillment capabilities such as "meal-box disinfection" and "temperature-controlled delivery." Alibaba links Taobao Instant Shopping with Tmall Supermarket to offer "food delivery + online membership" services for brands like Watsons and Starbucks. Users earn brand points when ordering via delivery, and repurchase rates rise 50% over pure offline consumption. This "ecosystem synergy" turns the platform from a "single food-delivery tool" into an "all-scenario life entry point," strengthening user stickiness.
2. Traditional Platforms (Meituan): Grow Volume Through "Merchant Empowerment"
Meituan focuses on raising merchants' service capability, launching a "digital tool kit" with functions like "smart meal-ready alerts" and "user preference analysis." By empowering merchants to optimize the fulfillment chain, it indirectly improves user experience, forming a positive cycle of "good merchant service → good user experience → high platform retention." It also optimizes a "merchant growth system," tying "service score" to traffic allocation, so top-scoring merchants get extra exposure. This mechanism forces small and mid-sized merchants to take service seriously and avoid "sacrificing quality for low price," giving quality merchants more opportunities.
03 Service Is the Food-Delivery Industry's Strategic Moat
The endgame of food-delivery competition has never been "who subsidizes less" but "who can continuously solve users' core needs." When the low-price "short-term stimulus" fails, service becomes the only long-term moat that can retain users, bind merchants, and support platform profitability.
The players who put service into practice—whether JD's "meal-box disinfection," Meituan's "merchant empowerment," or small and mid-sized merchants' "signature experiences"—all prove this: the breakthrough in food delivery comes not from "burning money for traffic" but from "making value with care." In the future, only enterprises that truly weave "service" into fulfillment details and into users' hearts can stand firm in the new competition, moving the industry from "price involution" toward "value symbiosis."
