Following the food delivery war that began in April, three major internet platforms are now simultaneously making new moves in the offline discount retail sector.

The internet food delivery battle may be transforming into an offline discount war.

On August 30, JD.com discount supermarkets opened four stores simultaneously in Suqian, the hometown of company founder Liu Qiangdong. JD.com stated that these discount supermarkets are backed by JD.com's supply chain system, with many specialty products sourced directly from origins and shipped from source locations, eliminating intermediary markups. The day before on August 29, Liu Qiangdong also appeared in Suqian to build momentum for the supermarket openings.

Besides JD.com, MEITUAN-W and Hema have also made recent moves. On August 29, MEITUAN-W's self-operated supermarket Happy Monkey opened its first store in Hangzhou. While not directly labeled as a discount store, it also highlights "good products at good prices" as a key feature. On the same day, Hema NB announced a rebranding to "Super Box NB."

Following the food delivery war that began in April, these three internet platforms are now simultaneously updating their strategies in the offline discount retail sector.

From a market perspective, offline retail has undergone adjustments over the past few years, creating opportunities for platform entry. Data from the China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA) shows that China's top 100 supermarket chains reduced their store count by 2,750 locations in 2024, a 9.8% year-over-year decline.

Zhuang Shuai, founder of Bailink Consulting and retail e-commerce industry expert, told reporters that in the "hard discount" sector, several platforms can engage in differentiated competition by leveraging their core private label development capabilities. The difficulty for consumers to compare prices on differentiated products provides development space for platforms. Additionally, platforms can leverage their accumulated supply chain systems and front warehouse models from online channels to create synergies with offline operations, enhancing user stickiness and expanding instant retail business.

Since this year, JD.com has made multiple moves in offline business. In March, JD.com announced that JD Seven Fresh would focus on key deployment in Tianjin, adding 20 warehouse stores by the end of June. In May, JD.com Mall, JD.com's home appliance and furniture one-stop consumer brand, successively launched in Nanjing and Beijing. On June 18, JD.com's first restaurant physical infrastructure project, Seven Fresh Food Mall, opened its flagship store in Harbin.

JD.com's offline deployment leverages its self-operated system as a core strength. JD.com's significant offline expansion aims to strengthen its supply chain system while connecting with instant retail business. These platforms are competing for instant retail through offline retail development, building "integrated store-warehouse-network" systems.

In Zhuang Shuai's view, JD.com's discount supermarket deployment is not merely a test but a planned heavy investment. He notes that as online retail growth space has peaked, and traditional offline supermarkets have experienced store closures in recent years, this has created space for online platforms to develop offline retail. Meanwhile, online platforms possess capital, users, technology, brand merchant resources, delivery capabilities, and ecosystem advantages, giving them opportunities to create differentiation through various formats in the stock era and consolidate their platform positions.

JD.com has not yet disclosed plans for how many discount supermarkets it intends to open. Zhuang Shuai suggests that if referencing Super Box NB's current scale of 300 stores, opening hundreds of JD.com discount supermarkets would not be surprising, with subsequent expansion scale depending on the operating performance of JD.com discount supermarkets.

Currently, the retail industry's focus has shifted from middle-class consumption to "hard discount." German discount supermarket Aldi currently operates more than 50 stores in Shanghai. CCFA data shows that Aldi's domestic sales grew 100% year-over-year in 2024, with store count increasing 10% year-over-year.