Nearly five months after Taobao Flash Purchase entered the food delivery battle, the in-store group buying business that the market expected Alibaba to launch has finally arrived.

Sources indicate that on September 20th, Taobao Flash Purchase's in-store group buying service will begin pilot operations in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Jiaxing, with full rollout to follow. Similar to the food delivery business, the in-store group buying service will be jointly operated by Taobao Flash Purchase and Ele.me, launching simultaneously across Taobao, Alipay, and Amap - Alibaba's three largest traffic portals within its ecosystem.

This move marks Alibaba's formal comprehensive challenge to MEITUAN-W's core businesses.

However, Amap, which was thrust into the spotlight 10 days ago, will not serve as the primary operating entity for Alibaba's in-store group buying business. In Alibaba's renewed push into in-store group buying, Amap's role extends beyond traffic generation to include its "Street Scanning Rankings" launched 10 days prior, similar to Meituan's Dianping rankings. This was viewed as Alibaba's first step in launching its in-store group buying business.

The unveiling of this enhanced in-store group buying strategy officially confirms that Alibaba will not be reviving Koubei, the platform that previously hosted its local services business.

In fact, Taobao's plans to enter in-store group buying have been an open secret in the industry. Multiple industry insiders revealed on social platforms in August that Taobao Flash Purchase would launch in-store group buying services. However, a restaurant industry insider noted that Taobao's business personnel had originally indicated an earlier launch date, which was postponed to September 20th due to various reasons.

From Alibaba's upgrade of its instant retail business "Hourly Delivery" under Taotian to "Taobao Flash Purchase" on April 30th, to Amap's launch of Street Scanning Rankings on September 10th, and now the upcoming in-store group buying service, Alibaba's local services puzzle is becoming increasingly complete.

Clearly, Alibaba's push into in-store group buying represents a crucial step in its local services strategy, aimed at building a comprehensive "delivery + in-store" ecosystem that directly targets Meituan's profit stronghold while seeking new growth curves for its core e-commerce business.

Amap fired the first shot for Alibaba's enhanced in-store group buying push. On September 10th, Amap launched the "Street Scanning Rankings," allowing users to rate and rank merchants comprehensively. Currently, the rankings cover multiple business categories, with champion lists for must-try foods, must-visit attractions, and must-stay hotels, while street scanning lists include local shops and regional specialties.

According to the introduction, the key feature of Amap's Street Scanning Rankings is its calculation based on 1.3 billion navigation instances by 51.32 million users over the past year, covering 22.8 billion kilometers, filtering through 1.18 million stores that users repeatedly visited, combined with authentic reviews calculated using Sesame Credit.

Simultaneously, Amap launched the "Local Gem Support Program," distributing over 1 billion yuan in subsidies to encourage in-store consumption.

At the launch event, Amap CEO Guo Ning declared: "Amap Street Scanning Rankings will never be commercialized. Authenticity is the core vitality of the rankings. The primary goal of Street Scanning Rankings is to genuinely reflect user choices."

Morgan Stanley analysts Gary Yu and Joanne Lau noted in a recent research report that the "Amap Street Scanning Rankings" model closely resembles Meituan's Dianping, signaling Alibaba's clear intention to re-enter local services and reshape the competitive landscape in local life services.

So what gives Alibaba the confidence to challenge Meituan, the industry leader in in-store group buying?

Great Wall Securities analysts believe that in-store and delivery services have certain synergistic effects, such as shared merchant resources between in-store and food delivery. Additionally, in-store consumption scenarios are less complex than delivery services, eliminating fulfillment and delivery components, thus offering greater profit margins.

Clearly, the achievements in food delivery over recent months have bolstered Alibaba's confidence in expanding into in-store services.

During the August earnings call, Alibaba China E-commerce Business Group CEO Jiang Fan provided the first detailed explanation of the Taobao Flash Purchase strategy. He noted that Taobao Flash Purchase exceeded expectations in order volume, user scale, merchant supply, and delivery capacity, with food delivery orders achieving industry-leading positions. Taobao Flash Purchase has surpassed expectations in achieving phased goals for scale and mindshare, with long-term plans to achieve industry-leading efficiency.

According to reports, in August, Taobao Flash Purchase's daily peak orders reached 120 million, with weekly average daily orders of 80 million, driving overall flash purchase monthly transacting buyers to 300 million - a 200% increase compared to April.

From the merchant supply perspective, Jiang Fan revealed that with rapid business growth, numerous new merchants joined Taobao Flash Purchase, with high-quality supply reaching industry-leading levels.

For Taobao's core e-commerce business, food delivery represents good business, with the first three weeks of August driving a 25% year-over-year increase in monthly active consumers on the Taobao app. Jiang Fan projected that over the next three years, with millions of brand stores joining, flash purchase and instant retail will generate 1 trillion yuan in incremental transactions for the Taobao platform.

Building a comprehensive consumer platform now represents a strategic priority alongside "AI + Cloud" at the Alibaba Group level. As a crucial component of the comprehensive consumer platform, Alibaba Group's commitment to investing in in-store group buying business is expected to be substantial.

Extending from food delivery to in-store services, defending champion Meituan is also actively counterattacking. This epic battle in local life services may not reach its conclusion anytime soon.