The Hei Mao Big Data Center, in collaboration with the Hei Mao Complaints platform, has released the "Hei Mao Complaints 2025 Annual Food Delivery Sector Complaint Data Report." This report analyzes industry trends and key issues for 2025 through complaint data, reviewing shifts in consumer trends based on changes in complaint figures.

The total number of complaints exceeded 620,000, driven by a fierce competition battle among Meituan-W (03690), Alibaba-W (09988), and JD.com (JD). In 2025, intensified competition in the food delivery industry, fueled by new entrants like JD.com and Taobao, triggered a widely watched "food delivery war." As consumer scale expanded, complaints also rose steadily. According to data from the Hei Mao Complaints platform, annual complaints related to food delivery surpassed 620,000, a year-on-year increase of 13.12%. The trend in complaint volume throughout the year showed a significant correlation with key nodes in market competition: On February 11th, JD.com's food delivery service officially launched with subsidies, marking the beginning of the food delivery war. By the end of April, Ele.me announced an investment of over ten billion yuan in subsidies, while Alibaba simultaneously upgraded its "Hourly Delivery" service to "Taobao Flash Purchase." As competition escalated comprehensively, complaint volumes for Meituan Delivery, Ele.me, and JD.com Delivery saw noticeable growth. The subsidy war attracted regulatory attention. In mid-May, the State Administration for Market Regulation convened its first meeting with several major food delivery platforms, urging legal and standardized operations, fair and orderly competition, and the effective protection of the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, platform merchants, and delivery riders to promote the standardized, healthy, and orderly development of the platform economy. Subsequently, the growth rate of complaints for Meituan Delivery and JD.com Delivery slowed. However, with the arrival of the peak summer delivery season, the food delivery war reached a fever pitch in early July. Meituan Delivery and Taobao Flash Purchase issued large quantities of high-value food delivery coupons over two consecutive weekends at the start of the month, leading to "zero-yuan purchases." The surge in orders across platforms directly resulted in a decline in service and food quality, causing complaint volumes to skyrocket. On July 18th, the State Administration for Market Regulation held a second meeting with the relevant companies, demanding further standardization of promotional activities, rational participation in competition, and joint efforts to build a positive ecosystem beneficial to consumers, merchants, delivery riders, and platform companies. Complaint volumes for Meituan Delivery and Ele.me began to fluctuate and decline. In early August, Meituan, Taobao Flash Purchase, Ele.me, and JD.com jointly announced a commitment to resist vicious competition, marking the end of the food delivery war. Complaint trends for the relevant platforms subsequently stabilized. In early December, Alibaba completed its business integration, and Ele.me was officially renamed "Taobao Flash Purchase." From this point onward, all complaints related to the Alibaba group were consolidated under "Taobao Flash Purchase."

JD.com's food delivery service achieved a complaint response rate of only 30%. In 2025, the complaint handling performance of the three major food delivery platforms showed a polarized trend. Meituan Delivery led the industry with over 400,000 complaints. Despite its complaint volume being significantly higher than that of Taobao Flash Purchase (including Ele.me) and JD.com Delivery, it maintained a high response rate of 97.65%. Taobao Flash Purchase received nearly 190,000 complaints for the year but, having directly integrated Ele.me's customer service system, also maintained the previously high response rate of Ele.me, achieving nearly 90% for the year. As a new entrant, JD.com Delivery accumulated over 30,000 complaints from February through year-end, yet its response rate was only around 30%, indicating a clear lag in handling performance and reflecting a disconnect in after-sales services during the company's internal business integration process.

Complaints from delivery riders accounted for over 60% of the total. Within food delivery complaints, more than 60% originated from the rider demographic. The issues raised primarily focused on two areas: first, unreasonable platform penalties, such as hefty fines for minor infractions like mistakenly marking an order as delivered; second, unreasonable delivery time settings that failed to adequately account for objective factors like distance and weather. Complaints from customers accounted for approximately 40%, mainly citing issues like delivery delays, incorrect addresses, spilled food, and foreign objects found in meals.

Male users filed over three-quarters of the complaints. Looking at gender distribution, complaints from male users constituted over 75% of the total, more than three times the number from female users. The primary reason for this disparity is that the rider workforce is predominantly male.

Individuals aged 20-40 formed the primary complaining demographic. In terms of age distribution, the 20-40 age group was the main source of complaints, collectively accounting for a high 87% of the total. On one hand, this age bracket concentrates both students and young professionals, two major high-consumption groups for food delivery. On the other hand, delivery riders are also primarily composed of young and middle-aged adults.

Complaints were predominantly from major economic and populous provinces. Geographically, the top five regions by complaint share were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, and Henan. These areas are all economically developed and densely populated provinces where demand for food delivery is generally high.

Finally, Hei Mao once again reminds all consumers: Hei Mao Complaints assists consumers in resolving disputes without charging any fees. Any entity claiming to be the platform's official channel or a partner and requesting payment to resolve a complaint is engaging in impersonation or fraud. Consumers are urged to remain vigilant, promptly report such accounts to the official platform, and contact the police. After initiating a complaint on the Hei Mao platform, the dispute resolution process involves direct communication between the complained-about enterprise and the consumer. The Hei Mao platform will not have customer service representatives proactively contact users to assist with refunds! We also advise everyone to use official channels to resolve consumer disputes and not to trust third-party organizations or individuals offering proxy refund services to avoid being scammed. If you encounter fraud, please report it to the police immediately. The current official channels through which consumers can file complaints are: The "Hei Mao Complaints" official website (https://tousu.sina.com.cn/) The "Hei Mao Complaints" client app (please download from official app stores) The "Hei Mao Complaints" mini-program (available on WeChat, Baidu, Alipay, Douyin, Kuaishou, and DingTalk) If you discover impersonator accounts, you can send the account information to the official Hei Mao email: heimaotousu@vip.sina.com To prevent personal information leakage and fraud, please note the following: 1. Before submitting a complaint, carefully check whether your text and image evidence expose private information such as your name, contact details, address, order number, or tracking number. If submitted images contain private information, please obscure the images or apply mosaic blurring in advance. 2. Choose official channels to resolve consumer disputes. Do not trust dispute resolution methods, contact information, or accounts claiming to be staff provided via private messages or comments within the platform. Do not casually add strangers via QQ or WeChat, and be especially wary of statements like "pay a fee for priority handling" or "we have special channels to help process refunds." 3. Do not provide strangers with your bank card number, password, ID number, verification codes, or other sensitive information. Never transfer money via QR codes or unfamiliar links to prevent being scammed. If you encounter fraud, report it to the police promptly. 4. Be highly cautious of calls from overseas numbers starting with 00, and do not easily trust the displayed caller name. 5. After a legitimate company's customer service handles a complaint, refunds are typically processed through the consumer's original payment channel. If the other party requests a refund through alternative means like QQ, Alipay, WeChat, or website links, be vigilant and avoid providing personal information or performing transfers for so-called "unfreezing fees," "verification fees," or "security deposits." To concentrate resources and efforts on serving you better, Hei Mao Complaints currently only accepts complaints related to disputes encountered during actual consumption. We appreciate your understanding and support.

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