China’s Lunar New Year table — historically a household affair — has quietly become a battleground for instant retail. This year JD’s delivery arm, Alibaba’s Taobao Flash Sale and market leader Meituan are treating the New Year’s Eve feast as a strategic growth scenario, each adopting distinct tactics to capture customers who prefer convenience over cooking.
JD has pushed a service-first play, rolling out nationwide pre-ordering for set New Year’s menus across major chains and promising one-to-one urgent delivery on the night itself. Meituan has taken a more incremental route, creating a dedicated “main hall” for New Year’s sets, tightening the reservation path and encouraging restaurants to pursue both dine-in and delivery revenue. Taobao Flash Sale is leaning on targeted, low-key subsidies to win price-sensitive buyers and to boost volume during peak hours.
The operational edge in this fight lies with the delivery riders. Platforms have introduced measures such as capacity locking, specially flagged orders, and heated meal boxes to meet higher accuracy and timing demands. Those operational tweaks reflect a recognition that the core technical problem is not order capture but guaranteeing the user experience for an occasion where timing and temperature matter.
Riders’ behavior has shifted accordingly. Increasing numbers are choosing to remain in cities rather than return home, drawn by elevated peak-hour pay and platform bonuses. Several riders interviewed — using pseudonyms at their request — described substantially higher earnings on festival days, with some part-timers and gig riders preferring to work through the holiday rather than head home. The practice of carrying multiple orders simultaneously has intensified, underscoring pressures on safety and delivery quality even as incomes rise temporarily.
Consumer habits are changing too: younger family members are exerting greater influence on ordering decisions, and the convenience of pre-packaged banquet sets appeals to households that lack kitchen space or time. The same set menus can end up costing different amounts across platforms after subsidies and coupon stacks, turning price comparison into a tactical exercise for consumers and platforms alike.
The strategic backdrop limits how far platforms can go to win this business. Meituan’s recent profit warning for 2025 — a large net loss driven by aggressive ecosystem investment — is a reminder that the era of open-ended subsidy wars is over. Industry experts and scholars say the market will shift from indiscriminate cash-burning to refined, scenario-based operations where platforms target specific occasions (like New Year’s Eve or late-night snacks) rather than broad market share by price alone.
That recalibration matters beyond a single holiday. For restaurants, the growth of festive delivery offers a new revenue stream but increases dependence on platform logistics and margin-slicing promotions. For workers, short-term pay bumps during festivals can mask long-term precariousness and safety trade-offs. For platforms and investors, the question will be whether differentiated services, deeper user understanding and tighter operational controls can deliver growth without repeating the painful losses of previous cycles.