TikTok has joined the battle of instant retail.

After entering the food delivery market, Douyin has now joined the instant retail track dominated by giants.

Recently, Douyin added an independent entrance for "hourly delivery" on its platform. Users can reach the corresponding page by searching for "hourly delivery" on Douyin. In addition, there is also an entrance for "hourly delivery" at the top of the Douyin Double Eleven channel.

This means that Douyin is increasing its presence in the instant retail track by improving the entrance weight.

In fact, Douyin has been exploring "hourly delivery" for over a year, expanding from Shenzhen and Guangzhou last year to Wuhan, Tianjin, and other places this year. Although it is still in the early stages, the pace of expansion is clearly accelerating.

In terms of timing, the Double Eleven promotion is already underway. By adding "hourly delivery" at this time, Douyin can not only seize market share during the Double Eleven event but also test its business capabilities during the promotion, killing two birds with one stone.

It is understood that Douyin's "hourly delivery" has launched a joint promotion with Douyin Mall for the Double Eleven event, offering goods starting from 0.1 yuan. In addition, there are value-for-money discounts and one-item discounts. So far, Douyin's "hourly delivery" has partnered with local stores such as Yonghui Supermarket, Dingdong Maicai, Wumart Supermarket, and Qixian Supermarket.

With the slowdown in the growth rate of the e-commerce market, instant retail is considered to be the new source of growth in the e-commerce market. According to the "Instant Retail Industry Development Report" released by the Ministry of Commerce, the average annual growth rate of instant retail has remained above 50% in recent years. By 2022, the market size of instant retail has reached 504.286 billion yuan, and it is expected to triple compared to last year by 2025.

Douyin clearly sees great opportunities in this market and with its massive daily active user base of over 700 million, it has the confidence to enter the instant retail track.

"The prospects for Douyin's expansion into the hourly delivery business look promising." said Bai Wenxi, Chief Economist of IPG China. With its large user base and wide range of users, Douyin has the potential to become a new growth curve by cooperating with major instant retail platforms on top of its e-commerce business.

However, despite the promising market prospects for instant retail, it also faces significant challenges. Currently, the instant retail track is already one of the core battlefields for internet giants, with Meituan, JD.com, Alibaba, and others having already made their moves.

According to data from CICC International, Meituan, including Meituan Flash Purchase (platform) and Meituan Grocery (self-operated warehouse), had a total sales volume of 160 billion yuan in 2022, ranking first. Next is Ele.me (excluding food delivery), with an estimated transaction scale of 108 billion yuan, followed by JD Daojia, with a total transaction scale of 63 billion yuan.

The data from this institution shows that the above three giants already occupy 75% of the market share. In other words, for Douyin to cut a slice of the instant retail market, it needs to defeat these powerful opponents first.

Douyin's "hourly delivery" still has a considerable gap in terms of capacity and consumer awareness compared to its competitors. Bai Wenxi believes that although Douyin's hourly delivery business has become independent and expanded in scale, it still needs to establish a more complete logistics system and delivery service to meet the demands of instant retail. In addition, Douyin needs to ensure that the delivery speed and service quality meet user expectations in order to provide a good shopping experience.In terms of consumer mindset, it will take time to gradually cultivate the conversion of Douyin's huge traffic into "hourly delivery" consumers. In addition, finding a balance between content ecology and commercialization demands is also a challenging task.

For Douyin, instant retail is a track where opportunities and challenges coexist, and whether it can seize this opportunity still needs more time to be validated.

With its huge traffic advantage, Douyin has successfully leveraged the e-commerce market and has accumulated a deep foundation in commercialization. Whether Douyin can continue to replicate this success, disrupt the established pattern of instant retail, will depend on its determination and subsequent moves.

In conclusion, the new war has already begun.