Chinese People Are Waiting for a Takeout Hero

It has been a while since the Chinese public was so invested in the country’s business world.

JD.com, a trusted e-commerce and electronics retailer among China’s middle class, launched a full-on challenge to Meituan, the food delivery platform that millions of Chinese depend on for their daily meals.

On February 19, JD.com officially announced its entry into the food delivery sector, aiming to hire 100,000 full-time couriers and promising full social insurance benefits. This move struck at Meituan’s weakest point—despite operating in food delivery for over a decade, Meituan had made no significant efforts to offer employee benefits until JD.com’s challenge. Although Meituan quickly unveiled a benefits plan in response, it had already lost the first round.

JD.com’s second strike came recently with more aggressive tactics: it pledged to waive commissions for restaurants for one year, offered customers a full refund if orders were 20 minutes late, and set aside 10 billion RMB in subsidies. Combined, JD.com is reportedly losing at least 20 million RMB per day.

The fierce competition between these titans has left onlookers torn. While many criticize Meituan publicly, they secretly doubt JD.com’s chances of winning. This complex sentiment reflects not only the business logic of Chinese internet firms and today’s development realities, but also Chinese people’s beliefs about business ethics.

The Backstories of Meituan and JD.com

Let’s start with the companies’ leaders.

Meituan’s founder, Wang Xing, was born in 1979 into a wealthy family in Fujian. A Tsinghua graduate with a background in science and engineering, he later studied in the U.S. By the time he left China, his father’s cement factory was already worth over 1 billion RMB. Wang enjoys theater and conversations with free-spirited entrepreneurs, reflecting something of a Silicon Valley elite.

Meituan founder: Wang Xing.

Wang is well-acquainted with failure, having spent years in the internet sector before Meituan. Over the years, he has battled deep-pocketed rivals like Baidu, Douyin (TikTok’s parent company), and Kuaishou. Today, only Alibaba’s Ele.me remains as a major competitor.

Perhaps because he’s used to winning, Wang seemed complacent this time. He reportedly didn’t even form a special task force to counter JD.com.

Of course, Meituan has reasons to be confident. It dominates China’s food delivery market with a 70% share, compared to Ele.me’s 30%. Meituan offers access to over 30,000 restaurants and has spent years refining an algorithm to help its 7 million couriers complete as many orders as possible in the shortest time. It has also invested 2-3 billion RMB to upgrade its dispatch system, ensuring at least a three-year advantage over newcomers.

But these alone aren’t enough. Meituan’s core competitive edge lies in its massive order volume.

Food delivery isn’t a high-margin business. According to JPMorgan, the global net profit margin in this sector is just 2.2%, with Meituan’s around 2.8%. With similar cost structures, higher order volumes lower per-order costs. Estimates suggest that for every additional 10 million orders, costs drop by around 20%. Profitability only comes from scale.

Meituan suffered losses for seven years before turning a profit. Ele.me, in contrast, has lost money for 17 years. Meituan handles 70 to 80 million orders per day, while Ele.me handles only a quarter of that. Meituan makes an estimated 0.7–0.8 RMB per order; Ele.me loses around 2 RMB and posted a 10 billion RMB loss last year.

With the market already tight, JD.com has no choice but to offer steep discounts.

Some insiders estimate JD.com is currently losing 10 RMB per order, subsidizing 5 million orders a day, amounting to 50 million RMB in daily losses. Even if JD.com catches up to Ele.me’s volume of 20 million daily orders, it would still lose 100 million RMB per day. For comparison, JD.com made over 40 billion RMB in profit last year.

No wonder Meituan appears unfazed. Insiders say that during JD.com’s fierce push in April, Wang Xing focused most of his energy on AI and humanoid robotics. He met with several prominent global AI scientists and attended nearly all internal meetings about drones, robots, and AI models. During this period, Meituan’s self-developed fourth-generation drone also received China’s first low-altitude logistics operating license. Wang’s plan is to boost efficiency through AI and automation.

Wang Xing’s vision for food delivery includes using drones to improve delivery efficiency.

The Jianghu Code

Now, let’s talk about JD.com.

Its founder, Richard Liu (Liu Qiangdong), was born in a rural village in Jiangsu’s Suqian County and was the county’s top scorer in the college entrance exam. When he went to university in Beijing, he carried 76 eggs and 500 RMB from his village. After graduation, he started by selling CDs under the slogan “Ten times compensation for fake products.” JD.com grew, and Liu often made headlines for his generosity toward employees. He also liked to refer to frontline workers as “brothers.” In line with the image of a Jianghu boss , Liu married a woman 20 years his junior and was once embroiled in a scandal.

On April 21, Liu Qiangdong put on a JD.com uniform and delivered food orders himself. Afterward, he treated the delivery workers to hotpot and said, “I’m especially happy to see all of you brothers today.”

He is a man who sticks to his “principles”. For example, despite unfavorable conditions and past industry failures, he insists on challenging Meituan by offering higher costs.

According to Liu, JD.com will offer full-time couriers “five insurances and one housing fund,” which include pension, medical, unemployment, work injury, maternity insurance, and a housing fund. In today’s Chinese labor market, this is rare. Fewer than one-fourth of Chinese workers have full social insurance, yet it is desperately needed by the grassroots.

Forbes estimated that if JD.com recruits all 100,000 couriers, the added cost for full benefits would be 3.5 billion RMB.

Compared to Meituan’s 7 million couriers, JD.com’s 100,000 is a manageable number. But it demonstrates a progressive value to outsiders.
Chinese people have been burned too many times by the “profit-driven nature of capitalism.” In the food delivery sector alone, years of unchecked growth have created serious ethical issues.

Platforms failed to vet restaurants properly, resulting in inconsistent food quality and questionable hygiene. Algorithms focused excessively on speed, pressuring couriers to run red lights to avoid fines. And despite their hard labor, these workers received no social benefits for years. While platforms have improved reward and punishment systems, the pace and scale of reforms have been slow—too slow for many.

This is why so many people want Liu Qiangdong to win.

They know that at the heart of this business war lies a fight for profit. Neither Meituan nor JD.com is flawless. For instance, while Meituan gradually removed fines for late deliveries, JD.com still fines up to 400 RMB for delays. Liu’s pledge of full benefits has also seen implementation issues.

Still, public support for Liu goes beyond reason—it reflects a projection of people’s hopes.

Wrapped-Up Business Stories from China

Let’s step back from this ongoing battle to reflect on two other notable Chinese business stories.

On April 22, China’s e-commerce platforms canceled the “refund without return” policy. In 2021, this policy was introduced to China by Pinduoduo, the parent company of Temu. Specifically, if customers were dissatisfied after receiving an online purchase, they could receive a full refund without having to return the item.

Initially, it reassured customers wary of Pinduoduo’s cheap, low-quality products. The platform even covered some refund costs. But over time, it became a tool to rapidly expand user base and challenge industry giants. It also opened the door for fraudsters to exploit sellers. As a result, its cancellation was met with relief rather than regret.

Another story comes from the small city of Xuchang in Hebei Province, where a chubby supermarket owner named Yu Donglai has become a retail legend.

His “Pang Dong Lai” supermarkets disclose both retail prices and profit margins. Employees work only six hours a day and can take “unhappiness leave.” When a customer complained about food hygiene, he not only rectified the issue but rewarded the customer with 100,000 RMB.

The price tags at Pangdonglai Supermarket display both the purchase price and the selling price.

Despite going viral online, Pang Dong Lai has only 13 stores, all within Hebei. Its net profit margin is around 4.7%. In 2023, supermarket janitors earned a monthly post-tax salary of 7,000 RMB. In contrast, Walmart’s 2024 net profit margin was 2.39%, and its frontline workers in China earned 4,000–6,000 RMB.

After the two stories conclude—the retreat of the “refund only” policy and the rise to fame of Pang Donglai—a clear picture of the commercial ethics valued by the Chinese people begins to emerge through this interplay of retreat and advance.

Returning to the competition within China’s food delivery platforms: subsidies will eventually run out, and technology will inevitably hit bottlenecks. What form the next era of food delivery will take is difficult for ordinary people to predict. After all, today’s business giants may be locked in a life-and-death struggle, only to passionately embrace each other the next moment.

But some things are not easily changed. If a business is intertwined with the livelihoods of millions of Chinese people and their lives decades into the future, it’s hard to imagine it running counter to the life that the people of this country dream of.

Editor: Zhongxiaowen