# instant retail
Latest news and articles about instant retail
Total: 2 articles found
Why JD’s Drive into Car Sales May Be the Wrong Route to Beat Meituan
JD.com and Meituan have turned car sales into a new competitive front, reflecting a deeper battle for high-frequency user engagement in China’s instant-retail era. While both platforms see vehicle retail as an entry to lucrative aftermarket services, JD may achieve faster gains by prioritising daily-use services like shared bikes to boost app open rates rather than doubling down on selling cars or high-barrier travel businesses.
Alibaba’s Qianwen Moves Beyond Chat: One-Sentence Food Orders Signal a New Front in AI-Driven Commerce
Alibaba’s Qianwen AI has been upgraded into a transactional agent, enabling one-sentence food orders by routing natural-language intent to Taobao Flash Purchase agents. The feature marks a strategic pivot from chat to commerce, testing whether AI can become a reliable front door to instant retail within Alibaba’s ecosystem.