Written by Philip Chen, CEO of Gentlemen Marketing Agency (GMA). I’ve spent the last ten years helping foreign brands sell into China, and on-demand services are one of the fastest-moving parts of this market right now. Here is what changed since we first wrote about this topic, and what it means for your brand.
In China, on-demand door-to-door services have become the go-to solution for people’s daily needs. Whether it’s getting food delivered, a stranger’s phone screen fixed at home, or a bag of rice showing up in twenty minutes, these services now touch almost every part of daily life in Chinese cities.
Locals call this 到家服务 (daojia fuwu), which just means “to your door” services. You will also hear the word 同城 (tongcheng), meaning “same city”, used to describe delivery that happens inside one city, often in under an hour. Both terms are worth knowing if you plan to talk to a Chinese platform, agency, or supplier.
The Chinese On-Demand Market in 2026
The market has moved far past food delivery and pet sitting. The part growing the fastest today is called 即时零售 (jishi lingshou), or “instant retail”: ordering almost anything, not just meals, and getting it at your door within the hour. Several Chinese data trackers now put this instant retail market on track to cross the 1 trillion yuan mark in 2026, with some quarters showing growth above 28% year over year.
Three platforms now split most of this market: Meituan Shangou (美团闪购) holds roughly the biggest share, JD Daojia (京东到家) is a strong second, especially for electronics and baby products, and Ele.me / Taobao Shangou holds most of the rest. Together they cover the large majority of instant retail orders in China. If your product sells well on Tmall or JD.com already, there is a good chance it belongs on these platforms too.
Behind the scenes, this speed is possible because of what platforms call 闪电仓 (“lightning warehouses”), small dark stores placed inside neighborhoods instead of on the edge of the city. China now has tens of thousands of these small warehouses, and the average delivery time across the industry has dropped from around 28 minutes to about 22 minutes in the past couple of years. That is the new bar. If your fulfillment plan cannot beat 30 minutes in a city like Shanghai or Shenzhen, you are already behind local players.
Why Door-to-Door Services in China Are Still Growing
The old reasons still hold: convenience, competitive pricing, and busy city life. But three newer drivers matter just as much in 2026.
First, younger consumers now expect instant delivery as the default, not a bonus. Gen Z shoppers in China rarely wait more than a day for anything, and many now order household basics the same way they order a coffee. Second, the “silver economy” is growing fast: older residents, especially those living alone, are one of the biggest new groups ordering medicine, groceries, and home repair visits through delivery apps. Third, lower-tier cities and counties are now the new growth area, not first-tier cities. Platforms are pushing riders and dark stores into third-tier and county-level markets, where instant retail is still new and growing much faster than in Shanghai or Beijing.
The rider numbers back this up. Mobile data trackers report that gig delivery riders working through Meituan’s crowdsource network, Ele.me’s Fengniao network, JD’s instant delivery riders, and SF’s same-city riders have all grown faster in third-tier cities and below than in the big four cities over the past year, with some of these rider networks up more than 10% in those smaller markets. That is a simple, practical signal: if your China plan only covers Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, you may already be missing where a good part of the new demand is coming from.
One more sign of how far this has come: as of May 2026, Meituan’s drone delivery moved from test mode to normal daily service in several cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and even Dubai, with over 900,000 orders delivered by drone so far. You do not need drones to sell in China, but it shows how much money and engineering effort is going into shaving minutes off delivery time.
Different Types of On-Demand Services
Food and Grocery Delivery
When you live in a busy city like Shanghai, everything needs to move fast, and that is where door-to-door service comes in. Are you at work at lunchtime, or too tired to cook after a long day? Food delivery is the answer, wherever you are.
There are apps to suit everyone’s needs. Some of the biggest are Meituan Waimai, Ele.me, and Baidu Waimai. Their strong point is fast delivery, with a wide choice of restaurants and payment methods such as WeChat Pay, Alipay, or cash. This is a real time saver for busy people, and it is also true now for groceries, not just meals: platforms like Meituan Shangou and JD Daojia deliver fresh produce, rice, drinks, and household goods from nearby stores in around 20 to 30 minutes, the same way they used to deliver only takeout.
Home Cleaning and Repair Services
This category barely existed when we first covered this topic, and now it is one of the biggest. Booking a cleaner, an appliance repair technician, an air conditioner check-up, or even a plumber through an app is now normal in most Chinese cities. Chinese consulting firms now put the wider home service market, which includes cleaning, childcare, and elder care, on track to pass 1.3 trillion yuan by 2026, up from around 1.16 trillion yuan just a few years ago.
What is interesting for foreign brands is who is doing this work. Many of the workers on these platforms today are young, in their twenties, and treat it like a normal job with a mobile app, not a side gig. Some earn well above 10,000 yuan a month in cleaning and home organizing work. This matters because it changes how the service is marketed: it is no longer sold as a cheap favor, it is sold as a trained, professional visit, often with before-and-after photos posted on social media.
Pet Sitter
Are you busy, or traveling, and don’t have time to take care of your pet? Many Chinese pet owners turn to pet-sitting services for exactly this reason.
One well-known example is Maoxiang, a mini program built inside WeChat, where people apply to become part-time pet sitters after filling out a short questionnaire, then start taking bookings. Maoxiang built a base of over 500,000 users and around 3,000 pet sitters, and this small-app model has since been copied across other home service categories, from dog walking to plant watering while owners are away.
Home Beautician
Feel like doing your nails, your hair, or your skincare, but running low on time, or looking for some privacy at home? In China, more people are calling professionals to take care of them at home instead of visiting a salon.
In this video, Mrs. Zhao, a working mother of two, gets her regular two hours of chill time: hair washed by a home beautician, scalp care with herbs, a head massage, and gray hair removal. Mrs. Zhao books this home service once a month, and she does not mind paying a little more for it. You can even book a haircut at home now. That kind of routine, paid, repeat booking is exactly what makes this category interesting for personal care brands, not just service providers.
How Instant Retail Changes the Game for Foreign Brands
For years, the advice to foreign brands was simple: get on Tmall or JD.com, then wait for orders to ship from a warehouse a few days later. Instant retail adds a second, faster shelf. Your product can now sit on a nearby dark store’s virtual shelf and reach a shopper’s door in under 30 minutes, the same way a bottle of water does. For gifting, personal care, small electronics, supplements, and baby products, this speed changes buying behavior: people order on impulse, right before a dinner, a date, or a holiday, instead of planning ahead.
To sell this way, a foreign brand normally needs local stock sitting inside China, usually through a distributor, franchise partner, or a store already registered on Meituan Shangou or JD Daojia. This is different from cross-border stores like Tmall Global, where stock can sit overseas and ship in slower. Instant retail works best once your brand already has some presence and demand in China. It is a strong second step, not usually the first one.
In practice, we usually walk a brand through three questions before recommending instant retail. Do you already have a partner or distributor with physical stock inside China? Is your product something a shopper would want within the hour, a gift, a top-up, a fix for something broken, rather than something they research for weeks? And do you have short, simple video content ready that shows the product arriving fast, not just sitting on a shelf? If the answer to all three is yes, instant retail is usually worth testing with a small batch of stock before committing to anything bigger.
A Short Example
One home fragrance brand we worked with, a European candle and diffuser label with no factory or warehouse in China, wanted to test instant retail before committing to a full China warehouse. We placed a small batch of best-selling scents inside a partner store network already listed on Meituan Shangou in Shanghai and Hangzhou, timed around Qixi Festival, a popular gifting date. We paired this with short videos from micro-KOLs showing the diffuser being set up at home minutes after ordering, rather than the usual studio shots.
Within the campaign window, the brand’s average order value on Meituan Shangou came in about 18% higher than on its regular Tmall store, since shoppers were buying as last-minute gifts rather than comparing prices. Repeat purchases within 60 days reached roughly one in three buyers, well above what the brand was seeing from cross-border orders. The lesson: instant retail rewards products people buy on impulse or need right now, and it rewards content that shows the speed itself, not just the product.
Social Media Still Drives the Decision
If you want to grow your business in China, social media is still the key. Whatever field you are in, China works differently online, and almost everything starts with a post, a video, or a recommendation.
Platforms like WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin (known as TikTok internationally) remain the main channels for businesses to promote and sell products. By early 2026, mobile data trackers counted local life apps at close to 570 million monthly active users, and fresh grocery and instant retail apps at over 130 million monthly active users, showing how deeply this behavior has spread beyond food delivery alone.
KOL Endorsement
Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) remain influential figures who shape buying decisions through recommendations and honest-feeling reviews. Many brands still lean on these creators to reach a wider audience and build trust quickly.
A well-known older example: Angelababy became the brand ambassador for Dior in 2017, working with the brand across campaigns and events. That kind of pairing between a trusted face and a foreign brand still works today, and it works even better when the content also shows how fast and easy the product is to get.
For instant retail specifically, the newest trend is showing the delivery moment itself, the doorbell, the bag, the unboxing, since that speed is now part of what makes the product feel desirable, not just the product itself.
FAQ: What Foreign Brands Usually Ask Us
Can a foreign brand sell on Meituan Shangou or JD Daojia without a China entity?
Not directly. Both platforms need a registered store tied to a Chinese business license. Most foreign brands solve this by working through a local distributor, an existing retail partner, or a franchise-style partner that already runs a store on the platform. You supply the product and the marketing direction, and your partner handles the listing and stock.
Is instant retail only for food and groceries, or can we sell beauty, home, or wellness products this way?
It has grown well past food. Beauty, personal care, small home goods, supplements, baby products, and even electronics now sell through instant retail. The categories that do best are the ones people want right now: gifts, replacements for something broken, or small treats bought on impulse, not big planned purchases.
How is instant retail different from cross-border e-commerce like Tmall Global or JD Worldwide?
Cross-border stores can ship from a warehouse outside China, which is slower but easier to set up. Instant retail needs stock physically sitting inside China, ready to move in minutes, not days. It works best for brands that already have some sales history in China and want a faster, more impulse-driven sales channel on top of what they already have.
We Are Your Local Partner in China! Contact Us!
The growth of on-demand and instant retail in China comes down to one thing: speed people can trust. If your brand can show up fast, with the right content and the right local partner, this channel can turn into one of your strongest sources of repeat buyers, not just a delivery method.
At Gentlemen Marketing Agency, we help foreign brands find the right instant retail and on-demand partners in China, build the local content that makes speed feel like part of your brand, and track what actually turns into repeat orders. We do not guess. We test small, measure fast, and scale what works.
Don’t hesitate to leave us a comment or contact us, so we can set up a free consultation with one of our experts, who will learn about your brand and walk you through the best options for your China market strategy.
