The super war of e-commerce platform is heating up.

South China has become a hot spot.

Ali JD.com Shang Chao war heats up. JD.com supermarket announced that it will continue to increase investment in brands, consumers, imported goods and supply chain, and strive to become the absolute first place in both online and offline China Mall in less than three years.

Earlier, after JD.com announced at the end of June that he would buy the super business of No. 1 store, Tmall reacted quickly, announcing in early July that he would invest "double 2 billion" in the supermarket business to beat JD.com and win the first goal of offline and online supermarkets within three years. In early August, No.1 store announced that it would invest 1 billion yuan in three months to declare war with Tmall supermarket.

The two giants competed for layout last year.

China's online supermarket market is expected to reach about $180 billion in 2020, more than 1.2 trillion yuan, according to IGD, an international food and consumer goods industry research and training institute. However, compared with 3C, home appliances, clothing and other sub-categories, Shang Chao's e-commerce penetration rate is less than 3%. Previously, the giants have not launched a white-hot competition in this category because the threshold is too high, the gross profit is low, and the cost of implementing the bill is high.

Feng Yi, president of the consumer goods division of JD.com Mall, told Guangzhou Daily that JD.com supermarket fully opened JD.com 's big data, logistics and marketing capabilities to brands, and worked with strategic partners such as No.1 Store, Wal-Mart and Yonghui to create a linked online and offline FMCG retail ecosystem.

Since last year, Alibaba and JD.com, two e-commerce giants, have made efforts to layout Shangchao: in May 2015, JD.com strategically invested in Tiantian Orchard. Three months later, JD.com invested 4.31 billion yuan in Yonghui supermarket, the leader of domestic fresh supermarket. Alibaba made a strategic investment in Yiguo in June of that year. At about the same time, Ali also invested in the O2O fresh experience store Ma Xiansheng.

In April 2016, JD.com Group merged with crowdsourced logistics platform Dada, and JD.com owned 47% of Xinda and became the single largest shareholder. Alibaba strategically invested in real-time crowdsourcing logistics platform Dian I Da and Shang Chao O2O platform flash purchase respectively around July 2016.

In June 2016, JD.com and Wal-Mart were deeply married. Wal-Mart took a 5 per cent stake in JD.com and JD.com acquired the main assets of Mall 1.

Li Dongcheng, an e-commerce analyst, believes that compared with the previous showdown, the competition for online supermarkets is not only a bright sword for both sides in vertical business, but also has more important strategic significance for the two major groups.

Zhang Yong, CEO of Alibaba Group, positioned Tmall supermarket as the fourth consumer platform after Taobao, Tmall and Juhuasuan, saying bluntly that "it is of great strategic significance to Alibaba Group."

JD.com also regards online Shang Chao as an important layout in the future. Liu Qiangdong believes that Shang Chao categories have the characteristics of high purchase frequency. the female users brought will be able to improve JD.com 's failure to let consumers "stroll" through the arrangement and combination of goods.

Consumers may benefit

South China is the new market that the two sides competed for in the super war.

A reporter from Guangzhou Daily found that the logistics warehousing and operation efficiency of the supermarkets of both sides have been greatly improved. Following the opening of the No. 1 store in South China last year, Tmall supermarket South China Intelligent Warehouse officially opened in August this year, picking volume exceeded 1 million pieces per day. The area of 200000 square meters in Phase 3 of the South China Operation Center of No.1 store is double that of Tmall supermarket's South China warehouse of 100000 square meters.

For consumers, shopping in the supermarket requires more goods, fast purchase speed, good experience and service, and low price. The competition between giants will improve the overall standard of online supermarkets, and consumers are the biggest winners in this war.