Instant Retail: Beyond supercharged delivery
It has forged new consumer habits: no going downstairs, no stockpiling, and no planning. This shift is also forcing retailers to fundamentally re-examine their supply chains, store layouts, and operational models.
As one veteran supermarket operator in China lamented, “My competitor is no longer the supermarket down the street. It’s every single app on consumers’ phones.”
Does this sound familiar? It should.
From the chaotic vibrancy of Jakarta to the vertical density of Singapore, Southeast Asia is mirroring China’s trajectory.
As super apps like Grab, GoTo, and Shopee pivot from aggressive expansion to sustainable profitability, they are approaching the same operational inflexion point that has just reshaped China.
By analysing China’s roadmap, Southeast Asian players can see their own future and prepare for the inevitable operational challenges ahead.
China’s Instant Retail story serves as a blueprint for Southeast Asia’s next chapter.
Beyond supercharged delivery
Many mistake Instant Retail for a simple upgrade of food delivery. Superficially, they’re right.
The same riders who deliver food and drinks now deliver groceries, cosmetics, and iPhone chargers within 30 mins. But to see it as just “do-it-all delivery” is to underestimate its ambition.
To grasp its true meaning, consider the specific use case.
When the cat food runs out, or you need medicine late at night, the moment you click “buy,” you aren’t just purchasing a product.
You are purchasing instant gratification and certainty.
Instant Retail fills the time gap left by traditional e-commerce’s “next-day delivery” and shatters the spatial constraints of “must-visit” physical stores. It shifts shopping behaviour from pre-planned events to impulse-driven “micro-demands.”
While Southeast Asia has seen the rise of “Quick Commerce” (Q-Commerce) via capital-intensive dark stores, China has evolved into a more sustainable, asset-light phase: the Store-as-Fulfilment-Centre (SFC) Model.
Instead of building expensive new warehouses, the Chinese model involves the digital transformation of existing retail terminals, such as supermarkets, convenience stores, and pharmacies, turning them into dual-purpose hubs.
This pushes inventory closer to the consumer without the heavy capex of building new infrastructure.
A perfect storm: Why now?
The rise of Instant Retail in China was not accidental.
It was driven by a convergence of structural shifts, conditions that are now replicating across Southeast Asia.
Market saturation and the quest for growth
In China, as traditional e-commerce saturated and customer acquisition costs skyrocketed,
Instant Retail emerged as the new engine for growth.
A similar pattern is unfolding in Southeast Asia. As the region’s digital economy matures, super apps are pivoting to high-frequency, essential categories (like groceries and pharma) to drive user retention and strengthen unit economics.
Technological maturity
This is more than just “putting a supermarket online”; it is a complex systems engineering project where AI, Big Data, and IoT form the operational backbone.
Take the intelligent TMS (Transportation Management System) as a prime example.
By leveraging algorithms to analyse historical sales, real-time traffic, and store demand, retailers can dynamically optimise logistics.
Industry data from retail tech provider Dmall indicates that such systems can boost vehicle load rates from 65% to 85%. For the end consumer, this back-end intelligence translates into reliability—a standard that SEA shoppers increasingly value over mere speed.
Urban density
Just as China’s “15-minute convenient living circles” policy catalysed this model, Southeast Asia’s vertical urban density and robust two-wheel logistics networks provide the perfect fertile ground for Instant Retail to thrive.
From point of sale to point of fulfilment
The core of this revolution is the redefining of the physical store.
Under the Instant Retail model, a brick-and-mortar store is no longer just a place to shop; it is a local fulfilment centre.
Its service radius expands from 1km to 5km, allowing a legacy retailer like 7-Eleven to capture revenue from customers who never walk through its doors.
However, this opportunity comes with a massive “Digital Divide.”
Whether it is a convenience store in Guangzhou or a supermarket in Bangkok, the operational pain point is identical: how do you manage orders from multiple apps without creating inventory chaos?
When a single store must process orders from its own app, Grab, Foodpanda, and Shopee simultaneously, backend complexity explodes.
Without real-time synchronisation, inventory data lags, leading to overselling and customer cancellations.
To survive this race against time, a unified backend infrastructure is no longer optional. It is operational bedrock.
The industry solution to this fragmentation is the adoption of a “unified commerce operating system”.
The technical logic focuses on centralisation: channelling orders from disparate external platforms into a single internal processing stream.
Instead of juggling multiple devices, store staff utilise one standardised app for picking and packing.
Crucially, once an order is fulfilled, the system triggers an immediate, automated inventory update across all sales channels.
A clear deployment of this strategy can be seen at 7-Eleven South China.
Operating a network of nearly 2,000 stores, the retailer leveraged Dmall OS as its digital backbone to integrate third-party giants like Meituan and Douyin (TikTok) with its own private mini-programme.
This integration enabled real-time synchronisation of inventory, pricing, and promotions, effectively transforming each physical convenience store into a digitised, high-efficiency distribution hub.
The path of profitability
The path to profitability lies not in building more dark stores, but in empowering existing brick-and-mortar retailers to become efficient nodes in the digital network.
For traditional retailers, the “moat” of physical location is drying up. To survive, they must stop viewing online orders as a disruption and start viewing their stores as digitally connected fulfilment centres.
In the end, retail evolution is not about geography; it’s about efficiency. Whoever can first integrate the fragmented network of people, product, and place—whether in Beijing or Bangkok— will win the future.
This article was written by Grace Qu and published in e27.