In October, many Dingdong Maicai users in Guangzhou and Shenzhen found that Dingdong Maicai had cancelled multiple sites and their commonly used addresses were no longer within the delivery area. For example, a station in Shatoujiao, Yantian District, Shenzhen was closed on October 12th; The Xiasha Station in Futian District, Shenzhen will be closed on October 4th; The Xili Station in Nanshan District, Shenzhen will be closed on October 14th; Multiple stations in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou were closed on October 16th

Not only that, in September and October, many users in Beijing also found that their commonly used addresses were changed to not within the delivery range.

Shrinking the layout of Beijing and Guangzhou Shenzhen regions is the main theme of Dingdong Maicai in 2026. Dingdong Maicai mentioned in its Q2 financial report that during the reporting period, it closed some inefficient pre positioned warehouses in Beijing and Guangzhou Shenzhen.

Regarding the closure of the aforementioned sites, on October 19th, Dingdong Maicai informed the Economic Observer that the company is still operating independently and recent adjustments to some sites will not affect overall operations.

This year, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang regions have become the focus of Dingdong Maicai's layout. On October 6th, in Suqian, Jiangsu, Dingdong Maicai dual site opened simultaneously; In August, Dingdong Maicai opened three stations in Hefei and plans to achieve 90% coverage of the main urban area by the end of 2026.

What kind of calculation did Dingdong use to buy groceries between one in and one out?

Shrink Guangdong Layout

In fact, in the Guangzhou Shenzhen market, Dingdong Maicai had already undergone a round of contraction as early as 2024. From the end of January to February 2024, Dingdong Maicai closed 27 stations in Guangzhou and 11 stations in Shenzhen.

But other peers are increasing their layout in this region. In August of this year, Xiaoxiang Supermarket opened its first store in southern China in Futian, Shenzhen, with an area of over 3000 square meters. In September, Xiaoxiang Supermarket opened a large store of over 5000 square meters in Jiangmen, Guangdong.

Pu Pu Supermarket has a deeper layout in Shenzhen. In January of this year, the food safety manager of Pupu Supermarket revealed that Pupu Supermarket has 105 pre warehouses in 7 districts of Shenzhen, with a total storage area of over 170000 square meters. Public information shows that Pupu Supermarket has 400 pre warehouses nationwide. In terms of quantity, Shenzhen alone accounts for a quarter of the total. In 2026, Pupu Supermarket is still encrypting its layout in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Hema Fresh is also aggressively entering the Guangdong market. Since 2026, Hema Fresh has opened three stores in Guangzhou and extended to Foshan, Zhuhai, and Pingshan in Shenzhen; Another business under Hema Fresh, Super Box Computing NB, entered Shenzhen and Dongguan in the first quarter of 2026, and then landed in Huangpu, Panyu, and Chancheng, Foshan in Guangzhou.

As early as 2021, Liang Changlin, founder of Dingdong Maicai, proposed the strategy of "efficiency first, appropriate consideration of scale" and shifted from national expansion to regional deep cultivation. Starting from 2022, Dingdong Maicai will gradually withdraw from cities such as Tianjin, Xiamen, and Chengdu.

Encrypt the Yangtze River Delta

A real-time retail industry insider pointed out that Dingdong Maicai generally operates small warehouses within 300 square meters, while Pupu Supermarket operates large warehouses around 1000 square meters. Small warehouses have low fixed costs and a low break even point, making them suitable for high-density urban areas with high demand for fresh produce. Large warehouses require sufficiently high unit prices and category widths to dilute costs.

In the past few years, Dingdong Maicai has continued to increase its sales in the Yangtze River Delta.

A purchasing manager of an online fresh food retail platform revealed that the performance fee rate of a pre warehouse is mainly influenced by factors such as unit price, warehouse order density, rent, personnel wages, loss rate, order structure, and express logistics costs. Deeply cultivating regional markets will increase efficiency for Dingdong Maicai.

Cao Lei, Director of the E-commerce Research Center at NetEase, stated that the breakeven point for pre positioned warehouses is based on the order volume of a single warehouse. Only when the order volume is high can costs be amortized. The high consumption power, mature logistics, and existing supply chain foundation of the Yangtze River Delta make the marginal cost brought by encryption much lower than opening up warehouses from scratch in the new area.

In 2024, Dingdong Maicai, which had been on the market for three years, finally achieved profitability after years of continuous losses. In 2025 and the first and second quarters of 2026, it also achieved profitability.

Dingdong Maicai's profits are based on three aspects: shrinking the national layout, deepening regional cultivation, and launching its own brand. The first two parts ensure efficiency, while the latter part ensures user stickiness and repeat purchases.

Public information shows that in the past two years, more than 60% of Dingdong Maicai's newly opened front-end warehouses are located in third - and fourth tier cities and county-level areas, mostly distributed in the Yangtze River Delta.

In July 2025, Dingdong Maicai launched the "4G" strategy, which means good users, good products, good services, and good minds. Liang Changlin said at the time, 'We gave up the low price strategy and low-priced products that everyone is competing for today, and went to grab the largest user base. We only work with a few people and only score 120 points.'.

In terms of products, in May 2026, Dingdong announced the upgrade of its own brand strategy, establishing the self owned brand "Dingdong V5" launched in 2023 as the core brand that the company will focus on building. Data shows that in June 2026, the penetration rate of Dingdong Maicai's own brand reached 68.5%, which means that nearly 70% of users or orders involve their own brand products.

A series of measures have led to a decrease in the performance fee rate of Dingdong Maicai. In the second quarter of 2026, its performance fee rate decreased from 21.7% in the same period last year to 18.6%.

In the second quarter of 2026, Dingdong Maicai's revenue was 6.487 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%; GAAP net profit (calculated according to US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) reached 272 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 153.5%.

However, it is worth noting that the surge in profits does not come from the business itself.

Due to the agreement signed in February 2026 for the acquisition of Dingdong Maicai's China business by Meituan, it is classified as "held for sale assets" in the financial statements. According to US accounting standards, long-term items of these assets are no longer subject to depreciation and amortization during the period of being held for sale. Dingdong Maicai stated in its financial report that this factor increased its net profit for the quarter by approximately 199 million yuan.

After excluding this non operating income, Dingdong Maicai's GAAP net profit for the second quarter of 2026 is approximately 73 million yuan. By comparison, the GAAP net profit for the same period in 2025 was 110 million yuan.

Encrypting the Yangtze River Delta is still not an easy task. In the second quarter of this year, Dingdong Maicai increased its marketing investment. In this quarter, its sales and marketing expenses increased by 22.8% year-on-year, far exceeding the revenue growth of 8.6%.

As of now, Meituan's acquisition of Dingdong Maicai's business in China has not officially landed. After the formal handover between the two parties, Dingdong Maicai may usher in new changes.

(Author Ye Xinran)