“The battle reports are more beautiful than the last, and I am speechless when I look at the backend profits.” This is the most intuitive feeling of merchants about the 618 promotion. This year is the longest 618. The front line is from the beginning of May to the Dragon Boat Festival, Kuaishou 34 days, Douyin 35 days, Taobao 39 days, of which JD.com has the longest 46 days, until the Dragon Boat Festival.
This year is also the coldest 618. There are no endless open-screen advertisements, no red envelopes and category coupons for swiping the screen, and no discounts that can only be enjoyed by paying for a limited time. There are several hot searches on Weibo.
Since malicious low prices are no longer allowed, platforms have been leveraging their strengths and avoiding weaknesses. Taotian promotes AI and new brands, Douyin complements mall shelves, and JD.com has high hopes for its own logistics and procurement and sales supply chains.
Super Focus learned that after announcing the start of the peak 28-hour final battle, JD.com's logistics terminal received a notice to arrive at work from 4 to 6 a.m. in the next few days, and uniformly accepted the scheduling arrangements. Breakfast will be included in some areas.
Some procurement, sales and customer service operations staff are required not to leave work before 12 p.m. The company will reimburse meals, afternoon tea, fruits, midnight snacks, etc. Taking into account employees' attendance and problems, the Suqian area has also arranged dormitories for employees who work overtime too late.
Obviously, JD.com wants to win this 618 event more than anyone else. It is just a fragmented and normalized promotion. It is difficult to see the glory that once hit the sales overnight.
01 The single quantity has not been liquidated, but the assessment has exploded.
"I arrived at work at 4:30 in the morning and took roll call. I was busy all morning and there was not a lot of goods. It was about the same as usual. I made two trips a day and went back."
Zhang Liang, a brother from JD.com, discovered that this year’s 618 orders did not have an obvious peak. According to him, his usual order volume in the morning is about 100 to 130 orders, and in the afternoon it is around 40 to 65 orders. However, the order volume on June 18 this year was not as good as usual, with only over 100 orders. "It has something to do with the local rain, but it is really not as busy as in previous years."
Another delivery person in Zhejiang, Guo Le, mentioned that the order volume on June 18th last year was probably around 500 orders, but this year it dropped to more than 300 orders. In the past few days, it was not as hot as in previous years. It was not until June 18th that the overall order volume began to pick up.
Of course, JD.com also has its own considerations. Different from previous years when the last round of activities ended in the early morning of June 19th, this year’s event has been extended, especially the final sale from 8 pm on June 17th to the 18th. The fulfillment date of orders will naturally be moved back by 1-2 days, thereby reducing the pressure on the logistics side on June 18th. The peak will most likely fall on the 19th or even later.
However, in order to cope with this big promotion, JD Logistics has made full preparations.
Many front-line delivery personnel told Super Focus that although the volume of 618 this year is not as good as in previous years, terminal outlets are still preparing for the competition according to the highest standards.
Taking a sales department in South China as an example, branch managers repeatedly emphasized that fresh food, cold chain and other time-sensitive items should be delivered first, and that unloading, sorting and route preparation need to be carried out in advance, and the signing process was required to strictly implement process specifications such as outbound calls and photo retention.
It is worth noting that preparation is not only reflected in the arrival time, but also in the assessment pressure.Many front-line personnel mentioned that once they are found to have irregular operations, they may be asked for explanations and reviews, or they may face SOP copying, fines, or even internal interviews.
This year's 618 front-line employees did not feel the atmosphere of "more work, more gain" for order fulfillment, but more like a high-pressure fulfillment mechanism. The order volume may not be higher than in previous years, but the cost of errors is significantly higher.
This pressure is also reflected in JD.com’s internal forums. Under the tag "#618Let's fight together", many front-line staff posted feedback on the signing rules, return responsibilities and penalty standards.
Some employees mentioned that when disputes arise over some orders due to outer packaging, customer needs or system identification issues, front-line delivery personnel often need to appeal on their own; however, as long as any one of the appeal materials, photography specifications, and customer communication records is incomplete, it may be deemed that the responsibility lies with the delivery end.
besidespeopleIt reflects that some abnormal scenes are not entirely caused by the delivery person, such as the customer's request to leave it at the door, the packaging itself is incomplete, the return process is not smoothly connected, etc., but it may still fall on the delivery person in the end., a fine of 100 yuan and 25 points deducted.
However, judging from third-party data, JD.com did perform well during 618. Fudan Consumer Big Data Laboratory showed that the retail sales of the entire 618 network this year increased by about 3.2% year-on-year. Among them, JD.com and Douyin further narrowed the gap with Taotian Group.
Research data from the "China E-commerce Platform Brand Merchant Ecosystem Research Report (2026)" also shows that among the proportion of daily sales revenue of each platform in the total online daily sales revenue, JD.com leads by a large margin with 31.82%, making it the core position of daily sales for merchants.
Growth and pressure coexist, and enthusiasm and fatigue are intertwined. This is probably the true background of JD.com 618.
02 A collective carnival where the more you sell, the more you lose.
"I bought a Midea self-operated flagship store on June 10. At that time, the transaction price with various coupons was 4,196 yuan. What was outrageous was that I later saw that the price had dropped from 3,793 yuan to 3,570 yuan. The first time, JD.com said it had a price guarantee and gave me a recharge of 403 yuan. Later, it said that price comparison was not supported for orders of different models, and no unreasonable returns were allowed after 7 days. Isn't the price guarantee written on the home page a lie?"
Later, Cao Lang went to Taobao and Douyin to check, and found that not only did the e-commerce platform not have the absolute lowest price this year, but the prices were rising and falling every day. The day of 618 may not be the time when the discounts are the strongest in the entire promotion. JD.com’s situation is not an exception.
Through third-party price checking apps and price reminders in your own shopping cart,He learned that due to adjustments to platform regulations and subsidies, prices of many products began to increase as early as April, ranging from a price increase of 200 yuan to a price triple. 618 was not much cheaper than usual.
While some consumers did not buy the cheapest products during the 618 promotion, the cost pressure on merchants is still huge.
Ding Jian, a clothing merchant, revealed that buying traffic is ineffective now, and he still has to rely on recommendations from buyers and sellers. Officials often report activities and offer low-price coupons without notifying the merchants. The original price of a product in the store is 152 yuan, and the customer pays 106 yuan. After deducting a 7-point commission and promotion fee, only more than 80 yuan is received in the account. However, the overall cost reaches 120 yuan, and the more the product is sold, the more money it loses.
"I applied for an official 20% discount, and also participated in the 50% discount event. On 618, daily sales increased by 2-3 times. Compared with previous years, the increase has actually decreased. I can only say that we should treat it with a normal attitude in the future. The core of the stock market is to make profits, and the competition in the future will be the supply chain." Ding Jian feels that the effect of big promotions is not as good as the previous year, and merchants will focus on ensuring daily sales in the future.
A new store merchant revealed that he transferred to JD.com from Pinduoduo after the year. Some of the previous operational skills were useless. Due to insufficient product star rating, uncompetitive paid single-click prices, and low click-through rates, additional purchases, orders and other data promotion conversion rates, the weight of the store and products was too low. Small brands could only rely on short videos to promote distribution, and basically could not survive Double 11.
Xiao Liu, a Jingdong purchasing and salesperson, is also quite helpless. Several leaders above him have set goals and often change requirements in the middle of the night. He doubts his ability. He is worried about handing over the work to assistants and interns who have just joined the company. Customer complaints, price follow-up, coupon setting activities, various registration reviews, internal communication, external competition, and some compliance tests are inevitable. Quarrels with merchants are inevitable.
What needs to be examined is the price behind this big promotion.
The financial report shows that JD.com’s revenue in the first quarter of 2026 was 315.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.9%; but the net profit attributable to the parent company was only 5.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 53.17% from 10.9 billion yuan in the same period in 2025. The decline marked JD.com’s lowest quarterly profit in the past five years.
One of the important reasons for the decline in profits is that marketing expenses increased by 45.8% year-on-year. Under the diminishing marginal effect of the "state subsidy" policy, the revenue of the electrified category fell by 8.4% in the first quarter. Although the revenue of daily necessities increased by 14.9%, it was not enough to make up for the gap in the electrified category.
At the same time, the food delivery war launched by JD.com in 2025 has left a heavy financial burden. From the second quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026, JD.com’s cumulative losses in new business reached 55.7 billion yuan.
Takeaway, AI,internationalization, are all new engines with high hopes., but judging from the financial reports, investment pressure is being released intensively.
Although the number of takeout DAU and quarterly purchasing users in the first quarter both increased by more than 20% year-on-year, the operating losses of new businesses (including JD Takeout, JD Production, Jingxi and overseas businesses) expanded from 1.3 billion yuan in the same period last year to 10.3 billion yuan, with an operating loss rate as high as 164.9%.
In April 2026, JD.com was fined and confiscated by the State Administration for Market Regulation of approximately 635 million yuan due to compliance issues with the qualification review of merchants on the food delivery platform.
The harder you work, the more you lose. The more innovative you are, the more pressure you are under.
When low price rises from a tactic to a strategy, and when "lowest price on the entire network" changes from a marketing slogan to a belief, JD.com is paying a stage price for its path dependence.
In the industry, we have completely bid farewell to the extensive competition model of low-price involution, and shifted to a high-quality development stage with technology empowerment, experience upgrading, and value creation as the core.
For JD.com, the real difficulty is not to turn 618 into a beautiful battle, but to figure out the cost account behind every order, contract fulfillment and low-price profit sharing.