Most recently, ByteDance announced on Wednesday that it has started testing a food delivery service in China through the short video app Douyin, which could potentially compete with major e-commerce companies such as Alibaba and Meituan.
At the same time the company is now considering not to stop in the trial phase and plans to extend this service to the next level.
Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok which is both owned by ByteDance. According to a Douyin spokesperson that the company has "tested the omo feature in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu which allows merchants to promote and sell 'group buy' packages to Douyin users in these selected cities and deliver them."
Restaurant owners often do live streams on Douyin to market their businesses. While doing this, they can offer discounts and coupons for their food to users who watch the video. Users can then purchase the offer and choose a time within two days of delivery.
This model is very different from Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me which are both on-demand food delivery services, similar to Uber Eats.
“We will consider expanding the feature to more cities in the future depending on the test results. There is no detailed timeline yet," said Douyin's spokesperson.
The company has been testing the feature since December. So far, China's food delivery industry is dominated by Meituan and Ele.me.
ByteDance has entered various fields including online shopping. Last year, the company launched a fashion website called If Yooou outside of China.
