Alibaba doubles down on Taobao Flash Sale: willing to absorb losses for three years as its counteroffensive begins early

On Feb. 11, LatePost reported that Alibaba’s core leadership encouraged teams at an internal meeting earlier this year to keep pushing Taobao Flash Deals aggressively, saying there should be no pressure to turn a profit within the next three years.

According to the report, Jack Ma has described the initiative as a milestone-level campaign for the group. Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai was also quoted as saying the business is not the “core of the core,” but it carries strategic value.

The report adds that investment in Taobao Flash Deals throughout 2026 is expected to exceed the previous year, with a primary focus on on-demand retail.

Key priorities discussed reportedly included:

• Food delivery: grow with restraint and clearer objectives—focus on orders above RMB 30 and improve delivery operations through more refined, multi-dimensional execution.
• On-demand retail: break through one vertical at a time, prioritizing categories where speed matters beyond traditional e-commerce capabilities and where annual sales can exceed RMB 10 billion, such as pharmaceuticals, alcoholic beverages, and fresh groceries. Warehouse build-out is said to be the top priority for 2026.
• In-store (to-shop) services: still relatively small in scale, but leadership reportedly wants to keep exploring the segment in 2026, leveraging scenarios like local services and travel.

Taobao Flash Deals was reportedly planning its first major push in mid-March after post-holiday operations fully resumed, followed by a larger summer campaign—aiming to surpass Meituan in market share in 2026. However, the competitive “AI assistant battle” during the Spring Festival period appears to have accelerated the timeline, bringing the counteroffensive forward.