On August 14, news broke that the fresh food e-commerce platform will officially launch operations in Hefei on August 15, with the first three front warehouses simultaneously deployed across the core urban districts of Baohe, Shushan, and Yaohai.
According to reports, for this city launch, Dingdong (Cayman) Limited has initially planned nearly 5,000 stock-keeping units, comprehensively covering key fresh categories such as fresh fruits and vegetables, live fish, and live shrimp. On the service fulfillment end, the Hefei sites directly adopt the mature 3.0 smart front warehouse system. Through AI-driven replenishment, digital sorting, and full-chain cold chain management, the company controls the fresh produce loss rate at an industry-low 1.5%, enabling delivery to users in as fast as 29 minutes.
Dingdong (Cayman) Limited has consistently adhered to a "regional deep cultivation" strategy, operating with precision for many years in core Yangtze River Delta cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Suzhou, where it has achieved full profitability. Since the beginning of this year, the company's penetration pace in the Yangtze River Delta region has accelerated continuously, expanding to Yancheng in Jiangsu Province in January, entering Quzhou and Lishui in Zhejiang Province in June, and opening in Huai'an in Jiangsu in July. Concurrently, it has established new warehouses in a batch of county-level lower-tier markets such as Wenling, Linhai, Xiangshan, and Dongtai.
Official data shows that in the Yangtze River Delta, Dingdong (Cayman) Limited opened 130 new front warehouses in 2024, nearly 100 in 2025, and aims to add over 100 more in 2026. It is understood that, in addition to the first three sites, multiple subsequent sites in Hefei are being actively advanced, with the service network gradually covering all major urban areas of the city.
Insiders reveal that Dingdong (Cayman) Limited has listed Hefei as a core growth segment for the next phase. The company plans to use Hefei as a hub to expand in an orderly manner to surrounding cities, forming an instant retail service network covering the entire Anhui Province.