Weekly E-Commerce Roundup: Tmall Launches Token Recharge Center; ByteDance Secures Nearly $30 Billion Loan

[Ebrun Original] Tmall launches Token Recharge Center; ByteDance secures nearly $30 billion loan; Temu plans to expand into the Middle East market; WeChat Public Relations Director responds to the claim that "users with over 10,000 friends can view who has unfriended them".

Major Corporations & Key Events

Alibaba

1 Tmall launches Token Recharge Center, with first-phase access to Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu AI, Kimi, and MiniMax

On September 3, Tmall officially launched its AI Space Station (Token Recharge Center). The page shows that the recharge center aggregates subscription services from domestic large language model vendors including Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu AI, Kimi, and MiniMax. Products on sale include period-subscription Token Plans and Coding Plans, as well as pay-as-you-go recharge options, supporting two delivery methods: card PIN or direct recharge.

2 Over 500 FMCG brands exceeded RMB 100 million in GMV on Tmall in the first half of this year

The Tmall Golden Beauty Awards were held in Shanghai on August 31. A set of half-year data was released at the event: over the past six months, the number of FMCG brands with GMV exceeding RMB 100 million on Tmall increased to 500, among which the number of brands with double-digit growth rose 45% year-on-year. From January to July this year, leading beauty groups maintained strong growth momentum on Tmall, with L'Oréal Group, Estée Lauder Group, and Shiseido Group all posting double-digit growth. Among the top 20 brands by GMV, 15 recorded double-digit growth, with Estée Lauder, SkinCeuticals, Helena Rubinstein, Clarins, and Guerlain seeing GMV rise more than 50% year-on-year.

ByteDance

1 ByteDance said to secure nearly $30 billion loan, marking Asia's second-largest US dollar loan of 2026

People familiar with the matter revealed that ByteDance, the developer of TikTok, has obtained a $29.6 billion loan, making it the second-largest US dollar-denominated loan in Asia for 2026. The sources said ByteDance initially planned to raise $20 billion, but expanded the final financing size to $29.6 billion due to strong commitments from multiple banks. The proceeds will be mainly used for general corporate purposes. ByteDance is accelerating investment in AI and considering raising its 2026 capital expenditure to as high as $70 billion, roughly more than double last year's figure, primarily for expanding data centers and other AI infrastructure. ByteDance's last large-scale offshore loan was in 2024, when it raised approximately $10.8 billion. As of press time, ByteDance has not responded to requests for comment. (Source: Yicai)

2 Byte said to raise Doubao share price to $17.02

ByteDance recently held a briefing on Doubao shares, introducing new policies for eligible employees, including raising the price of Doubao shares from $14.85 per share in June to $17.02 per share, an increase of approximately 14.6%. Sources added that ByteDance has increased the issuance of Doubao shares, with allocations varying by individual, reaching around 5% of total compensation packages for some employees. Employees can choose to adjust their Doubao share ratio by converting part of their cash compensation into Doubao shares. The maximum allocation ratio varies by job level and other factors, with tiers including 20%, 30%, etc. For Doubao share conversion, quotas differ per person: for example, some L2 and L3 employees have a maximum allocation ratio of 20%, while some L3 and L4 employees have maximum ratios of 25% and 30%. (Source: Sina Tech)

3 Douyin's total user usage time surpassed WeChat for the first time in July; Hongguo Short Drama's DAU doubled

Nomura Securities' monthly China Internet tracking report (July) shows that Douyin's share of total user usage time exceeded WeChat for the first time in July. Douyin's monthly usage time rose 29% year-on-year, while WeChat's grew 3%. However, in terms of daily active users (DAU), WeChat remains China's largest app, with 931 million DAU compared to Douyin's 714 million. Douyin's DAU increased 19% in July, and daily time spent per user (DTSD) rose 8%. Among the top 20 apps by monthly internet usage time, five apps owned by ByteDance (Douyin, Douyin Lite, Hongguo Short Drama, Jinri Toutiao, and Tomato Free Novel) account for more than 35% of total mobile internet time in China. The core dark horse driving ByteDance's usage time growth is Hongguo Free Short Drama. Currently, Hongguo Short Drama has 168 million DAU, up 107% year-on-year, exceeding the combined DAU of the four major long-video platforms. Meanwhile, monthly usage time of long-video platforms such as iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku, and Mango TV all declined, with drops ranging from 24% to 47%.

4 Douyin E-commerce has sold nearly 600 million units of goods from kitchen lifestyle industrial belts this year

Douyin released the *2026 Douyin E-commerce Kitchen Lifestyle Consumption Trend Report*. The report shows that kitchen consumption has continued to expand this year, with nearly 600 million units of goods from kitchen lifestyle industrial belts sold cumulatively on Douyin E-commerce. The average daily number of consuming users rose 30% year-on-year, and the average daily number of actively selling products increased 89% year-on-year. The number of newly published short videos related to kitchen lifestyle grew 65% year-on-year, and transaction volume driven by merchant short videos rose 74% year-on-year. More than 800,000 live streams have recommended kitchen products, and the number of merchants with store live stream transaction volume exceeding RMB 1 million increased 35% year-on-year.

Tencent

1 WeChat PR Director responds to "users with over 10,000 friends can view who has unfriended them"

On September 3, the topic "WeChat unfriend notification" topped social media hot searches, sparking widespread discussion. Some netizens posted that WeChat had launched a thoughtful feature: when a user's friend list is full, the system will notify them of who has deleted them, allowing one-click deletion. In response, Tencent Customer Service stated that when a user with a full contact list continues to add friends, the system will pop up a reminder and display part of the contact list to help users decide whether to delete some contacts. "However, it should be noted that WeChat currently does not support batch viewing of contacts who have deleted you. You can only manually select deletion based on the list in the pop-up window." On the afternoon of September 3, WeChat's Public Relations Director posted that many users were concerned about the claim that "users with over 10,000 friends can view who has unfriended them". This feature was not designed to "check who deleted me", but merely to provide an outlet for users who are so busy that their friend lists are full to sort out their connections. (Source: China Economic Net)

2 WeChat is gray-testing a new anti-miss feature

On September 2, according to WeChat Pai, the new version of WeChat has added two features: (1) If there are unread messages in WeChat, long-pressing the "WeChat" icon in the lower left corner allows users to view all current unread chats. This feature is currently in gray testing. (2) If there are unclaimed red envelopes or transfers in a chat, a "Red Envelope" or "Transfer" reminder will appear in the upper right corner of the chat box. (Sources: Cover News, Dahe Daily)

Kuaishou

1 Cheng Yixiao: 632 interest circles have emerged on Kuaishou

On August 29, Cheng Yixiao, founder, chairman and CEO of Kuaishou Technology, stated at the 2026 Kuaishou Guanghe Creator Conference that currently, 75% of cold start traffic is allocated to creators with fewer than 10,000 followers. More than 17 million creators have been creating content for over a decade, producing over 58 million works daily. The platform has seen the emergence of 632 interest circles and 4,112 niche interest tags, with each user having an average of 16 long-term interests. On Kuaishou, creators focusing on vertical fields earn 2.2 times the monthly per capita income of creators relying on general traffic. Kuaishou will continue to promote integrated operation of short videos and live streaming, allocate tens of billions of traffic support, and explore and cultivate benchmark creators in niche circles.

JD.com

1 JD Discount Supermarket enters Tangshan and Handan for the first time, accelerating grid-based layout in North China

Recently, JD Discount Supermarket has added two new locations to its national layout, with the brand set to enter Tangshan and Handan in Hebei Province for the first time. The Tangshan store is located on the B1 floor of No. 4 Xinhua West Road, Xinhuali Expo Plaza, Lunan District, while the Handan store is located on the B1 floor of Nanguan Street Commercial Pedestrian Street, Ta West Road, Wu'an City. The opening dates of the two stores have not been announced yet.

2 JD "PLUS Enterprise Membership" officially announced upgrade

JD's "PLUS Enterprise Membership" has been officially upgraded. While retaining basic services such as an extra 5% discount, free shipping for self-operated products, and interest-free payment terms, multiple new product, price and service benefits have been added. Since its launch in August 2025, JD "PLUS Enterprise Membership" has attracted 100,000 member enterprises, with average procurement costs reduced by 20% and procurement frequency 3.5 times that of non-member enterprises. The upgraded PLUS Enterprise Membership has been officially launched on JD Enterprise Purchase, and customized advanced versions will be launched for enterprises at different development stages in the next step.

Meituan

1 Meituan Q2 revenue rises 14.4% to RMB 104.6 billion, pushing AI integration into real business scenarios

Meituan released its 2026 second-quarter and half-year performance report. In the second quarter, Meituan achieved revenue of RMB 104.6 billion, up 14.4% year-on-year. As industry competition becomes more rational, coupled with peak season effects in the second quarter, the company's various businesses resumed steady growth, and operating profit turned positive from negative month-on-month. In the second quarter, Meituan continued to strengthen its AI capabilities and actively promoted the integration of AI into real business scenarios. The company's quarterly R&D investment rose 22.5% year-on-year to RMB 7.7 billion, accounting for 7.3% of total revenue.

Xiaohongshu

1 Xiaohongshu is internally testing "Post Daily" feature, which can be set to "visible for 3 days"

Xiaohongshu is internally testing the "Post Daily" feature, which, similar to WeChat Moments, allows posts to be set to "visible for 3 days". These posts are separate from other Xiaohongshu notes, displayed independently on the user's homepage, and can be converted into regular notes at any time. Testing found that when opening the Xiaohongshu app, two options - "Post Note" and "Post Daily" - now appear on the publishing page. After selecting "Post Daily", users can choose photos or videos as with normal posting, click next, and set the visibility range on the publishing page. After posting, the dynamic will only be displayed for 3 days and will be automatically hidden from the homepage after 3 days, with the overall operation logic similar to WeChat Moments. (Source: Sina Tech)

Cross-Border E-Commerce

1 Amazon joins YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program, allowing creators to earn product promotion commissions

Recently, Amazon officially joined the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program. Eligible creators in the U.S. can tag Amazon platform products in YouTube Shorts, long-form videos and live stream content, and viewers can jump directly from YouTube to Amazon to complete purchases. Compared with the previous model of placing links in the description section, this feature can further enhance the revenue potential of creators' channels.

2 Temu plans to enter the Middle East market, with the number of global sites expanded to 27

Temu, the cross-border e-commerce platform owned by Pinduoduo, is planning to launch a Middle East site, with the specific launch date not yet announced. This move marks another important milestone in Temu's globalization layout following its entry into the Japanese and South Korean markets, and it will further expand to emerging markets such as Latin America and Southeast Asia in the future. To date, Temu has launched 27 overseas sites worldwide, covering Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and other regions. In May this year, the platform's monthly sales in North America and Australia reached $870 million, and global average daily sales exceeded $50 million.

3 Shopee launches multiple seller support measures and new operational functions ahead of the 9.9 Grand Promotion

Shopee's first major grand promotion of the second half of the year, the "9.9 Super Shopping Festival", is about to kick off. It is reported that this promotion will offer consumer benefits such as large coupons, flash sales, and free shipping based on the needs of different markets. At the same time, Shopee has further increased its peak season incentives for sellers. In addition to inclusive incentives for all sellers, the platform also provides targeted support for different types of merchants, including official warehouse sellers, brands, and domestic merchants expanding overseas, and upgrades corresponding services and resources in key links of cross-border operations such as products, marketing, and logistics fulfillment.

4 TikTok's European and Latin American businesses reached $9.1 billion in revenue in 2025, achieving annual profitability for the first time

Forbes cited financial documents submitted by TikTok's UK entity showing that TikTok's revenue from operations in the UK, Europe and Latin America reached $9.1 billion in 2025, up 45.7% year-on-year from $4.5 billion in 2024 and more than tripling from $2.6 billion in 2022, marking the first annual profit for these regions.

Stories You May Care About

1 Guming updates franchise policy: franchise fee charged annually, with RMB 50,000 subsidy for store closures within six months

Guming released its latest franchise policy, with the following adjustments:

The franchise fee model has been changed. For new stores signed after September 1, the one-time franchise fee of RMB 98,800 is no longer charged, and instead an annual fee of RMB 15,000 is implemented to reduce the upfront large capital occupation.

Interest-free installment for equipment: for coffee machines or designated full sets of initial equipment, 65% down payment is required, with the remaining 35% paid in 24 interest-free monthly installments starting from the following month.

Increased closure subsidy: on the premise that equipment is resold by the company or transferred with official filing, a subsidy of RMB 50,000 is provided for stores closed within six months of signing; a subsidy of RMB 35,000 is provided for stores closed after six months but less than one year. The brand still insists that franchisees must operate the store in person, rejecting pure investment franchisees.

Regulated second-hand equipment: only second-hand equipment traded through company intermediation, transferred between franchisees and approved by the official is allowed for use in stores. Second-hand equipment from other external channels is prohibited, and no equipment intelligent binding service will be provided to avoid quality issues affecting product output due to malfunctions.

2 Kuaishou influencer Boya with 33 million followers fined RMB 3.477 million for tax evasion

On September 3, Kuaishou top influencer "Boya" (real name Li Boya, streamer name "Boya g") with more than 33 million followers attracted attention for tax evasion. According to Tianyancha, two affiliated cultural media companies under her name were found to have evaded taxes by tax authorities in July this year, and were fined a total of more than RMB 3.477 million. (Source: Interface News)

3 All offline stores of internet celebrity "Zhou Binglun" nationwide closed

On September 3, a Tencent News in-depth report revealed that all three offline stores of internet celebrity jianbing vendor "Zhou Binglun" (real name Bai Xianying), who rose to fame for resembling Jay Chou, had been closed as of September 1, with no stores currently in operation. The first store in Tianjin closed at the end of August after annual rent increased from RMB 130,000 to RMB 200,000 (an increase of over 50%); the Tianjin Hongqiao branch closed on September 1 due to disagreements with partners; the Shijiazhuang store closed in July 2025 due to rent increases and severe losses after six months of operation. A new store in Hebei District, Tianjin is currently under preparation.

4 Dreame responds to abandoning mass production of complete vehicles

On September 1, Dreame Technology officially responded to changes in its car manufacturing business, confirming the termination of the "Star Project" complete vehicle mass production project. The automotive business has been fully integrated into the Industrial Research Institute, retaining only underlying technology reserves such as motors and chassis control, and will no longer promote commercial mass production. Relevant technologies will be reused in core tracks such as intelligent mobility and embodied intelligence.

This adjustment is an active strategic correction by the company. Dreame has integrated its previous more than 200 business units into four core businesses: smart home, outdoor courtyard, intelligent mobility, and embodied intelligence. At the same time, it has contracted and shut down overlapping businesses of the MOVA brand, mobile phones and other cross-border incubation projects, concentrating resources to consolidate its core main businesses. Dreame stated that it will properly handle supplier contracts and payment matters, and establish a special processing mechanism. This adjustment aims to optimize resource allocation and reduce consumption from diversified expansion. However, issues such as subsequent supply chain recovery and internal organizational integration remain to be resolved, and the effectiveness of the transformation remains to be tested by the market. (Source: National Business Daily)

5 Women's wear store "Kekeli Miss" with 20 million followers closes

Recently, Taobao's five golden crown women's wear store "Kekeli Miss", which has more than 20 million followers, announced its closure, and all products in the store have been removed from shelves. The store can no longer be found when searching on Taobao. Screenshots circulating online show that on the eve of the closure, the store's operating performance remained strong: it sold more than 40,000 units in the past month, had more than 600,000 repeat customers in the past year, had an overall store rating of 4.5, and a positive review rate of 94% in the past three months.

6 Li Guoqing responds to selling Dangdang shares for charity

On August 29, Li Guoqing posted a video on social media stating, "When I turned 60 last year, I sold my Dangdang shares and took out RMB 50 million for charity! More important than money is to pass on love, and I believe life is worth it!" Li Guoqing revealed that the RMB 50 million donation is divided into two parts: RMB 25 million goes to the Li Xiang Life Public Welfare Fund, operated by the public welfare department under his membership-based e-commerce platform "Li Xiang Life"; the other RMB 25 million goes to the Li Guoqing Zhang Danhong Public Welfare Fund, operated as an internal family fund for both sides. Although both funds focus on children and education, "their decision-making powers and decision-making processes are different". Li Guoqing stated that the fund projects are positioned as "grant-making" rather than being implemented by himself.

7 Sun Dongxu announces 30 days of annual leave for employees of "Beautiful Tomorrow"

On August 31, Sun Dongxu's new company "Beautiful Tomorrow" released a video in which Sun Dongxu stated that all employees of the company are entitled to 30 days of annual leave per year, excluding weekends and statutory holidays. Tian Quan added that the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays this year will be arranged as consecutive leave. "Beautiful Tomorrow" is a company co-founded by former CEO of East Buy Sun Dongxu, and former anchors Ming Ming and Tian Quan. (Source: Luzhong Morning Post)

8 Xueji Roasted Seeds launches new fresh snack store format, to debut in Beijing in September

On September 2, it was reported that Xueji Roasted Seeds' store in Beijing Chaoyang Hopson One is being renovated, and will open in September as the national first store of its new format, adding short-shelf-life freshly made bakery categories such as bread and pastries. The store is currently recruiting bakers. The store is located on the B1 floor of Hopson One, together with fresh snack brand "Yi Li", which opened in January this year and sells chestnuts, nuts, dried meat, milk tea, fruit drinks, ice cream and other products. Xueji Roasted Seeds has more than 1,200 stores nationwide, and previously received approximately RMB 600 million in investment from Meituan Dragonball and Qicheng Capital. This move is seen as a countermeasure to compete in the fresh snack market.

9 IKEA China responds to price cuts

On September 1, it was reported that IKEA will cut prices of more than 1,500 products by 15% to 25%, mainly focusing on the European market. When asked whether the Chinese market will see simultaneous price cuts, IKEA China's official customer service stated: "There is currently no notice of price cuts for related products, and the specific price is subject to the official website. If there is a price adjustment within about a week of purchase, you can consult the official phone number again." In addition, the customer service of IKEA's official mini-program also stated that it has not received a price cut notice. (Source: China Economic Net)

This article was first published on the official website of Ebrun.