E-commerce Morning Brief, October 22: Amazon to Hire 300,000 for Holiday Season; YTO Q3 Revenue 19.5 Billion Yuan, Net Profit Up 39.1%

Item 1: Xiaohongshu Launches REDone, Double 11 Focuses on Good Taste Over Low Prices.

Yesterday, Xiaohongshu officially announced the REDone annual good taste program and simultaneously launched the Double 11 REDone main venue. The program uses "good taste" as its core selection criterion, creating an exposure and conversion channel for distinctive products that stand out in aesthetics, design, craftsmanship, and quality but struggle to win in traditional price-comparison systems, without relying on low-price competition. Selected merchants receive dedicated label certification, dual-entry exposure at the main venue, offline specialty store experience scenarios, and full-chain support through dedicated livestreams.

Item 2: JD Logistics Upgrades Express Products with Three Major Improvements for Double 11 Speed.

Yesterday, as JD.com's 11.11 shopping festival heated up, JD Logistics carried out a systematic upgrade of its express products. On the ground transport side, heavy freight standard express improved delivery times by 1 to 2 days on 594 core city routes, targeting mutual shipping demand across 12 provinces and 48 cities nationwide. On the air transport side, heavy freight premium express, backed by a network originating from nearly 200 cities and covering nearly 30,000 city routes, offers next-day delivery on more than 10,000 routes, with a committed on-time fulfillment rate of 95%, providing more certain fulfillment guarantees for high-value, time-sensitive orders.

Item 3: Cainiao Supply Chain Launches Double 11 Night Delivery, Pushes Pre-sale Express Delivery.

Yesterday, Cainiao Supply Chain, together with brand merchants such as Procter & Gamble and Purcotton, launched Double 11 night delivery for the fourth consecutive year, advancing pre-sale express delivery. Through AI algorithm forecasting and supply chain coordination, pre-sale orders are pre-positioned at stations closest to consumers, providing minute-level receiving experiences. Night delivery currently covers 14 core cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Tianjin, Suzhou, Wuhan, Foshan, Dongguan, Nanjing, Hefei, and Changsha.

Item 4: YTO Q3 Revenue 19.5 Billion Yuan, Net Profit Up 39.1% Year-on-Year.

Yesterday, YTO Express disclosed its 2026 third-quarter report: third-quarter operating revenue was 19.500 billion yuan, up 6.72% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 1.454 billion yuan, up 39.06% year-on-year; express business volume completed 8.682 billion parcels, up 12.45% year-on-year, exceeding industry growth by 9.5 percentage points. For the first three quarters, the company's revenue was 58.393 billion yuan, up 7.82%, net profit attributable to shareholders was 4.630 billion yuan, up 60.94%, cumulative business volume was 24.961 billion parcels, up 10.52%, and market share steadily increased.

Item 5: Meituan Autumn Holiday Drives 136% Growth in November Flight Searches.

Yesterday, Meituan data showed that in the week after Shenzhen, Yuncheng, and other places announced autumn holiday arrangements on October 9, flight searches on the platform for November travel increased 136% compared with the week before the announcement, and train ticket searches increased 121%; nationwide, accommodation bookings for November stays increased 175%, among which accommodation bookings with destinations in Guangdong increased 273%, significantly higher than the national increase over the same period, reflecting how the autumn holiday boosted off-peak travel.

Item 6: Agibot Humanoid Robot Smart Retail Warehouse Lands in Wuhan, 827 Orders in 18 Days.

Yesterday, Agibot's full-size humanoid robot smart retail warehouse landed at Wuhan Jiangtan. The warehouse completed 827 orders in 18 days and achieved more than 100 orders in a single day during the weekend traffic peak, with a 100% grasping success rate. The smart retail warehouse uses humanoid robots for product picking and fulfillment, validating the application capability of embodied AI in new retail scenarios and providing a new model for cost reduction and efficiency improvement in offline retail.

Item 7: Amazon Category Fees Rise for Two Rounds in Two Years, Commission Share Remains at 40%.

A quarterly report from third-party tool provider Seller Assistant shows that after Amazon raised fulfillment fees twice within four months in 2026, the platform's commission as a share of product selling price remained basically stable, with the median staying at around 40%. Among the 20 categories surveyed, combined fulfillment and commission costs for categories such as apparel and home goods remain high, and sellers' profit margins continue to come under pressure.

Item 8: Amazon Plans to Hire 300,000 US Employees for Holiday Season, Largest Ever.

Yesterday, Amazon announced it will hire more than 300,000 employees in the United States for this year's holiday season, with positions covering seasonal, part-time, and full-time work across its core operations network. This is Amazon's largest holiday-season hiring campaign ever, 20% higher than the record 250,000 workers hired each year from 2023 to 2025, to handle the fulfillment peak of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the cross-border peak season.

Item 9: Walmart Sam's Club Launches Joint Membership at $120 Annual Fee.

Yesterday, Walmart announced the launch of a joint membership plan in the United States, bundling Walmart and Sam's Club Plus membership services and selling them together for an annual fee of $120, equivalent to saving $98 per year, a discount of about 45%. The joint membership covers two main benefits, including free delivery from Walmart and Sam's Club, Sam's Club member prices, 2% Sam's Cash back on qualifying purchases, and fuel discounts.

Item 10: Walmart's Flipkart Tests Food Delivery in India.

Yesterday, Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce platform owned by Walmart, is testing food delivery services, adding a separate entry within its own app to directly compete with the two major local food delivery giants Zomato and Swiggy. Internal testing has covered more than 8,000 employees, with logistics subsidiary Ekart handling last-mile delivery, and the service is connected to the Indian government-led ONDC open network to expand its local life footprint.

Item 11: China Southern Airlines Logistics Opens Guangzhou-Nairobi All-Cargo Route, First Flight Carries 92 Tons.

Yesterday, China Southern Airlines Logistics opened an all-cargo route from Guangzhou to Nairobi, with the first flight carrying 92 tons of cargo. The route strengthens the cross-border freight corridor between China and East Africa, benefits the circulation of goods such as electronics, cross-border e-commerce parcels, and fresh produce, improves logistics timeliness toward Africa, and provides stable air cargo capacity support for overseas sellers expanding into African markets.

Item 12: China-Russia Agricultural Trade Up More Than One-Third in First Nine Months.

Yesterday, Russian Prime Minister Mishustin said at the 31st China-Russia Prime Ministers' Regular Meeting that from January to September 2026, Russia's agricultural trade with China increased by more than one-third compared with the same period in 2025. The data highlights that under sanctions, Russian agricultural exports are accelerating their "pivot to the East" and deepening dependence on the Chinese market, involving categories such as grain, oils, and meat, providing incremental space for China's food imports and cross-border agricultural trade.

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