Douyin started as a short video app. Then it decided it also wanted to be where you book restaurants, buy movie tickets, order spa treatments, and reserve hotel rooms. The gamble paid off. Douyin’s Life Services reached 8,500 billion RMB in GMV in 2025 — nearly triple where it was two years ago. Meituan is watching closely.
This article covers what Douyin Life Services actually is, how it grew this fast, where it stands vs. the incumbents, and what it means for brands operating in China’s local service economy.
What Is Douyin Life Services?
Douyin Life Services (抖音生活服务) is the vertical inside Douyin that handles offline-to-online (O2O) commerce: restaurants, hotels, travel, entertainment venues, spas, fitness studios, and general local services. A user watches a short video about a ramen restaurant, taps the coupon link, buys a group-purchase deal, and redeems it in-store — all without leaving the app.
Douyin has over 600 million daily active users already on the platform for content. Life Services layers a commerce layer on top of that existing attention. That is the structural advantage Meituan and Ele.me cannot replicate: nobody opens Meituan for entertainment. People spend 140 minutes per day on Douyin. Eight minutes on Meituan. That difference in dwell time drives discovery at a scale O2O incumbents cannot match organically.
GMV Growth: From 100B RMB to 8,500B RMB in Two Years
The numbers are striking:
- 2022: Douyin Life Services hit 50 billion RMB annual GMV, reaching its full-year target early
- H1 2023: 100 billion RMB — the figure that made headlines at the time
- 2023 full year: approximately 3,000 billion RMB
- 2024: 5,600 billion RMB (+81% YoY)
- 2025: 8,500+ billion RMB (+59% YoY)
- 2026 internal target: approximately 12,750 billion RMB — though Douyin is deliberately slowing promotional intensity to improve merchant margins
For context: Meituan’s total transaction volume for its food delivery and in-store services business was approximately 7,000 billion RMB in 2024. Douyin has closed the gap significantly in three years — starting from near zero in 2021.
Merchant Ecosystem (End of 2025)
- 15.198 million active merchants on the Douyin Life Services platform
- 3.99 million new merchants onboarded in 2025 alone
- 4.58 million SMEs active on Douyin Local
- 22,000+ SMEs with annual Douyin Life Services revenue above 1 million RMB
Category Breakdown: What Sells on Douyin Life Services
The GMV split across categories (in-store and hotel-travel services combined):
- Restaurants and dining: 43% — the dominant category, driven by group-purchase coupons for chain restaurants and trending food concepts
- General services (综合): 32% — beauty salons, fitness studios, entertainment venues, escape rooms, KTV
- Hotels and travel: 25% — one of the fastest-growing sub-segments, as short travel videos directly drive hotel and destination bookings
The “short video to booking” conversion is particularly strong for travel. A user watches a 30-second video of a boutique hotel in Yunnan, sees a time-limited coupon, and books before the video ends. That purchase behavior did not exist three years ago.
Douyin Life Services vs. Meituan: Where Each Wins
The competition between Douyin and Meituan is the defining battle in China’s local commerce market right now. Each has genuine structural advantages:
Where Douyin Wins
- Discovery and inspiration: 140 minutes/day dwell time vs. 8 minutes on Meituan. Consumers find new restaurants and experiences on Douyin they would never have searched for on Meituan.
- Content-driven categories: trendy tea shops, aesthetically distinctive restaurants, photogenic food, “instagrammable” dining experiences. Categories where visuals drive the purchase decision.
- Brand storytelling: a chain restaurant can run a live room, show its kitchen, offer limited coupons, and build a following — none of which is possible on Meituan.
- Gen Z and Millennial acquisition: these demographics are on Douyin for hours. They are not opening Meituan until they have already decided where they want to go.
Where Meituan Still Leads
- High-frequency daily delivery: food delivery is a habit, not a discovery. Consumers open Meituan daily for lunch without thinking. Douyin is not a daily delivery habit yet.
- High-consideration services: spa bookings, karaoke, escape rooms, local hotels. Meituan’s coupon redemption rate is 88% for these categories vs. 55% for Douyin. Intent is higher on Meituan for planned outings.
- Review infrastructure: Meituan Dianping has years of reviews and ratings that function as a local Google Maps. Trust in restaurant recommendations is higher.
The practical implication for brands: use Douyin for awareness and coupon-driven acquisition of new customers, use Meituan for repeat purchases and high-intent local searches. The two platforms are complementary for most restaurant and service businesses, not mutually exclusive.
The Power of Live Streaming for Local Services
Live streaming is the key mechanism driving Douyin Life Services GMV. A restaurant chain can run a live room with a host presenting daily specials, time-limited group-purchase deals (团购券), and viewer interaction — and generate hundreds of thousands of RMB in coupon sales in a single session.
The barrier to entry is real: a minimum team of a presenter, a technical host, and a promotions manager. Equipment, lighting, and promotional budget add cost. This is why large chains and well-funded local businesses dominate the top GMV live rooms. SMEs with under 1 million RMB annual revenue often find the unit economics of Douyin live difficult — which is one reason Douyin is investing in tools to reduce this barrier in 2026.
What This Means for Foreign Brands in China
Foreign brands operating in China’s local service economy — hotels, restaurants, tourism operators, fitness chains — need to treat Douyin Life Services as a primary channel, not an experiment. Here is the practical framework:
- Set up a Douyin Business Account with your service locations tagged and verified. This is the foundation for all Life Services commerce.
- Create short video content showing the experience, not just the product. A hotel showing the sunrise from room 502. A restaurant showing the chef at 6am. Authentic, specific, visual.
- Launch group-purchase coupons (团购) as your primary revenue mechanism. Price them at a 15-25% discount to drive conversion from video viewers. Track redemption rates closely — 55%+ is the Douyin benchmark for well-run campaigns.
- Run monthly live sessions for high-value coupon bundles (holiday packages, seasonal menus, event tickets). Even a 2-hour live session once a month builds audience faster than static listings.
- Maintain your Meituan listing in parallel — especially for Dianping reviews. A brand with strong Douyin presence but no Meituan reviews loses credibility with consumers who cross-check.
FAQ — Douyin Life Services 2025
Q1: 抖音生活服务和美团相比，外国品牌应该优先选哪个？(Should foreign brands prioritize Douyin Life Services or Meituan?)
Both, but with different roles. Douyin is your acquisition channel — new customers discover you through content and buy group-purchase coupons impulsively. Meituan is your retention and search channel — customers who already know you, or who search specifically for your category, find you there. For a foreign restaurant or hotel brand entering China, start Douyin first (content and coupon setup takes 2-4 weeks), and maintain Meituan in parallel for reviews and high-intent searches. Budget-wise: allocate 60-70% of your O2O spend to Douyin for the first 6 months, then rebalance based on your actual redemption data.
Q2: 抖音生活服务的团购券如何定价？(How should you price group-purchase coupons on Douyin Life Services?)
The 2025 benchmark from Chinese market data: a 15-25% discount on the standard menu price is the sweet spot for coupon conversion. Below 15% discount, viewers do not feel enough urgency to buy. Above 30%, you erode margin and train customers to never pay full price. The highest-performing coupon formats in 2025 are bundled experiences (meal + dessert + drink at a combined discount) rather than single-item discounts — they increase average transaction value while the percentage discount looks compelling. Time-limit the coupon to 30-90 days post-purchase: long enough for consumers to plan a visit, short enough to create urgency. Douyin’s 2026 strategy is specifically focused on improving merchant profitability, so expect better analytics tools for coupon performance optimization to roll out.
EAC (Ecommerce China Agency) has been operating since 2012. We help foreign brands enter and grow in China through WeChat, Tmall, JD, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu.
Want to launch on Douyin Life Services? Get a free audit from our team.
Follow Philip Chen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/philip-chen-eac
