2025 Consumer Rights Protection White Paper: JD and Alibaba's Entry Ignites Food Delivery Competition with Over 670,000 Industry Complaints

The 2025 Consumer Rights Protection White Paper, jointly released for the seventh consecutive year, analyzes the overall consumer complaint landscape for the year. The report is based on data from multiple sources and aims to help consumers understand annual维权 trends through statistical analysis.

The consumer service platform recorded over 8.91 million valid complaints throughout 2025, representing a 45.6% year-on-year increase. By the end of 2025, the platform had accumulated more than 31.95 million valid complaints, with over 80% receiving responses from companies and over 70% of disputes being resolved.

Top complaint keywords on the platform included "refusal of refund," "unresponsive customer service," "false advertising," and "one-sided clauses."

The platform covers various consumer sectors including financial payments, shopping platforms, food delivery, entertainment, travel, logistics, telecommunications, education, beauty products, automotive parts, and real estate. The financial payments sector generated the highest complaint volume at 35.56%, followed by shopping platforms at 20.45%. Food delivery, travel, and entertainment sectors followed closely.

Shopping platform complaints showed fluctuating patterns throughout 2025, peaking during major promotional events like the June 18 and November 11 shopping festivals. Most complaints targeted e-commerce platforms, focusing on issues such as unresponsive customer service, substandard product quality, arbitrary cancellation of large-discount orders, and inefficient refund processes.

The food delivery industry recorded over 670,000 complaints as new entrants including JD.com and Alibaba intensified market competition, sparking what became known as the "food delivery war." Complaint trends correlated closely with market competition milestones, reaching their annual peak in early July. Customer complaints primarily involved delivery delays, incorrect addresses, spilled meals, and foreign objects in food, while delivery riders mainly reported unreasonable order assignments and excessively strict platform penalties.

The travel and accommodation industry received over 480,000 complaints, with noticeable spikes during holiday periods like Spring Festival, Labor Day, and National Day. Common complaints included high ticket change fees, bundled sales of insurance and coupons, discrepancies between advertised and actual hotel room conditions, non-refundable bookings, and ride-hailing issues like fare discrepancies and shared ride mismatches.

Entertainment and lifestyle complaints exceeded 410,000, with several high-profile collective complaints emerging throughout the year. These included a May 18 incident where QQ Music altered song rankings after a voting deadline, drawing complaints from over 2,800 users; a July 2 case where Maoyan Entertainment forced refunds for Jay Chou concert tickets, involving 560 complainants; and an August 28 incident where Pop Mart canceled orders due to payment system failures, affecting nearly 900 customers. Primary grievances centered on non-refundable event tickets and unauthorized automatic renewals of media subscriptions.