The food delivery wars among China's e-commerce platforms have further eroded dine-in restaurants' profits, while the surge in orders has piled on operational pressure in terms of staffing and inventory, according to the Cailian Press.

Those restaurants' struggles prompted multiple associations, including the China Cuisine Association and the China Chain Store & Franchise Association, to speak out, urging platforms to regulate low-price subsidy competition, uphold fair market order, and protect reasonable profit margins for businesses.

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It is understood that dine-in orders have nosedived as food delivery orders skyrocketed. For small-scale restaurant owners, leaving food delivery platforms would mean losing a large portion of their customer base. The owner of a small eatery in Jiangsu shared that the proportion of dine-in orders has plummeted from 40% last year to just 10% after the delivery war.

Recently, the China Cuisine Association issued a statement saying that high subsidies from platforms have brought delivery prices below dine-in prices, which in turn drove a large number of consumers toward online ordering. As a result, restaurants received orders that failed to generate any profits, further straining their already challenging operations.