Why Did the Qwen AI Free Order Campaign Overwhelm Luckin Coffee?
Alibaba's Qwen App launched a 3 Billion Yuan Spring Festival free order campaign letting users buy coffee and milk tea for 1 cent with a single AI command. Orders passed 10 million within nine hours, and chains including Luckin Coffee, Chagee and Jasmine Naibai saw printers run nonstop, staff called back from days off, and online ordering channels shut down.
Consumers waited hours and sometimes received random drinks, while delivery riders scrambled for orders. Stores that could not keep pace extended delivery times or closed mini-program and third-party ordering to relieve pressure, and officials moved to expand capacity and extend free order card validity. The episode echoed last year's delivery war for many tea beverage workers.
Alibaba's Qwen App launched a "3 Billion Yuan Spring Festival Free Order" campaign, where users could order coffee and milk tea for just 1 cent with a single AI command. Within just 9 hours, orders surpassed 10 million. Chain brands like Luckin Coffee, Chagee, and Jasmine Naibai were instantly overwhelmed by the flood of orders—store printers wouldn't stop printing, employees were urgently called back, and online channels were forced to shut down. Consumers waited hours only to receive random drinks, while delivery riders "grabbed orders" in the chaos. This AI-driven freebie frenzy had tea beverage workers crying "It feels like last year's delivery war all over again," with system crashes, trending topics dominating social media, and officials urgently expanding capacity and extending the validity of free order cards.
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Yesterday morning, Alibaba's Qwen App officially launched the "3 Billion Yuan Spring Festival Free Order" campaign. The "order milk tea with a single AI command" feature attracted a massive influx of users as soon as it went live, with many people bringing in friends and family to place orders for coffee and milk tea costing just 1 cent through the App.
After this free milk tea campaign kicked off, chain tea brands like Luckin Coffee, Chagee, and Jasmine Naibai received tens of thousands of delivery orders in an extremely short time, immediately plunging hundreds of thousands of milk tea and coffee shops across the country into an overwhelming order surge.
From photos of tea shops shared by netizens across the country, it's clear that not long after the Qwen free order campaign went live, printers at chain stores wouldn't stop ringing. Milk tea workers behind the counter shook their shaker cups until they were practically sparking, yet still couldn't keep up with the hundreds of orders continuously pouring in from the system.
To cope with this sudden flood of delivery orders, some stores immediately called in employees who were off duty to return and reinforce. Others, after order volumes severely overloaded capacity, chose to adjust delivery times or directly shut down online ordering channels on mini-programs and third-party platforms, temporarily closing to relieve in-store pressure.
Meanwhile, consumers participating in the campaign took to social media to complain, saying they had ordered a free milk tea via AI in the morning but waited four or five hours before anyone accepted and delivered the order. Even more frustrating, the drink that arrived wasn't the one they had ordered at all—and this "random drink" tasted quite different from the usual quality.
Many delivery riders responded helplessly, saying the wildly popular free order campaign had thrown many stores into chaos, "like a battlefield." Riders arriving at stores and customers picking up their own orders alike struggled to match orders among the drinks piled high on the counter. As a result, many people just grabbed whatever milk tea the staff had just made and delivered it.
Qwen App's "freebie grab" operation immediately made many milk tea workers feel like they had been transported back to last year's months-long delivery war: receipts spilling from ticket printers in endlessly long strips, counters covered with cups waiting to be packed, delivery riders three layers deep crowding the counter urging orders, and tea beverage workers run off their feet, completely broken by the "spectacle" before them, wailing "I didn't mess with anyone... when AIs fight, why am I the one who gets hurt?"
Five hours after the campaign launched, Qwen's official account posted on Weibo that users had placed over 5 million orders through the App. By the afternoon, officials updated the figure to over 10 million orders in 9 hours. But at the same time, many netizens reported that the App's ordering campaign had crashed and orders couldn't be placed normally, with multiple related topics trending on Weibo.
Around 5 PM yesterday, Qwen's official Weibo posted "We're exhausted today, please everyone come back tomorrow," with officials responding that they were urgently expanding capacity to ensure the campaign could proceed normally. This morning, Qwen's official Weibo announced that the free order cards' validity had been extended from the originally planned February 23 to February 28, and reminded users that the cards weren't limited to coffee and milk tea—they could also be used for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and New Year goods, suggesting users place orders during off-peak times.
Image source: Internet
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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
