Under the epidemic situation, the demand of major fresh food e-commerce platforms is booming, and the order volume has surged-

Home, did you buy food with the app?

Reporter Shi Zhipeng

In a supermarket in Hanyang District, Wuhan City, after ordering online, users go to pick up vegetables. Photo by our reporter Zhang Wujun

The sudden outbreak has made more and more people choose to stay at home. Along with this, the demand for online grocery shopping surged, and orders from major fresh e-commerce platforms were hot. "Have you bought any food?" Has become a buzzword for many people's WeChat chat greetings.

Ensuring the supply of daily necessities such as vegetables has a bearing on the stability and order of social production and life. The vegetable basket was stable, and the common people were not worried. In the face of the epidemic, while the major fresh-food e-commerce companies are doing their own prevention and control, they have come up with tricks to solve the problems, strive to protect the supply, and work together to fight the "epidemic".

Buy food online, middle-aged and elderly also join

"Dear, I am the delivery brother. I have a normal temperature today and wear a mask to deliver your order. Please receive the goods at the specified time and pay attention to the incoming call!"

After receiving the text message, Ms. Ke, who lives in Chaoyang, Beijing, went downstairs and returned with two bags of vegetables shortly after. "At the moment, I use the APP to buy food, safe and convenient. I can eat it for two or three days at a time." She said that in addition to shopping, she also ordered meat, eggs and fruits online. We also need to pay attention to nutrition matching when we go out.

What's happening offline? The reporter walked into a Hema Xiansheng store in Beijing. The staff told the reporter: "After the outbreak, the number of customers who came to the store is not as good as before, but the demand for vegetables has not decreased." Compared with the decrease in the flow of people to the store, the store sorted. The crew was busy a lot. Their job is to prepare the goods for the online order, then hang them on the conveyor chain and transport them to the back warehouse for packing.

The same situation applies to a mini store of Yonghui Supermarket about 1 km away. The purchasing area is slightly deserted, but the pick-up point is another scene. "3 cabbages, 2 pounds of potatoes, 1 pound of carrots ..." One staff member read the list, and the other was packing. Opposite them, there are three delivery men waiting in line. "You can place an order on your mobile phone and wait for the food to be delivered to your door. You don't have to run back and forth." The staff member told the reporter.

For a time, the online orders of major fresh e-commerce companies have surged, and the transaction volume has soared. According to a survey by reporters, the online order volume of Hema Xiansheng increased by 220% year-on-year; the daily sales of Meituan in Beijing were up to 2-3 times before the festival. During the Spring Festival, the daily value of fresh and actual paid transactions increased by 350% compared with the same period last year, and Jingdong Daojia's platform sales increased by 470%. In addition, Yonghui's grocery shopping, Dingdong grocery shopping, multi-point and other platform orders have surged.

Demand is so hot that even if the major platforms "do not close during the Spring Festival", the supply of goods is still in short supply.

Wang Yong is a delivery person for a fresh food e-commerce company. He didn't expect that he had just caught up with the busiest time as soon as he started. "There are more orders now. You have to buy them early, but you will be late!" He said. Vegetables and other commodities were once on the shelves. As a result, many cities have emerged as a strategy for grabbing food, and the inventory update time of each major platform is marked in detail above.

Nearly two years after Xiao Li graduated, “If it were n’t for renting a house to cook for myself, I would n’t have to wait for food every day!” He said that in order to buy food, 5 apps have been downloaded, and they must be delivered according to each platform. Time to set the alarm clock, "It's a bit like grabbing a Spring Festival train ticket!"

He told reporters that his neighbor Aunt Wang saw him go to the community door every day to pick up vegetables, and then bought them. "In the beginning, she still had concerns, but later found that the merchants could wash the dishes well in advance, and it was easy to use, so I tried to use it." Sometimes, he would share his summary of the robbing experience and share it with Aunt Wang.

Today, middle-aged and elderly people who buy food online like Aunt Wang are by no means an exception. Middle-aged and elderly people used to be the main force of offline grocery shopping. The advent of the epidemic has prompted many middle-aged and elderly people to try new things and join the online grocery shopping or even "grabbing" team. Ali's local life data shows that during the Spring Festival, the number of "post-60s" users' online grocery orders quadrupled.

Keep fresh and keep fresh

Is it difficult to grab vegetables online because there are not enough vegetables? The public can't help but ask such questions. In this regard, some insiders pointed out that the domestic upstream production capacity is huge. At the beginning of the outbreak, we were not mainly facing production issues, but human and transportation issues.

Wu Shiqing is a daily vegetable buyer. He is stationed daily at Zhannong Haite Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative in Tonghai County, Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, and is responsible for coordinating vegetable supply. As usual, he went home for Chinese New Year. But the plan can't keep up. "I received news on the second day of the year, saying that the place of production does not allow crowds to gather, and the workers who collect vegetables are basically unable to come out." He said that there were many vegetables in the field, but they could not be collected. So, he hurried back to Yunnan to collect vegetables and deliver goods on the same day. About 100,000 servings of vegetables are served from here to North, East and South China.

In the early days of the epidemic, closing villages and roads in some places did cause difficulties in transporting vegetables. "We mobilized the workers in the place of origin on the second and third day of the first month, and delivered the dishes by pulling the shoulders." The relevant person in charge of Youxian said. In response, each platform actively cooperates with local governments to open green channels. Hu Qiugen, the general manager of Hema Xiansheng's national operations management, told reporters: “The Shanghai government has urgently resolved 110 green passes for material security for Hema to ensure the smooth arrival of goods and materials that supply people ’s livelihood.” After consulting with local management departments, daily Youxian also resumed normal transportation, and the daily supply of vegetables can now reach 1,500 tons.

Since it is difficult to transport from the place of origin, simply "localize" the supply chain. "For some specific types of vegetables, we do not purchase through intermediate wholesalers, but directly sign contracts with local growers based on the sales data forecasts of each store." Hu Qiugen said, this is an important part of Hema Fresh Life's "full shelf" guarantee. One way.

In Hubei, where transportation controls are most stringent, "localization" of the supply chain is even more critical. "In Xiangyang, Hubei, the community implements closed-type management, which makes it difficult for residents to buy vegetables. At the same time, farmers are also blocked by roads and a large number of vegetables are unsaleable." The operation team of JD.com's "Chinese specialty · Xiangyang Pavilion" understands the difficulty of community demand Later, he proactively contacted the government and proposed to rely on the local supply chain system to solve the problem of the docking of vegetable supply and demand: that is, the procurement needs of various communities were aggregated, and then Jingdong Logistics distributed the vegetables of local farmers to the designated places in the community.

"Follow-up, we promoted the" Xiangyang model "nationwide. At present, the model has been implemented in more than 20 provinces and cities, such as Jiangxi, Henan, Shaanxi, and Guizhou." Jingdong Fresh Food said.

Ordering online, lacking an intuitive experience, users will inevitably worry about the quality of the dishes delivered to them. "Information throughout the process, the source can be traced back", Hema Xiansheng started from vegetable planting, and then stepped in to guide, implement strict pesticide residue testing at the time of picking, and will conduct spot checks again when entering the warehouse.

The high rate of vegetable spoilage and the high cost of cold-chain logistics are pain points in the industry, and are also problems that major fresh produce companies are trying to solve. "We adopt a 'full cold chain, instant logistics' system. From vegetable picking to entering the city warehouse, then to the front warehouse, the whole cold chain is processed. The front warehouse is generally set up 1 to 3 kilometers away from the user, and the loss rate Can be controlled within 1.5%. "The relevant person in charge of Daily Fresh told the reporter that cost savings were mainly achieved by intensive replacement of single parcel transportation and reduction of refrigerant and packaging materials.

E-commerce catering, join hands to fight the epidemic

Mr. Chen from Beijing is a regular customer of major fresh food platforms. "I have always used my mobile phone to order food." He said, but the recent feeling is that the delivery speed is much slower than usual. It used to take an hour, and now it ’s often It will take you the next day.

There are still many people who have the same feelings as Mr. Chen. Some users reported that they had worked hard to place an order, but when they settled, they showed that they were unable to distribute the goods because of the shortage of transportation capacity. In fact, compared to the short-term shortage of vegetables in the earlier period, the problem of shortage of people has always existed.

Many platforms inform users on the APP's homepage that there will be a delay in delivery due to manpower constraints. In order to alleviate the shortage of manpower, some platforms have begun to implement the delivery reservation model, which can only be reserved for the same day service.

At a Hema Fresh store in Beijing, sorter Han Haoliang is scanning the yard to complete the selection of vegetables. The job was only part-time, he was originally a chef in a youth restaurant. What is going on? This is mainly due to the "shared staff" plan launched by Hema Xiansheng and Yunhai cuisine, youth restaurants and other catering companies in early February. The above catering companies were unable to operate due to the epidemic situation, employees were staying at home, and Hema Xiansheng was facing a shortage of people. So the two sides hit it off.

"There is a part-time job, which is better than working at home." Master Han told reporters that he is now getting started. He was brought by an old employee when he first arrived, and there are training videos in WeChat groups every day. Sorting is to be meticulous, you can't put it wrong or less, and you are responsible to the user.

According to Hu Qiugen, Xibei, green tea, typhoon shelter, mass travel, Windsor KTV and other companies also threw olive branches. As of February 19, more than 3,000 "shared employees" from more than 40 catering companies have joined the temporary employment team. Even so, many users still display "Delivery brother is full" when placing an order. He said that Hema has announced the launch of the first batch of recruitment plans for this year: open to 30,000 new students for the whole society in 2020. "The enthusiasm of the job applicants is much higher than expected." Hu Qiugen said that as of February 20, more than 6,000 regular employees have arrived.

At the moment of the epidemic, in addition to being concerned about when it will be delivered, the safety of "grass and grass" is also a concern of the majority of users.

Configure disinfection tools to regularly clean and disinfect all kinds of warehouses, stores and distribution boxes. Equipped with masks and thermometers for all personnel including delivery staff. It is required to wear a mask, take a daily temperature measurement and register well, report any abnormalities immediately, and arrange for medical treatment. These measures have basically become the standard for preventing and controlling epidemics and ensuring health and safety for major fresh e-commerce companies.

"It's too much protection to do too much detail." Zhang Duan is a distributor of a fresh e-commerce company. "The company requires that returning employees must be self-isolated. At this time, safety is the first!" Shelves in front of the community. He told reporters that the community is not allowed to enter now, so many people pick up the goods.

Zhang Duan's "contactless distribution" shelves are often also provided by the fresh produce platform. For example, Meituan has set up "contactless delivery" shelves in some communities, which not only achieves safe delivery of ingredients, but also improves the distribution efficiency of riders. It is understood that Meituan will buy vegetables in nearly 100 communities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to lay shelves one after another to facilitate more residents to pick up the goods.

Only by continuously optimizing services can we win support. Relevant person in charge of Youxian Daily said that during the epidemic prevention period, people will have higher and higher requirements for services. In order to retain users, it is necessary to continuously improve service quality and optimize consumer experience.

Near the end of the interview, Zhang Duan told reporters: "Beijing had a heavy snowfall a few days ago, and the road conditions were not good. I was late to deliver food for more than ten minutes. The users did not complain, and they left me with two masks. I did n’t want it at first, but he insisted on giving it, saying that it is not easy for us to protect ourselves! "The phrase" not easy "made him feel that what he was doing was meaningful.