At the Cross Street Store of BBK Supermarket, Yongding District, Zhangjiajie City, Hunan Province, takeaway workers are queuing up to pick up goods ordered by citizens. Xinhua News Agency reporter, Chen Sihan
From three meals a day to fresh vegetables, from general merchandise to drugs and sundries, takeaway services now cover many aspects of people’s lives. According to the 48th Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network recently released by China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2021, the scale of online takeaway users in China reached 469 million, an increase of 49.76 million compared with December 2020, and the growth rate was the most obvious in various survey applications. With China’s economy stabilizing and improving and the supervision of the takeaway industry further strengthened, the digitalization level of the takeaway industry continues to improve, new consumption trends are highlighted, and the industry coverage is more diverse.
"Running errands" service is very popular
Go home and prepare to watch a TV show, order a box of fresh cut fruit first; forget to bring a power bank when you go on a business trip, order takeaway and buy one quickly, and don’t panic if you have an electric phone… Nowadays, the extension of the concept of "takeaway" continues to expand, and the industry coverage is more diverse.
Open Meituan takeaway and choose Meituan flash sale. Drinks and snacks, fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers and green plants, pets and mothers, medicine, digital books and other categories can be delivered to home within 30 minutes to 2 hours. Data show that in the second quarter of this year, Meituan flash sale transactions and transaction amounts increased by more than 140% year-on-year. Among them, flowers and medicines maintained a high growth momentum and continued to outperform other categories. In addition to delivering goods, services can also be delivered. It is reported that Meituan’s errand service is divided into two parts: "help pick up and deliver" and "help buy". It hopes to provide users with instant delivery services within the same city when they are unable to get away, anxious, and need to save time, trouble and effort, freeing people who do not have much leisure time from trivial matters and making life more worry-free.
On the Ele.me platform, the number of orders for takeaway drugs increased by 10% in July and August this year, an increase of 130% year-on-year. Ele.me and major pharmacies launched the "Small Late Night Pharmacy" activity, and nearly 5,000 pharmacies in more than 500 cities across the country achieved 24-hour health and urgent delivery services, meeting the needs of users for late-night medication.
The instant home business of providing consumers with food and beverages, vegetables and fruits, flower cakes, medicine and health, household daily necessities, and digital goods by the Internet retail platform is also known as instant retail. Usually, riders can deliver to their door within 30 minutes to 2 hours after users place an order.
During the epidemic prevention period, the instant delivery business represented by fresh food and medicine has developed rapidly, and together with food and beverage takeaway, it has helped to benefit people’s lives and stabilize the economy. According to the "2021 China Instant Retail Industry Research Report" released by iResearch Consulting, from the demand side, consumers expect to buy a relatively balanced proportion of categories on the instant retail e-commerce platform, and there is immediate consumption demand for all kinds of goods; from the supply side, the current local life services have extended from food and beverage takeaway to fresh fruits, household daily necessities, flowers and gifts, medicine and health, book merchandise and other goods. The instant retail scene also covers supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, bookstores and other offline places.
Technology improvement, accurate delivery
"In the past, I was most worried about the surge in takeaway orders during the midday rush hour. Almost every day, there would be missed orders and wrong orders. Especially when I was busy, I couldn’t take care of operating my mobile phone. As a result, there was no rider to pick up the meal when the meal was ready. Sometimes the meal time was not allowed and it was easy to have conflicts." Mr. Li, the owner of a takeaway restaurant in Wuhan, Hubei Province, lamented. "After using the digital store opening aid, there will be no rush during the lunch and dinner peak periods, and the takeaway business will be even more prosperous."
The digital store opening aids mentioned by Mr. Li are cloud printers and "food delivery assistants", developed by the takeaway platform. The cloud printer is a takeaway order printer that can automatically receive orders and print quickly, which can automatically print orders stored in the cloud; "food delivery assistant" is a new type of intelligent scanning code device. Scanning the takeaway order number can immediately report the status of "food delivery" and notify the rider to deliver to the store.
"We have been using it for a while, and we feel that the operation is quite convenient. The cloud printer can automatically accept orders, and there will be no more cases of missing orders during peak periods. The’food delivery assistant ‘allows riders to judge the time of picking up meals more accurately," Mr. Li said.
At present, more and more small and medium-sized catering merchants have opened the takeaway model, quickly and without omission to accept orders and timely docking rider delivery, which has become the biggest demand of merchants. The auxiliary tools provided by the takeaway platform can effectively improve the digital management level of small and medium-sized merchants.
Some store owners pointed out that in addition to the improvement of digital hardware, instant retail e-commerce also helps retail stores in many ways. For example, retail stores are small in scale and large in number, mainly mom-and-pop stores, with traditional sales methods, lack of direct grasp of consumer data, and cannot accurately judge consumer needs. After connecting to the online takeaway platform, instant retail e-commerce can rely on technical capabilities and big data advantages to accurately understand consumer behavior, provide consumer portraits and consumer needs for small stores, help retail stores select products, and empower retail stores to digitally upgrade.
Industry insiders believe that the digitalization of the service industry is an emerging track. Apps like Ele.me and other life services continue to focus on the user’s "side economy" at the front end to meet user requests; at the back end, it is the continuous digitalization of merchants to help merchants better acquire and manage users and improve operational efficiency.
Industry supervision is gradually improving
You can see the processing environment and production process of takeaway food, and display the order volume and other data on the takeaway platform in real time – this is the digital takeaway supervision system "Zhejiang Takeaway Online" that was officially launched recently. Zhang Genming, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision Bureau, introduced that in response to the characteristics of the new economy and new business models, "Zhejiang Takeaway Online" creatively launched scenarios such as "reasonable time" for takeaway delivery, "AI inspection" in the kitchen, "data portrait" on the platform, and "business risk perception" for merchants. For example, the system calculates the riding time and walking food delivery time for the rider, and then automatically generates a "reasonable time" for takeaway delivery after considering traffic congestion and weather conditions. The rider completes the delivery task within this time period, and the platform cannot deduct its performance. Consumers cannot arbitrarily give bad reviews.
It is reported that since the practice run, "Zhejiang takeaway online" has completed the information verification of 293,000 merchants on the online ordering platform, confirmed that the main body of catering registration 205,000, online access to more than 6,000 Sunshine Kitchen, and promoted more than 7,000 takeaway merchants to commit to using takeaway seals, 3372 takeaway merchants committed to using plastic-limited packaging, accessed 339,000 takeaway rider data, and jointly promoted the coordinated governance of takeaway platforms.
In recent years, the takeaway industry has developed rapidly, resulting in problems such as plastic pollution, algorithm hegemony, rider violations, food safety, and after-sales disputation. Actions to standardize the management of the takeaway industry are continuing to follow up. State Regulation for Market Regulation and other seven departments recently jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Responsibility of Online Catering Platforms and Effectively Safeguarding the Rights and Interests of Takeaway Deliverymen", which put forward all-round requirements for protecting the legitimate rights and interests of takeaway deliverymen such as labor income, labor safety, social security, and employment environment. Previously, State Regulation for Market Regulation investigated and dealt with suspected monopolistic behaviors such as "choosing one of the two" on takeout platforms in accordance
With the significant strengthening of industry supervision, the social security of flexible employment groups, including food delivery riders, has received more attention. Relevant improvements and sound measures will promote the development of online food delivery in the direction of healthy norms.