Customers help run grocery store after owners home-quarantined

A grocery store in Yangxing Town of Shanghai's suburban Baoshan District has gained much online attention lately because of a bold decision by its home-quarantined owners.

On March 25, the owners of the store called Zhongyuan got a notice from their residential compound that their building in the community will be closed off amid a resurgence in the COVID-19 pandemic in Shanghai.

Knowing what that will do to their business, Jing and her husband decided to leave the grocery store open and unattended.

"We decided to leave the store's door wide open and use surveillance apps on our phone to monitor the store and communicate with our customers who might need help. We just left the QR code on the counter so customers could help themselves to whatever they needed and then pay," Jing said in a video she uploaded on video-sharing platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

"Also, the residents may need to get food and necessities in a closed-off community; we need each other in times like these," she explained.

On March 26, after a community volunteer helped to open the store, Jing and her husband just watched on their phone; ready to assist customers in need of help.

To Jing's surprise, sales at her store have gone up by 10 to 20 percent since.

At first, the few customers who came to the store didn't know what was going on and tentatively aimed questions at the surveillance camera, such as where some of the food items were and how to pay for their groceries.

Hu Mingyi, a frequent customer who also lives in the community, didn't know the store owner well. But after learning about the situation, he offered to help whenever he visited the store, such as aiding seniors not familiar with using phones to pay.

Hu contacted the Jings and offered to help them open and close the store daily. He would drop by whenever he was free and restock the shelves or just tidy up things.

Hu noted that community residents always pay their bill at the store and some of them even check to see if the refrigerator's door is closed properly. "Mrs Jing trusted me with their livelihood, I can't fail them," he said in a video.