Online food delivery services struggle with staff shortages
Major food delivery and courier service providers have posted notices about delays in delivery time due to staff shortages.
Major food delivery and courier service providers have posted notices about delays in delivery time due to staff shortages.
Sales of fresh fruit and dairy products have peaked in the past few weeks due to cold weather and the increase in coronavirus infections.
Freshippo designated three time slots for online orders, 6am, 11am and 4pm, starting from Monday.
It added that the delay is due to a shortage of deliverymen. The brick-and-mortar stores' opening hours remain the same.
Delivery orders of fruits and vegetables have increased.
Sophy Zhou, who lives in Jing'an District, failed to secure fresh food and groceries from Freshippo on Tuesday morning.
The grocery chain offers discount each Tuesday for paid members, but she found the delivery services were fully booked around 7am this morning.
Sales of lemons, oranges and fruits rich with vitamin C jumped 60 percent last week, the chain store said.
Sales of disinfectants increased more than six times, and honey, ginger and kiwifruit, for throat pain relief, also were hot items.
Sam's Club online delivery opens at 7:30am each day, and it said there are enough supplies at its physical stores.
Freshippo has designated three time slots for online orders starting from Monday.
Dingdong Maicai, Meituan, and other major food delivery sites also posted delay notices.
Dingdong said it has increased supplies of fresh fruit, meat and vegetables and has prepared 50 percent more food in stock during weekends.
In Shanghai, its daily supplies for fruit including oranges, apples and pears were around 1 million tons on average.
Fresh food delivery sites have also stepped up recruitment to tackle staff shortages ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday.
Sorting and delivery staff at Dingdong and Freshippo receive monthly salaries ranging from 7,000 yuan (US$1,000) to 10,000 yuan, according to social media posts recruiting new staff.
Deliveries are often fully booked on Dingdong in the afternoon.
Meituan is also recruiting part-time deliverymen to ensure food and grocery packs are delivered on time.
It already offered subsidies for delivery riders with over 8 million yuan of incentives for additional workload and work in severe outdoor weather over the past week, and additional incentives of 20 million yuan over the following month in Shanghai.
