The picture is from: worm creative
1. Every day at 0:00, the vegetables battle
At zero, Zhang Xiaoying quickly opened a box of fresh horses. Spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, bean sprouts … She is skilled enough to add every vegetable to the cart. Just a minute ago, the icons of these vegetables also showed “sold out today.” Even if the product is not sold out, you ca n’t add it to the shopping cart, because the system will prompt you “Hema Brother is full, I suggest you go to the store to buy”.
Zhang Xiaoying took 5 minutes. After adding the required dishes, the system prompted that some vegetables were no longer in stock.
“It’s terrible. Is it so difficult for me to eat a green vegetable?” Zhang Xiaoying complained while searching for alternative vegetables. In the end, she only grabbed a bunch of grapes and three bananas in Hema. “Tomorrow there are no more vegetables to eat.” With a poor record, Zhang Xiaoying threw his mobile phone on the sofa.
After grabbing the vegetables, Zhang Xiaoying sent a complaint in the circle of friends: “I did not expect that green vegetables became a hard currency for epidemic prevention other than masks and disinfectants.” As a result, many friends left a message below and provided her with other “purchase guides”: “Daily delivery at night and delivery the next day, you still have orders now!”
“Meicai.com can now deliver to individual users. I just placed a lot of vegetables just now.”
“It is actually measured that the US group buys vegetables before 9am and JD arrives home, and Carrefour takes out a lot of green leafy vegetables, but it will not be available after 10am”
“I now open every day at 11pmThe freshness of the day is good, and basically it can catch up with the new one, and it has successfully harvested important supplies such as spinach, tomatoes, and green onions.
△ Hema APP
Zhang Xiaoying, who has received suggestions from various quarters, just like chicken blood, passed quickly and downloaded APPs for various fresh platforms, many of which were never used before. After registering, logging in, adding addresses, choosing vegetables, scrapping together and switching between four different platforms, Zhang Xiaoying finally bought a lettuce. The hardest to grab are tomatoes, spinach and bananas. Zhang Xiaoying, the tomato icon that can be seen before Hema Xiansheng came to zero. After ten o’clock, the tomatoes icon disappeared.
Because she could n’t buy tomatoes, Zhang Xiaoying went to the nearby Lotus Lotus the next morning, but the shelves that should have tomatoes were still empty. The farmer over there told her, “Now many people don’t dare to buy 8 yuan for a pound of tomatoes.” In the end, going around, Zhang Xiaoying only bought four tomatoes for 20 yuan in the nearby community supermarket.
But on the other hand, as far as possible to avoid traveling for dinner, many restaurants have experienced a drastic drop in passenger traffic. The restaurant ’s previous preparations cannot be consumed and they can only be moved to the street for sale.
△ Green vegetables are sold at the entrance of Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant
2, green vegetables have become hard currency
Grabbing greens has become a unique landscape for first-tier city residents.
Many friends in third- and fourth-tier cities are very puzzled and ask Zhang Xiaoying, is it crazy to grab vegetables? The vegetable market and supermarket in their hometown are full of vegetables, and there is no rush. But the first-tier cities are completely different.
Zhang Xiaoying lives in Dongheng Times Community, next to the East Fourth Ring Road in Beijing. Unlike the denseness of vegetable stores and supermarkets in second- and third-tier cities, the recent Hema Xiansheng is also close to one kilometer away from Zhang Xiaoying, and many vegetable markets have not yet opened. There are limited places to buy green vegetables.
Zhang Xiaoying feels that since it is necessary to live at home, it is natural to reduce travel. The market itself has a more closed environment, and you have to have close contact with other people when choosing dishes and queuing. It is better to go less. Being able to buy more vegetables at once can reduce the chance of going downstairs and the chance of being infected by the virus.
Because green vegetables were not available online, Zhang Xiaoying had to bite the bullet and go to the store the next day. The online display shows that there are insufficient vegetables that cannot be delivered, and there are still some in the store, but there are not many options. “You can only meet what you choose,” Zhang Xiaoying said. If you want to get up late and go out again in the afternoon, you can’t grab anything.
During the period, Zhang Xiaoying’s friends sent WeChat and complained. The other party went out at one o’clock in the afternoon and went to Hema Xiansheng, Joy City, and a supermarket nearby. There were no greens in all the places. Finally, I could only buy some instant noodles and go home.
△ Shenzhen citizens are robbing vegetables
A similar situation has occurred in Shanghai. DASEIN, a Shanghai netizen @@ banana flavor, stated on Weibo, “I haven’t snatched Double Eleven in three years, and now I want to grab vegetables at zero in the international metropolis Shanghai”.
△ Shanghai RT-Mart app
All the vegetables on Hema and Dingdong are out of stock. The store supermarket newly added vegetables in the morning and was robbed of it at 8 o’clock.
In Wuhan, where the epidemic is most severe. At 10 am, there are basically few greens left in many large vegetable farms. Many residents in Wuhan who live in isolation say, “Have some green rice at home. Even if there is only rice, you can’t be hungry.”
△ A supermarket in Wuhan
The price of vegetables has gone up. Mr. Cheng, who lives in Qiaokou District, Wuhan, said that currently roadside Chinese cabbage costs seven yuan a pound and garlic is 15 yuan a pound. All Carrefour vegetables are 10 yuan per catty. Vegetables and rice are not well stocked. Due to the epidemic situation in Central China, the service sites of fresh e-commerce companies such as Daily Fresh have been closed. When you open the Meituan takeaway in Wuhan, all the restaurants show “Closed”.
“Although platforms such as JD.com say that the Spring Festival is not closed, you will find that everything you need is out of stock when you open it,” said Cheng. After having no way to buy vegetables online, Mr. Cheng could only drive to Chengdu Ito Yanghuatang in a private car. I heard that there was ample supply of vegetables there.
A person in charge of North China Daily said that from New Year’s Eve to today, market demand has increased significantly, with an increase in order volume of 136% in the same period last year, and an increase in the order volume for the first day of last year by 227%. In addition, Ding Dong’s grocery shopping data shows that recently, the public’s demand for mobile phone shopping has increased significantly. The order volume of the New Year’s Eve has increased by more than 300% year-on-year. Million orders.
Orders skyrocketed, but everyone still complained about the difficulty of buying vegetables. What went wrong?
3. Fresh e-commerce under epidemic situation: pressure and challenge
Green vegetables can also be the target of mad raids. Zhang Xiaoying never imagined this. In her hometown of Quanzhou, Fujian, the vegetable farmers downstairs are still selling vegetables normally. The nearby Yonghui supermarket and other stores can also supply vegetables. There are simple and simple online fresh platforms. Although the delivery time is not fast, they can barely supply. Got vegetables every day.
But she still plans to return to Beijing early.
With the severe outbreak in Wuhan, the number of cases in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other regions has gradually increased. As of January 29, 91 cases of new coronavirus have been confirmed in Beijing, in addition to 80 cases in Shanghai and 241 cases in Guangdong. Wuhan, the largest epidemic area, has announced the closure of the city on January 23, and Beijing also adopted temporary suspension measures for some passenger trains from January 28 to February 26.
Worried about not being able to return to Beijing in time, Zhang Xiaoying hurriedly changed her ticket and returned as early as the third day of the new year. “If you have to go to jail, it is easier to go to jail in a big city than in a small city.” On the way back to Beijing, Zhang Xiaoying was thinking so. “Just ask for takeaway to go downstairs, or buy food online through fresh e-commerce. Big cities are much more convenient than small cities in this regard.” But she did not expect to run into “green vegetables shortage” accidentally.
Takeaway is not the best option either. In addition to some restaurants that have been closed during the Spring Festival, some restaurants that have insisted on operating have also recently been notified. In order to prevent epidemics, they are not allowed to continue operations and extend the closure. This leads to few restaurants to choose from when ordering takeaway. Ordering food is not a long-term solution, and you may even expose yourself to a greater risk of infection. On January 26, a female patient with pneumonitis associated with a new coronavirus was diagnosed in Shibei District, Qingdao. Her husband was the delivery brother of a takeaway platform and was listed as a suspected infection.
“I do n’t dare to order take-away food anymore, I still try to avoid cooked food”, said Zhang Xiaoying, “I ca n’t know if the cooking and packaging process is hygienic,What if the chef sneezes on the dish? What if the delivery brother is infected? “
Purchasing and stocking vegetables has put greater pressure on fresh e-commerce companies that are in short supply. In the past, fresh food platforms that were announced to be delivered within 30 minutes could not fulfill their contract on time during the Spring Festival.
Daily Fresh adjusted the delivery time and freight for some regions. From January 26th to January 30th, the business hours of North China will be adjusted to 9:00 am to 21:00 pm, and business will be closed at 21:00 every day. Payment orders after 21:00 will be delivered by default the next day. From January 23 to January 30, the delivery time limit in North China was adjusted to 2 hours.
“In the past, people used to buy two dishes with a single order, a bottle of milk, and one brother could get five or six orders on a trip.” The relevant person in charge of Hema Xiansheng said, Buy 10 cartons of water and 10 bags of rice at a time, you need three or four brothers for one order. ”
“It’s the Spring Festival itself. In addition to the epidemic situation, everyone is unwilling to go out and buy a lot of things at once,” said Ms. Chong. “So delivery is really not up to date now. The stall managers in many of our stores, HR went to drive in a private car. “At present, Hema Xiansheng’s daily shipments reach 7-8 times, which is far more than the peak on weekdays.
The Spring Festival holiday, instant demand burst, and a large increase in single purchases have become the main reasons for the “green vegetables shortage” in first-tier cities. The relevant person in charge of the Youxianhua East area also said that despite sufficient stocks before the holiday, the emergence of the epidemic did cause a surge in sales of some commodities, which also caused the supply shortage of the front warehouse in some areas on the day.
“We will replenish the micro warehouse every night to ensure that the stocks of each front warehouse are replenished.” The person in charge said that rice noodles and oil are currently in sufficient stock, and fresh vegetables, fresh fish and fruits are currently in normal supply, and will be added next. Large stocks and micro warehouse inventory. As for the lack of market supply of some emergency products, the person in charge said that they are actively looking for sources of supply to resolve short-term demand first.
4. Epidemic prevention, panic prevention, out of stock
Robbery, causing everyone to panic, worrying about not being served, and finally the platform’s capacity is too tight, and the vegetables are “Luoyang paper expensive”.
But the good news is that the looting situation may be relieved over time.
At the Wuhan market, Ms. Chong of Hema Xiansheng said that the market is stable, citizens are orderly and the situation of hoarding vegetables is decreasing.”It should be caused by rumors. In the next period of time, everyone will return to their senses. If they can’t snap up, the supply and distribution of vegetables should return to normal.
On January 28, Hema Xiansheng launched 500,000 servings of packaged vegetables and 80 tons of bulk vegetables in Shanghai. Vegetable supply in Beijing was three times that of usual. Guiyang Hema also launched tens of millions of vegetables. In addition, dozens of tons of tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables with large consumption were also intensively purchased within a few days.
Through the disclosure of this information, Ms. Chong said that this is to reduce the panic of everyone from the perspective of the public.
Daily Youxian said that in terms of fruits and vegetables, it will also increase stocking, and it is expected that the arrival volume will be about three times the original plan. According to media reports, the current supply of vegetables in Xinfadi market in Beijing is sufficient and stable. Vegetable distributors have also been coordinated to make vegetable reserves in the place of production and can supply the Beijing market at any time. Zhang Xiaoying received a text message from a nearby restaurant on January 29, which also mentioned that there is ample supply of vegetables in the store. It is recommended that you do not panic and go directly to the store to buy.
Ms. Chong predicts that as everyone’s mentality stabilizes, it should be better after the Spring Festival.
But for first-tier cities, although the younger brother has returned, on the other hand, the user has also returned, so it depends on the development of the epidemic and everyone ’s mentality. It is difficult to say what will happen in the future.
(In response to the interviewee’s request, Zhang Xiaoying is a pseudonym in the text)