Production | Tiger Sniff Business Group
Author | Li Ling
Edit | Fang Yu
“Haha, all the drug delivery apps have collapsed, Ding Dong, Kuaifang, etc.” In the early morning of February 1, the news of Shuanghuanglian’s out of stock broke the circle of friends, except that some media had no brains to “take goods”. Ridicule, drug delivery app collapsed also became the focus of public attention.
Ignore the turmoil caused by Shuanghuanglian for the time being. Since the new coronavirus epidemic caused closed or semi-closed management of residential areas, home service has become the basic guarantee for people’s lives.
Home delivery services such as medicine delivery, food delivery, and food delivery have become an indispensable part of maintaining daily life in big cities. Due to the dual effects of the Spring Festival holiday and the epidemic situation, the return to work is not satisfactory. At 11:30 in the morning, Tiger Sniff went through the hungry medicine delivery door to enter the Dingdang fast medicine page, but after selecting the medicine, the payment showed a system abnormality, and the same was repeated several times.
And other pharmacy delivery through this home delivery page can be successfully paid. If you choose to send it immediately, it will be delivered within 30 minutes or an hour. And the delivery service borne by the merchant will cost 10 yuan for the original delivery fee. 50% off.
The drug delivery app crash has a certain chance, but if you usually think of it, you should go to the drug store to buy it first. After all, there are a few people who plan to install a drug delivery app in advance on their mobile phones.
In an epidemic, making online (mobile) ordering and delivery to home suddenly became the first choice of most people.
Medicines are not a daily necessity, and their use is limited. For the takeaway company, the epidemic is both “dangerous” and an opportunity. The opportunity lies in the huge order volume, and the danger lies in how to ensure the safety of the performing parties.? At this time, “contactless delivery” became popular.
On February 1st, Meituan Takeaway recently released the “Contactless Delivery Service Specification”, which defines the process of promoting “contactless delivery” for takeaway platforms in terms of definition of terms, platform information service capabilities, service processes, and service quality control. Operating specifications in.
In order to combat the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic and ensure the basic living of the residents during the Spring Festival, Meituan Takeaway launched “contactless distribution” on January 26 and quickly achieved national coverage. When placing an order, the user can negotiate with the rider a designated place for placing the product, such as the company’s front desk, doorstep, etc., by means of “order remarks”, telephone, and instant messaging system in the APP. After the delivery, the rider will call the phone and the APP. Channels such as instant messaging systems inform users to take their own meals. For food delivery in hospital areas, it is delivered through contactless devices such as food cabinets. Since then, several local life service platforms have launched similar initiatives.
Not only the US group that launched “contactless delivery”, some netizens posted Weibo to show that they received a message prompt from Suning and KFC “contactless delivery”:
Contactless delivery is not just the same as fixed-point pick-up, it is implemented in a variety of ways (including self-lifting). Whether this sudden outbreak can make contactless distribution a standard in future life remains to be tested. After all, under normal circumstances, the user’s requirements for the delivery itself are more a door-to-door service. As long as the delivery efficiency does not decrease, it does not matter whether it contacts people.
Takeaway corner overtaking
“The delivery brother is full, welcome to shop.” On the third day of returning to Beijing, Tiger Sniff still couldn’t grab the vegetables on the Hema App that could be delivered to the door. Near Hema Xiansheng’s offline stores, door-to-door delivery staff wearing blue uniforms are rarely seen.
Insufficient manpower is a challenge for all fresh e-commerce platforms. “You placed an order on the daily excellent fresh, and it was Meituan who delivered it to you.” Some users also reported that the daily excellent fresh order was placed before and after the meal. Because there are too many orders, the seller will transfer the order to the beautiful group. Delivery. At this time, the takeaway rider became the reserve army of the city’s delivery capacity platform.
Since the introduction of the new retail, it has been advocating online and offline omni-channel integration and opening up two lines. However, in a short period of time, for many of their own fresh retail platforms, the shortage of staff in the stores due to the impact of the epidemic will make the distribution force even more stretched. At this time, it is an opportunity for a third-party delivery platform (Meituan, Hungry, JD.com) with relatively sufficient manpower.
Affected by the epidemic, ordering vegetables online has become the safest way to reduce outings and avoid contact while solving three meals a day. During the Spring Festival, the average daily order for Meituan to buy vegetables in Beijing was two to three times that before the festival, and it continued to rise. Vegetables, grains and oils, non-staple foods, fruits, meat and poultry eggs, seafood and aquatic products are in great demand, with daily average sales accounting for over 60%. In it, vegetable sales are growing the fastest. “The actual amount of vegetables purchased during the Spring Festival is about 5 times the estimated amount.” The head of Meituan’s purchase of vegetables said.
Meituan buys food under Meituan. Currently, it has opened more than 50 offline service stations in Beijing. The service range is 2-3 kilometers near the station, which basically covers the core areas of Beijing’s urban areas.
Meituan’s current setting is to set up a station rider, access to Meituan’s distribution resources during peak periods, and the transportation capacity can basically meet the current demand. Some sites may be delayed due to backlogs of orders. To this end, Meituan Shopping has also started recruiting new employees to add capacity in a timely manner.
The remaining question is how to ensure the health and safety of the rider and not to spread the epidemic.
Contactless shipping is here
The contactless delivery service is a measure taken by Meituan based on the epidemic situation. By selecting “contactless delivery” in the order note, the rider will contact the user during delivery and place the package at the designated location. For merchants, contactless delivery means contactlessness between the merchant and the delivery person. For users, contactless delivery means contactlessness between users and delivery staff. In addition to takeaways, Meituan has also launched “contactless delivery” in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. 50% of orders are delivered through contactless methods.
Tiger sniffed a contactless delivery service and placed an order with Meituan at 11.33am on February 1st. The order page shows that affected by the epidemic, contactless delivery requires users to specify the delivery location in advance . The estimated delivery time shown by the system is 12:31, and the take-away brother called for a meal at 12:05. In other words, the takeaway brother arrived at the designated delivery location about half an hour in advance.
The little brother in the US group is wearing a down jacket, and there is no other protective measures except masks. He told Tiger Sniff that at present, merchants have set up a special food picking area outside the restaurant, and food delivery staff can take it directly to avoid contact between the two. And now the number of meals delivered each day is small, “It is good to have ten orders a day, usually forty to fifty orders.”
From the perspective of Tiger Sniff ’s recent takeaway ordering, the only protective measure for door-to-door delivery of medicines, food, and food is a mask. Whether the takeaway is a US group or hungry, at present, due to the semi-closed management of residential areas, food cannot be delivered to the door, and users can only wait for users to pick up food at the door of the community. However, the efficiency of takeaway delivery has not decreased, and the takeaway brother can arrive at the scheduled time or even in advance.
It is worth noting that although station staff and riders are equipped with masks, and thermometers and disinfectant are standard at the site, and the site is fully disinfected at least once a day, the rider distribution box is disinfected once in the morning and evening, but the new crown The virus currently spreads through droplets as the main route. Distribution personnel are exposed to public space for a long time.It means that the probability of exposure to the virus is much higher than that of people staying in the house. Therefore more protective tools are needed during work.
On the other hand, the outbreak may become an opportunity for contactless distribution practices.
In a video released by the Economic Daily, it also mentioned another form of contactless delivery, the smart dining cabinet. Pilots have been conducted in Beijing and Wuhan.
Ren Zeping, chief economics researcher of Evergrande Research Institute, recently pointed out that the epidemic is more contagious, adding the factors of the Spring Festival, which will have a greater impact on the service industry and the resumption of work. During the Spring Festival of 2020, the offline entity’s catering and entertainment transaction volume has almost dropped to a historical low in the same period.
The contactless delivery service can make special workers and other medical workers feel more at ease in the current special circumstances, but whether it affects the efficiency of meal taking under normal circumstances, and whether other non-face-to-face delivery will cause other safety problems. Need more practitioners to practice.
In this special period, both the efficiency of the supply chain and the stability of the delivery service have stood the test. But because of this, the advantages of home-based services are emerging. However, whether contactless distribution can last long depends on consumers’ choice after returning to normal.