Burning Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original
Author丨Ma Shuye
Edit丨Xie Zhongxiu
The takeaway delivery system, which has been in collapse recently, finally ushered in good news.
According to the Beijing Daily, as of December 20, the relevant person in charge of the Meituan food delivery platform stated that the number of riders receiving orders in Beijing has recovered by more than 90%, and the delivery speed has increased significantly compared with last week. The news of “takeaway delivery resumed” gave anxious restaurant owners “respite”.
However, while the food delivery platform is stepping up recruitment and personnel scheduling, many restaurant owners have also discovered that the delivery range of the store’s usual 4-6 kilometers has been automatically limited to within 3 kilometers by the system.
Prior to this, after the introduction of the “New Ten Measures” for epidemic prevention and control, the “explosive orders” of takeaways brought by consumers at home, and the “unmanned delivery” of takeaways caused by the shortage of takeaway brothers, made restaurant owners spend a lot of time. An extremely difficult 216 hours.
For more than a week, “the daily takeaway orders have doubled, but the rider has not received the order for several hours, and even the rider’s phone cannot be reached,” opened a milk tea shop in Yanjiao, Hebei Province, which is close to Beijing and is known as the “Beijing Sleeping City”. Ren Dan from the store told Ran Jiyuan.
Zhang Guanping, who opened a wonton shop, also said that on December 10, no one took the takeaway order, which caused a large number of customers to cancel the order after placing the order. “In the end, 50% of the orders that were not delivered were thrown away.”
In the face of unmanned delivery of takeaways, restaurant owners are “eight immortals crossing the sea, each showing their magical powers.” Ren Dan chose to drive a BMW to deliver food. Although he “spends more money on gas than earns more” in a day, he does not want to “below” the trust of customers during the epidemic.
In order to reduce waste, Zhang Guanping will only prepare meals after the rider takes the order. For customers who are “all in the sun and have no food”, she will deliver them to the door on an electric bicycle. In addition, Ah Hua, who drives an early morning stall in Chaoyang District, Beijing, also rides a shared bicycle as a “part-time” takeaway boy.
Picture/Driving a BMW to deliver milk tea
Source/Photo provided by Ren Dan
Unable to get through the rider’s phone call, high-priced errand orders on the food delivery platform, all are “human reality” that restaurant owners can experience, and it is in the process of “trying to find ways” to solve the food delivery delivery process that there is a special kind of warmth, touch and helplessness .
Because he was not familiar with the route, Ren Dan drove around for more than 20 minutes. The customer commented that “I drank the hottest cup of milk tea this year” which made him happy for a long time.
Zhang Guanping, who had just turned overcast, learned that the customer “the whole family did not prepare food” and delivered food to the door. When she left, she was full of disappointment. “It would be great if I could help buy some food.” on what”. Ah Hua, who is lonely in North Drift, will be healed by the kitten released by the customer next door to “pay for the delivery fee”.
With the good news of the resumption of takeaway delivery, the recovery of the catering industry seems to be imminent. However, for Ren Dan, under the three-year epidemic situation, “opening for one year and closing for half a year” still brought about rent and personnel pressure, and the expected “recovery plan” continued to fail. Taking shopping malls as an example, under the full liberalization, there is still “no natural traffic” during the day.
Now, the end of the year is approaching, Ah Hua is going to go home early, if he has the opportunity to come again, many stalls next to him have been closed. Ren Dan’s shopping mall has resumed business. He doesn’t plan to miss the best time of the New Year, and he plans to take advantage of the New Year to “return some money.” They are still sticking to it, waiting for the next “spring.”
After the order burst, no rider took the order
On December 10, Ren Dan and his partner Zhang Xuelu found out, “The order for takeout has exploded.”
In the middle of 2021, Ren Dan and Zhang Xuelu partnered to open a milk tea shop in New World Department Store in Yanjiao. Due to the business hours of the mall, the takeaway orders in the store were usually no more than 20 orders a day, but on that Saturday, the takeaway order system rang frequently. Sound, the order volume has doubled directly.
In fact, on December 7, as soon as the “New Ten Measures” for epidemic prevention and control issued by the Comprehensive Group of the Joint Defense and Joint Control Mechanism of the State Council, Ren Dan expected that the mall would bring business after the resumption of work. Not happy.
Because, after making the milk tea, Ren Dan and Zhang Xuelu found that no rider took the order for a long time.
Picture/milk tea waiting for delivery
Source/Photo provided by Ren Dan
In the delivery system, messages from customers kept popping up one after another, “Please hurry up and deliver.” “Excuse me, is there no one taking orders now?”
But even if some riders took the order, it far exceeded the rated pick-up time, and the milk tea was neatly placed on the shelves, getting colder a little bit. Through the system, Ren Dan saw that many riders were still away from the store. Three or four kilometers away, calling the rider’s phone will always be “unable to connect”.
Through the backstage system, some riders apologized and told Ren Dan that because many riders were “sexy” and unable to deliver the order, now every rider’s phone was “broken, and he couldn’t answer the phone at all”.
In the end, Ren Dan and Zhang Xuelu had no choice but to contact anxious customers for online refunds. Some of the milk tea that could not be delivered that day was sent to friends by Ren Dan, and more had to be thrown away helplessly. “Although it hurts, there is no other way.” .”
Like Zhang Xuelu and Ren Dan, Zhang Guanping’s wonton shop has been open for more than three years. On December 9, when she had a high fever at home, she learned from her husband who stayed alone in the shop, “The order for takeaway is huge.”
Zhang Guanping told Ranjiyuan that usually there are only 40 or 50 takeout orders a day. Her husband received nearly a hundred orders that day. If it is too late for the rider to receive the order, 50% of the undelivered meals will have to be thrown away on the spot.
Photo/The milk tea shop of Ren Dan and Zhang Chenlu was urged by customers (left)
Zhang Guanping’s Wonton Shop canceled the order due to unmanned delivery (right)
Source/Photo courtesy of Ren Dan and Zhang Guanping
On the second day of the takeaway order, Zhang Guanping and her husband “learned well”. Firstly, the riders were slow to take orders, and secondly, many customers would cancel the order because of the long wait for delivery. Previously, the store was accustomed to “order and deliver immediately” , and now it has become “see the rider take the order before serving the meal”.
Zhang Guanping also figured out the reason for the explosion of takeaway orders, “Many customers called to remind them, their voices were hoarse, and they knew it was Yang when they heard it, and there was no food at home.” “Some people go to the hotel to quarantine after being sunburned, and there is no way to cook.”
And a customer who was 2.5 kilometers away from the store waited for several hours after placing the order, but did not wait for the rider to accept the order. Zhang Guanping persuaded the other party to refund, but after the customer applied for a refund, an hour later, Zhang Guanping returned from the delivery system. , Seeing the customer’s high-priced errand order, Zhang Guanping called and found out that her whole family was suffering from high fever.
At the same time, Ah Hua, who runs a breakfast stall, told Ranjiyuan that since the shopkeepers of many nearby stalls were sunny, he was alone in the shop from December 10th to 12th, and he hardly stopped ordering, delivering meals, The action of packing, ordering, and delivery. Similarly, the meal has already been prepared, but the takeaway system page shows that “no rider has taken the order yet”, even though the customer has already added the takeaway delivery fee to 20 yuan.
Ah Hua’s mobile phone was “hot” by the customer’s call. One customer ordered three times, but had to cancel three times because there was no rider to take the order. At this time, the occasional delivery staff became a “life-saving straw”. A delivery boy told Ah Hua, “Now there are only 3 people in charge of this area, and they can’t deliver at all.” In desperation, Ah Hua had to shorten the time for taking out orders, and shut down the delivery after 8 o’clock in the evening. He told Ranjiyuan, “No one takes orders, and they can’t deliver them even if they are done.”
Obviously, after the epidemic prevention and control is released, the food delivery system has been challenged. According to the relevant data of Meituan Food Delivery, from December 7 to 9, compared with the same period last week, the number of food delivery orders sent to office buildings, parks and other addresses increased by 33.4%. %above.
On the one hand, there is a high demand for home consumption, and on the other hand, there is a tense number of riders. The “unmanned delivery” takeaway has made the merchants very troubled.
Driving a BMW to “deliver food”
“The orders are piled up in the store, and my heart is full of panic.”
For restaurant owners, they have long been accustomed to all kinds of unknowns under the epidemic situation, and the absence of takeaway boys has no time to be frustrated. They still need to “build bridges when encountering water, and open roads when encountering mountains.”
The shortage of manpower is the first problem.
In fact, as early as December 9, the clerks in Ren Dan’s store were “sun”, resting at home, facing the explosion of takeaway orders, Zhang Xuelu squatted at the store to place orders, and Ren Dan drove a BMW to deliver food.
Helplessly, within a few days Zhang Chenlu also “fell down”, and Ren Dan was the only one left in the store running back and forth. , Often no one picks up takeaway orders.
Ren Dan told Ranjiyuan, “We must deliver food to customers no matter what.” On the one hand, “Many customers place orders because they trust us and cannot let us down”; on the other hand, many orders are automatically assigned by the system , and the rider can’t deliver, “If no one delivers, the rider will deduct 10 yuan for each order, but they only earn a few yuan for delivering an order.”
For Ren Dan, the biggest headache is delivering food.
Many orders are received by the rider, and the merchant cannot obtain the customer’s detailed address. He has to call the rider first to communicate. In many cases, “the phone cannot be connected, so I can only contact the customer to explain.” “The phone has not stopped all day long. “.
In addition, due to the lack of delivery experience, Ren Dan often gets lost in the intricate underground garages. He told Ran Jiyuan that because he was driving, he could not see the building number clearly through the window, and secondly, he entered the community from the underground garage. , “The building number is not clear. I often send it to the previous building and look at the next building next to it, but I just can’t find it. I wasted more than 20 minutes going around in circles.”
Picture/Zhang Guanping (left) preparing for delivery
Ren Dan delivering to the door (right)
Source/Photo courtesy of Zhang Guanping and Ren Dan
And driving a BMW to deliver food is obviously not a “cost-effective” business. Ren Dan told Ranjiyuan that based on the fuel fee of one yuan per kilometer, the daily food delivery cost will be about 200 yuan, plus the profit of the food delivery itself. Just low, “It’s a loss to send it down.”
However, Ren Dan “felt it was worth it”. Although every time the food was delivered, he left after the meal and had almost no time to chat with the customer. However, Ren Dan remembered that a customer went to the food delivery system to comment on him, “Drink it The hottest milk tea this year.”
At the same time, although there was no Ren Dan’s BMW, Zhang Guanping also rode her electric scooter just after recovering from the fourth day of high fever. She told Ran Jiyuan, “Some customers just wait for this meal. Woolen cloth?”
Once, Zhang Guanping received a call from a customer, “I heard it was a very young boy.” The customer told Zhang Guanping that the three of them were quarantined in the hotel and all had high fevers, but after waiting for a long time, no rider took the order. Zhang Guanping became anxious when she heard this, “They said they didn’t eat for a day, how can this work?”
After the customer had no choice but to cancel the order, Zhang Guanping made a phone call after much deliberation and asked the customer if he would mind delivering the meal by himself when the weather just turned negative. What came to mind was that the customer quietly prepared a small box of medicine for her, and while Zhang Guanping was replying to the message, the other party quietly transferred an extra 10 yuan for the delivery fee.
As for the customer who was 2.5 kilometers away from the store and did not prepare food at home, Zhang Guanping also delivered food to the door after learning that their family was in the sun. The dishes are ready, but I always feel that I can’t help much.”
“As long as the thinking doesn’t slip, there are always more solutions than difficulties.” The post-95 Ahua couldn’t wait. Although he didn’t have a battery car, he soon set his sights on the shared bicycles that can be seen everywhere.
In order to ensure the speed of delivery, Ah Hua limits the delivery distance to 2 kilometers from the store. In order to control the time loss caused by delivery, he often prepares more than a dozen takeaway orders and then delivers them one by one. The takeaway system is closed at 8 p.m. Finally, before closing the store, he will make the last batch of takeaway orders, and it will be past 10 o’clock when all are delivered home.
In the process of being a “part-time” delivery guy, Ah Hua can always find unexpected happiness. He found that “the customer who often ordered pancakes with Zhang Fei’s head turned out to be a cute girl”, and sent “Help” After the “meal”, the two became friends; once he delivered the meal, the customer released the kitten at home “to pay for the delivery fee” through the door, and the cute kitten also made Ah Hua “tired”; and Once, he helped a customer grab the last bottle of canned yellow peaches in the supermarket downstairs, and received an excited “10 yuan reward” from the other party.
And it is through this steaming takeaway meal that Ren Dan, Zhang Chenlu, Zhang Guanping, and Ah Hua supported the fireworks in the world under the epidemic.
Predicament and persistence
Starting from December 19th, the restaurant owners who have persisted for a whole week finally ushered in the recovery of the take-out system.
According to the Beijing Daily, as of December 20, the relevant person in charge of the Meituan food delivery platform stated that the number of riders receiving orders in Beijing has recovered by more than 90%, and the delivery speed has increased significantly compared with last week. Recently, the platform has been increasing Beijing’s rider capacity reserves by recruiting newcomers and cross-regional scheduling. Since December 14, the number of new rider registrations has increased day by day, among which the number of new rider registrations on the 15th and 16th has increased by 215% from the same period last week. At present, the cumulative number of new registered riders has exceeded 5,000.
Ren Dan told Ranjiyuan that starting from December 19, he no longer needs to drive to deliver food, and the food delivery in Yanjiao area has basically returned to normal. Also located in the Yanjiao area, while Zhang Guanping no longer needs to go to the door to deliver in person, she keenly observed that the food delivery platform automatically “reduced” the delivery range of the store. The range became 3 kilometers.”
In Chaoyang District, Beijing, where Ahua is located, the original speed of receiving orders has basically resumed. “I feel that there are more riders. Except for some orders that are less than 3 kilometers away, most orders can be received quickly. .”
However, after the resumption of takeaway delivery, restaurant owners still have their own difficulties to “break through”.
Ren Dan told Ranjiyuan that although the takeaway delivery has resumed, the order volume has also dropped to a normal level, and the milk tea shop he has invested in is located in a good location in the New World Department Store in Yanjiao, but now, there is almost “no What natural traffic.”
Photo/Desolate shopping mall
Source/Photo provided by Ren Dan
Before opening a milk tea shop, Ren Dan longed for the life of “opening a small shop”. He partnered with Zhang Chenlu to open a shop as a “side job” out of his hobby. He estimated that under normal circumstances, he would be able to pay back the cost in one year, but now, opening a shop For more than a year, this year alone, the milk tea shop “closed for half a year”, and now every month he only hopes to “earn back the rent”.
Similar to Ren Dan, Zhang Guanping’s wonton shop has just survived the 3-year survival period. She has worked in catering, clothing and sales before. When opening this small shop, she invested nearly 150,000 yuan in principal. “I just want to open A small shop, no need to go to work and be restricted by the boss.” For her, “Only by starting a business can you make money, and the profits are all your own.”
But Zhang Guanping just caught up with the epidemic for three years. Since she and her husband manage the store, although there is no pressure from manual wages, the ups and downs of the epidemic have also given Zhang Guanping a deeper understanding of catering entrepreneurship. important.”
As the New Year approaches, several stalls near Ah Hua have gone, and Ah Hua is also planning to buy a ticket to go home in the week before last. “Maybe next year the epidemic is under control, and I will come to Beijing again.”
Zhang Guanping discussed with her husband. As in previous years, they plan to open the store until the end of this month, and return to business after the New Year’s Eve. “There is life besides business.”
Ren Dan, on the other hand, decided to continue working during the Chinese New Year. For him, “The Spring Festival is often the best time for the market. Now that the rent has not been earned, it is always necessary to pay back a little bit.” However, this year’s epidemic has made his plans repeated. When it fails, it is difficult for him to predict the future, but he always comforts himself, “The most difficult time has been passed.” They are still waiting for a spring.
References:
“Takeaway speed is back! More than 90% of riders on some platforms in Beijing have replied to accept orders”, source: Beijing Daily.
*The title picture is from Visual China.
*Ah Hua is a pseudonym in this article.
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