Food delivery apps

Gig workers, be them food delivery drivers, home cleaners or ride-hailing drivers, became essential cogs in the global economy during the coronavirus pandemic.  In the early days, food delivery drivers were literal lifesavers in Wuhan when the city was placed under lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.     But they also typically lack basic benefits like healthcare or retirement funds, an issue that has become front-of-mind in countries across the world.   In China, a draft proposal for the city of Beijing and the prosperous eastern province of Zhejiang wants to create a pension fund explicitly designed for gig workers.  The experimental fund would be run for about a year by commercial

In January, a northern Chinese city lockdown created a temporary humanitarian crisis when 300,000 residents suddenly could not access food and medical supplies.  The outpouring of criticism also had a complaint unique to modern times: the suspension of delivery and e-commerce services like Meituan and Ele.me caused major problems in Tonghua, a rust-belt town near North Korea.  While Tonghua is not well-known for being a tech-driven metropolis, the adverse reaction to the sudden withdrawal of convenient internet services shows just how essential they have become to everyday life in China. “Where are those food delivery and online grocery apps when you need them most?” said Kevin Li, a 32-yea

For Mike Wong, the owner of a restaurant called Hong Kong Grassroots Canteen with two branches in Beijing, takeout service has long been something of a headache. In China, the delivery app Meituan Dianping and its rival Ele.me dominate meal delivery services. (Ele.me is owned by Alibaba Group, the parent company of Inkstone). Users log on to the apps and order from the restaurants listed. Wong says Meituan charges a minimum of 20% commission on each order – a significant amount for a small business. “My profit margin is only 10% to 15%. So for a takeaway order, all my profits have to be given to Meituan.” Wong says many people order takeout for items as simple as a cup of noodles or a glas

When Liu Yilin, a retired middle school teacher in Wuhan, first heard rumors of a highly contagious disease spreading in the central Chinese city, he started to stock up on supplies such as rice, oil, noodles and dried fish. These preparations spared the 66-year-old from some of the early panic when the city went into lockdown in late January and shoppers flooded to the markets and malls to snap up supplies. But as time went on, and with residents banned from leaving their homes, he became increasingly concerned about getting hold of fresh supplies of vegetables, fruit and meat.  Thankfully, the nation’s vast network of delivery drivers came to the rescue. “It was such a relief that several

The coronavirus pandemic has directly threatened the survival of one of Taiwan's best-known cultural scenes, the night market. Some hawker stalls at the Ningxia Night Market in Taipei are finding a way to stay in business by teaming up with food delivery services.

The coronavirus outbreak has created a severe challenge for many businesses in China, but for online shopping it has led to a huge spike in sales in recent few weeks. Millions of consumers are choosing to order fresh food online so they can cook at home rather than risk trips to shopping centers or restaurants. But the sales surge means delivery workers are also busier and facing a greater risk of exposure to infection as they make deliveries in communities under lockdown.

E-commerce companies in China are ramping up their use of robots to deliver orders in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus through human-to-human contact. Delivery app Meituan Dianping, which launched a “contactless delivery” initiative across China last month, said this week that it had started using autonomous vehicles to send groceries to customers in Shunyi district in Beijing, and was looking to launch similar robot delivery services in other districts in the capital city. The company began testing indoor delivery robots and drones for deliveries last year, but this is the first time it is deploying autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads, it said in a post on WeChat.

China’s factories were the backbone of the country’s economic resurgence in the last four decades. But as the Chinese economy slows and the nation seeks to move away from the production line, more and more China’s young migrant workers are ditching the factories to find easier jobs with “more freedom” in the growing services sector. One of them, Li Tao, who earns a living as a food courier in Guangzhou, said working in China’s massive courier business it was a better option than factory work. ​​​​ “We can earn between 5,000 yuan [$730] and 7,000 yuan [$1,020] a month as couriers but we have more freedom than if we were working as a security guard or in a factory,” said Li, who is from a rur