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Coronavirus pandemic
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Shanghai’s worst Covid-19 outbreak puts spotlight on local delivery services as lifeline in locked-down financial hub

  • Shanghai has seen a surge in usage of on-demand local services apps like Meituan and Ele.me as the city goes under a two-stage lockdown
  • Both Meituan and Ele.me have committed to increase fresh food supplies in Shanghai as residents encounter panic buying at supermarkets and groceries

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A police officer stands guard on the Bund, with Shanghai’s main financial district of Pudong in the background. Photo: EPA-EFE
Tracy Quin Shanghai
Shanghai’s delivery couriers have become a valuable lifeline inside the Covid-19-hit Chinese metropolis, as they transport without fail essential supplies to various locked-down communities and homebound residents across the city of 25 million inhabitants.
The Chinese financial hub, which started a two-stage lockdown and mass testing programme on Monday, has seen a surge in usage of on-demand local services apps like Meituan and Ele.me amid the municipal government’s efforts to stop an outbreak of the highly transmissible Omicron variant from worsening.
Although much in demand, couriers like 55-year-old Wang Weixin, who works for Ele.me, must contend with uneven waiting times at stores before making their deliveries. Ele.me is a unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

“I need to wait at least 15 minutes for an order to be ready for delivery, sometimes it can even extend to more than one hour,” said Wang, as he waited outside a local pharmacy for an order to be delivered. “While people are buying more, there are only a few stores open. So we have to wait if the staff inside a store can’t get the orders ready in time.”

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Grocery runners feed Shanghai as city hit by record Covid-19 cases

Grocery runners feed Shanghai as city hit by record Covid-19 cases

“The delivery is much easier now,” he said, pointing to an empty street inside a residential area in Huangpu district – the seat of Shanghai’s municipal government and the most central part of the eastern city’s 16 districts. Instead of making door-to-door deliveries, couriers primarily put the orders in a designated spot at a community’s gateway, as part of efforts to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.

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