In the coming month, China's e-commerce and food delivery industry will meet unprecedented challenges.

In a month's time, China's internet will face unprecedented market challenges, especially in the e-commerce and food delivery industries. The victory or defeat of this battle will directly affect the "warmth" of the Internet employment market next year. Why do you say that? Because this crisis has a great relationship with the full liberalization of the epidemic.

In 2019, a large area of "new crown" infection was first detected in Wuhan. It has been almost 3 years since the "strictest prevention and control" at the beginning to the current "comprehensive liberalization". This will take more than 3 years, seriously affecting the inconvenience of people's public transportation, and also bringing a lot of troubles to life. From 2020 to 2021, local governments have been advocating the policies of "celebrating the New Year in place" and "celebrating the festival in place". How many working people who go out to work in big cities have not been able to go home to reunite with relatives and friends for the holiday because of local epidemic prevention requirements and the requirements of returning to their hometowns for "epidemic prevention".

"Spring Festival" is a festival of reunion and celebration, and it is also the most important traditional festival throughout the year. Countless migrant workers are looking forward to the early arrival of this day. Return to your hometown as soon as possible to share with your family and friends the fruits of your labor accumulated throughout the year, and tell what you have seen and heard outside. In addition to the two years of epidemic prevention and control, a large-scale "homecoming wave" has been staged every year in various parts of China.

Now, with the announcement issued by local governments: fully liberalize the control of the epidemic, all personnel entering public places will no longer check the health code and itinerary code. "Positive" is no longer an excuse to stop going home for the Chinese New Year. Wanderers who have not returned home after working outside for 2 years have become more and more homesick, and they have already put going home for the New Year on their schedule. The number of air and train tickets booked for the Spring Festival in 2023 is also increasing significantly.

One

According to domestic media news reports, the pathogenicity and severe disease rate of Omicron have decreased compared with the past, but the contagiousness of Omicron cannot be underestimated. Most vaccinated and highly resistant patients can heal themselves by taking medicine at home and drinking plenty of hot water. Most patients who have "positive" will have symptoms such as fever, dizziness, fatigue, dry cough, and sore throat. After a period of infection, usually 7-10 days, the body may produce specific antibodies against the virus. Even after recovery, there is still a small chance of getting a second infection. Most mild patients who are "positive", although they can self-isolate themselves in bed and take medicine for treatment, but fever, dizziness and other symptoms will still affect people's mental state and vitality, resulting in a significant reduction in their ability to work, unable to do their previous daily work.

As the first batch of cities in China to release epidemic control, Beijing is currently at the peak of epidemic infection, and the number of "Xiaoyang people" every day has begun to become more and more. The vast majority of people choose to stay at home behind closed doors. Some companies are also temporarily working from home or shutting down. Because the number of people infected with fever every day is too large, some infected people have also appeared among the local logistics and distribution personnel. Delivery points across Beijing had been piling up a few days earlier. In order to solve the "last mile" delivery problem, JD.com has mobilized the first batch of more than 1,000 couriers from all over the country to arrive in Beijing on the 14th to support. In addition, the State Post Bureau also called on Beijing express delivery employees to return to work as soon as possible to resolve the existing backlog. According to a report sent by "New Hunan" on the 17th: Beijing citizens generally reported that many supermarkets, fresh food e-commerce platforms, takeaway platforms, and pharmacies had long delivery times or could not be delivered due to the shortage of delivery personnel.

The "sudden liberalization" of epidemic control in various cities has caused many people across the country to rush to grab medicines and buy epidemic prevention materials online and offline because of panic. More and more residents choose to stay closed all day, and their daily diet is maintained by ordering takeaway. At this time in previous years, orders from takeaway and e-commerce platforms were already at the peak of the year.

Due to the "particularity" of the industry, the overall employees of food delivery and express delivery are not very stable. Approaching the New Year, there will always be some takeaway and delivery brothers who choose to go home early for the New Year. The staff of food delivery and delivery points at various stations have also been in a state of tension. The arrival of this year's "Spring Festival" is earlier than in previous years, coupled with the "sudden release" of epidemic control, and the delivery platform has adjusted the commission and subsidies for food delivery many times earlier, resulting in some takeaway workers being frustrated. The number of people going home early this year for the New Year is bound to be much higher than in previous years. At this time, the volume of takeaway orders is obviously a large part more than in previous years. Now express delivery and takeaway in various cities have seen insufficient capacity for distribution logistics. Takeaway orders are not guaranteed to be delivered on time, and most of them are undelivered.

Two

According to the news of China Youth Network on December 6: Liang Wannian, Zeng Guang, Zhang Boli, Li Lanjuan, Zhang Wenhong and other experts have made research and judgment on the peak of infection. On the whole, experts generally believe that the epidemic may reach a peak of infection in about a month.

That is to say, a month later, all parts of the country will usher in the peak of a wave of epidemic infections. Now Beijing has ushered in the peak period of epidemic infection, express delivery and takeaway brothers from various places can enter Beijing to support, and a month later, the peak of epidemic infection has been ushered in all parts of the country, who will support them? But don't forget that a month later, it is also the arrival of the "Spring Festival" holiday. Those who originally planned to go home early for takeaway and delivery for the New Year may be afraid of infection, or they may be too homesick, and will speed up their plans to go home early.

Since the epidemic control was released, it took only half a month. Due to the excessive number of "positive" people in Beijing, the streets of the usually lively and prosperous shopping malls have become deserted. Some companies cannot carry out their daily business smoothly due to too much human nature infected, most of them use "home office", and some simply take a holiday in advance to "celebrate the Spring Festival". Such a social phenomenon has spread to most cities in China. Perhaps in less than a month, cities everywhere will "suffer" from the same disease. Logistics capacity in cities around the world may enter a semi-paralyzed state ahead of schedule. On the one hand, it is necessary to go home for the New Year, and on the other hand, it may be infected with "positive", which is destined to have a large-scale shortage of personnel in the logistics and distribution industry. Where to fill the vacancies in a short period of time? Even if people are re-recruited, it will probably have to wait until after the "Spring Festival".

Also for the logistics and distribution industry, there are 2 unfavorable news: First, this year's climate is particularly abnormal, the "triple" La Niña is coming soon, and multiple rounds of cold waves may bring extreme cold. Entering the coldest time of the year, when temperatures drop to minus degrees Celsius, it's a challenge of perseverance for every rider delivering food on the go. Second, various local governments in China have made it very clear that from January 1, 2023, electric bicycles that have been "filed for 7 years and all non-standard filings" will be completely banned from driving on the road. Once this regulation is strictly implemented, most of the electric vehicles that come out to run takeaway on the road do not meet this standard. If you need to buy a new electric car for takeaway, it will accelerate the loss of personnel again.

Three

Since the "full liberalization" of the epidemic, all kinds of strange things have emerged. It was originally expected that offline would usher in a wave of "retaliation" consumption, but instead there was offline hoarding of epidemic prevention materials and a "rush to grab medicines". Not long ago, the "delivery speed" that major e-commerce and express delivery companies were proud of, generally encountered the dilemma of merchants unable to ship goods and no couriers delivering goods this month.

During the epidemic in Shanghai in March this year, due to local lockdowns and controls, online merchants and local offline merchants in all regions of the country have brought certain economic losses. Now after the "full liberalization" of control, due to the lack of local logistics and distribution capacity, many consumers have purchased goods that are backlogged in local warehouses and merchants, and cannot be delivered to consumers. Similarly, other cities in China are facing the problem of insufficient logistics and distribution capacity. If there is a problem in a transaction link, if it is not solved or cannot be solved, it will inevitably trigger a chain reaction and lead to the failure of the entire transaction chain.

The three years of epidemic prevention and control have brought us too many valuable experiences and lessons. Far from it, let's take Beijing after the deregulation is used as an example. Major Internet e-commerce and takeaway companies still have not learned from this, discovered the reasons for the existence of essential problems, and blindly sat and waited. As for when the current state of life can be ended and a complete return to normal order is still far away. Next year's Internet job market is destined to become more and more "cold."