Cartography/Li Xiaojun
investigation motive
Recently, the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration released a list of offline restaurants for online takeout, once again pushing the issue of online takeout food safety to the forefront. In fact, in the past 2016, the discussion on online takeout food safety has not stopped, and the governance has not stopped. After a year of rapid development, why are online takeout platforms still facing problems? Around this issue, the reporter of Legal Daily interviewed consumers, takeout platform staff and online restaurant owners, trying to find answers.
[Special Investigation]
Legal Network reporter, Zhao Li
"Such a famous store has also been taken offline. I used to order takeout for big brands, and this can also be’hit ‘."
Liu Changsheng, a Beijing resident sitting opposite the reporter, looked helpless and shook his head repeatedly.
Because there are old and young, Liu Changsheng will choose to order takeout to his home when he is really busy with work. It is also because there are old and young at home that Liu Changsheng is extra cautious when ordering takeout, and he was even ridiculed by his wife as "ink". His tenet is that expensive, eaten, and chain brands are the best.
However, even so, Liu Changsheng "broke down" when he saw the offline list online.
This list comes from the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration and is a list of governance since December 2016. 225 unlicensed catering stores on Baidu takeaway, Meituan takeaway, and Ele.me were taken offline, including many well-known or chain restaurants.
"Where to go? Maybe takeout has become an indispensable part of urban life, but so worried, how to continue?" Liu Changsheng’s question may also be the question mark of many people in 2017. The answer to this question needs to be given by takeaway platforms, merchants and regulators.
The platform shirks
In addition to considering the health of his family, the reason why Liu Changsheng ordered takeout cautiously also came from his own experience.
"One day in July last year, I ordered takeout from a takeaway platform. After eating, my stomach started to overwhelm at 3:00 in the morning. I had abdominal pain and diarrhea and wanted to vomit… I didn’t eat anything else at night except crayfish, water, and chewing gum (delivered by the seller). The next day, I continued to have diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and nausea, and I couldn’t vomit." Speaking of that night, Liu Changsheng said "it’s just unbearable to look back on".
However, the focus is on the back, but there is no way to complain about a bad stomach.
"The platform’s complaint is completely a decoration, and when I tell the store about it, I don’t even admit it. It seems that my bad stomach is my own fault, not theirs. Because it’s just gastroenteritis, that is, diarrhea, abdominal pain and vomiting caused by unclean food, the average person will recover without medicine within 48 hours. Neither the merchant nor the platform seems to pay attention to it, and if I can make a sloppy eye, I will never admit it." Liu Changsheng said, "I can only treat myself as unlucky, who calls myself poor physique and can’t afford to eat unhygienic crayfish…"
However, there are also competitors, such as Su Meili, a white-collar worker in Beijing.
The same is to eat a bad stomach, and the takeaway platform is also inactive, repeatedly shirking.
"I had a fight with the platform and said I was going to report it. The platform finally gave me a 60% discount coupon," Su Meili said. "I thought it was fine at the time, but when I placed an order of 50 yuan, I found that it was only reduced by 8 yuan."
The next thing, Su Meili described it like this: Fortunately, my math is good and I was not deceived, so I contacted customer service immediately. The customer service said that the coupon is capped at 8 yuan, and the attitude is tough.
"My original intention was actually to say’sorry ‘. The platform made a mistake and refused to apologize?" Su Meili said, "Later, the other party found a supervisor and talked for an hour, but still did not give a solution."
The final result was that Su Meili called 12315. The staff believed that according to the regulations, the platform should compensate 12 yuan for the price difference, and said it would help Su Meili coordinate the solution.
"After I finished defending my rights, I directly deleted the takeaway platform. The internal management is so chaotic, and the customer service who is so reasonable if they are wrong is probably the same attitude when they really eat problems. Life is more important," Su Meili said.
"Ranking" into decoration
According to Li Jiang, director of the food market supervision department of the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration, "among the 225 stores that were taken offline this time, in addition to unlicensed stores, there are also some stores that appear to have licenses but actually use other people’s licenses or forge licenses."
Among the 225 stores that were offline, including such restaurants: Wangshunge (Fortune Center Store), Milk Tea Marrying Powder (Jiaomen East Store), etc. were offline on the "Ele.me" platform; Ikeda Sushi (Longde Plaza Store), Yang Guofu Malatang (Beijing Xiaoyueyuan Store), etc. were offline on the Meituan takeaway platform; Shrimp Eating Shrimp Shabu (Liuliqiao Store), Mali Mala Fragrant Pot Grilled Fish (Guoao Store), etc. were offline on the Baidu takeaway platform.
"When I first ordered takeout, I looked for those with high sales and rankings, or even the top 10, but later found that it was not the same thing at all. Some takeout was produced by small workshops, and it was impossible to match the evaluation and sales." Liu Changsheng said that later, he chose takeout from more famous restaurants, "but it was still’hit ‘."
"Don’t believe those so-called rankings, popularity, and even user reviews. Most of them are artificial propaganda. They have nothing to do with the quality of the merchant’s food. When it’s time to have diarrhea, you won’t show mercy… In addition to using this information to fool people and induce users to place orders, there is no guarantee about the safety of their food, so that complaints are just a decoration." Cui Yonghua, who just resigned from a food delivery platform at the beginning of this year, said. "Many times, the platform only focuses on marketing strategies, but forgets that the most important thing for a company is the product and service."
In addition, according to Cui Yonghua, it has been exposed in the past that there are many "ghost restaurants" on some takeaway platforms, which means that merchants share addresses or share business licenses and health permits. "Those who do business development work in takeaway platform companies have to refresh new stores for performance, which makes there are many’zombie stores’ on the platform, especially beverage stores and dessert stores, which actually do not place orders at all."
"Brushing’zombie stores’ has performance, and everyone can earn a little more. Although I know that brushing orders is wrong, I feel that this is the normal situation of the industry after a long time, and it is understandable. The most torturous thing every time I rush the performance is whether to refresh the store. I know that brushing new stores will not make the business develop at all, but I still place orders for a little salary." Cui Yonghua said that the takeaway platform he once worked for has been promoting a business plan. Merchants can choose to go online voluntarily and charge a 5% commission as a technical service fee. There is no fee for not going online. "But the difference between going online and not going online is too big. Merchants who go online can get good rankings and positions, and merchants who don’t go online are ranked very low. For example, the ranking of the merchants I did not push online is basically after the mobile end is ranked ten screens, and they will not be seen by consumers at all. "
Liu Changsheng said that if takeout really cannot be effectively managed, there is no other way but to eat less or even no takeout in the future. "No matter how popular it seems, people can only avoid it. After all, there are many bad businesses, and more people simplify the food processing process for profit, but health is their own."
Takeaway delivery problem
No other way is not the best way. In addition to the merchants on the takeaway platform, diners are also finding another way.
Liu Changsheng once considered buying independent brands of takeout, "because of independent production and delivery, I think they should still be trustworthy, but recently I found a batch of such independent merchants’dead ‘."
The "independent brands" that Liu Changsheng refers to are those that promote their own kitchens or even central kitchens and can be delivered independently. Around 2015, this kind of takeaway to solve the problem of white-collar lunch took off.
Sun Tianqi, a former bank executive, was in this batch of "going to the sea", but his store only operated until the end of 2016.
Due to the central kitchen, Sun Tianqi can also order meals through WeChat and deliver them by himself. The average daily sales of Sun Tianqi’s box lunches are nearly 30 boxes, but the average daily sales of 100 boxes is far from the break-even point.
"The main reason is that the market has not yet opened," Sun Tianqi recalls, even if the customer base is increased, "but because the price of 25 yuan per serving is high for some people, the customer repurchase rate is high but the purchase frequency is low, even if you think the product is good, you can’t eat it every day."
The biggest barrier for "independent brands" compared with price is delivery.
Sun Tianqi is targeting the daily lunch market for office crowds, and the delivery time is highly concentrated. "We usually complete the meal packaging before 10:40 to 11:00, and stop receiving orders at 11:00 to formulate delivery tasks." Sun Tianqi said that the team includes three chefs, one customer service, plus me, a total of five people. "In the case of more than 30 packed lunches per day, due to the scattered orders, it is already full of staff."
If we continue to expand the scope of publicity and spread the distribution range from a 1-kilometer radius to a 3-kilometer radius, Sun Tianqi alone will definitely not be able to keep up with the logistics distribution.
"Due to the cost, I didn’t plan to build my own logistics, so I chose the takeaway platform." Sun Tianqi said that he had never wanted to go to the platform, mainly because there were too many management fee deductions. "To put it bluntly, these are all pure profits, which directly leads to the improvement of my profit and loss balance point. I have to reach an average of 125 copies per day to not lose money. But the platform has its own promotion attribute bonus and can solve the logistics and distribution problem, so in order to solve the main contradiction, I decided to go to the platform."
After contacting the delivery platform, Sun Tianqi could only describe his experience as "desperate":
The special delivery service of some platforms has restrictions on the delivery range, that is, within 3 kilometers, but Sun Tianqi’s target market is five or six kilometers, which cannot be delivered at all;
It is outsourced by the takeaway platform, but the outsourced rider is a part-time job, and there is no requirement to force the order. If the customer places an order but there is no outsourced rider to take the order, he will either deliver it himself or refund the order.
Sun Tianqi has also tried to communicate with the takeaway platform to expand the scope of special delivery, but the freight will also increase. Considering that the freight of 25 yuan products to the target market is about 5 yuan, if Sun Tianqi subsidizes the freight and deducts the management fee, there is almost no profit; if the customer bears the freight, the product price is even less competitive.
"If the distribution problem is not solved, it cannot be fully promoted, and the existing sales volume and potential market are far from enough to reach break-even, and the whole operation has entered a vicious circle." Sun Tianqi said, and finally chose to stop and suspend business.
