O2O Spring Festival staged an "empty city plan": Takeaway delivery fee surges and door-to-door service almost stagnates

　　The Spring Festival is the day for families to gather, and it is also the time for the "empty city" of big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen with a large population of foreigners.

　　Whether it is takeaway, housekeeping or taxi-hailing, people's dependence on O2O services on weekdays has encountered a "out of the gear" during the Spring Festival.

　　O2O companies that claim to be able to change the service industry cannot stop the large-scale loss of service personnel. Behind the migration of super-large population is the near paralysis of the service industry in big cities during the Spring Festival. After losing the offline foundation, O2O companies face severe tests in big cities.

　　Takeaway delivery fees soar and door-to-door services are almost stagnant

　　A few days before the Spring Festival, many small restaurants in Beijing have closed early, and some "mother-wife shops" have even returned home twenty days before the Spring Festival.

　　This has brought the extremely popular takeaway O2O to a strong challenge. On some takeaway platforms, merchants have closed down, and some restaurants that provide takeaway services have generally increased the starting price or delivery fees.

　　According to Tencent Technology, takeaway platforms such as Meituan Takeaway, Ele.me, Baidu Takeaway, etc. have basically remained open during the Spring Festival, but most of them are self-operated delivery teams on the platform, and some part-time delivery personnel have basically left the holiday.

　　The person in charge of a food delivery platform said that during the Spring Festival, the delivery staff on the platform took turns to be on duty, and the number of delivery staff on duty was only one-third of the weekdays. "On weekdays, late-night snacks can be delivered until 12 o'clock, but in recent days the platform has been adjusted to only delivering them until 10 o'clock in the evening."

　　In fact, in addition to the reduction in the number of delivery personnel, there are also significant fewer restaurants that can provide catering. Due to the large number of laborers returning home, many small and medium-sized restaurants closed down to thank the guests.

　　If you order food during the Spring Festival, you will find that many merchants on the takeaway platform have shown a "rest" status. Some merchants that have not suspended services have raised the "bar" of ordering by raising the starting delivery fee or delivery fee. The delivery fee for some small restaurants has even increased from more than ten yuan on weekdays to dozens of yuan.

　　In order to avoid the impact of delivery services, Meituan Dianping said that Meituan Takeout will remain in operation in cities across the country during the Spring Festival. There are expected to be 50,000 riders on duty every seven days during the Spring Festival, and 30,000 riders on duty on New Year's Eve.

　　Similar to food delivery platforms, home-based O2O services such as housekeeping are almost facing stagnation due to the return of a large number of service personnel.

　　According to Tencent Technology, eJiajie has adjusted the home cleaning service from January 16 to January 23, February 6 to February 12 from the original 30 yuan per hour to 60 yuan per hour, while in some cities it has adjusted the original 35 yuan per hour to 70 yuan per hour.

　　In addition to the price, e Jiajie said that the additional task orders for home cleaning will be suspended from January 16 to February 12, while all housekeeping services will be suspended from January 24 to February 5.

　　58Daojia also issued a notice on the platform, stating that due to strong demand during the Spring Festival, the service price was raised from January 14 and the original price was restored on February 13. The current price has increased from 30 yuan per hour to 40 yuan per hour.

　　The e-bag washing for home washing has stopped taking orders in the few days of the Spring Festival, and the time for orders in most urban areas is adjusted to February 2 and beyond.

　　Drivers return home and are hard to find online ride-hailing

　　The difficulty of taking a taxi is more obvious than before and attracts attention. From the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017, Yidao and Shenzhou special cars also had more or less difficulty in hailing a taxi.

　　When the Spring Festival travel rush arrives earlier than before, this phenomenon is rapidly catalyzed.

　　"On the last day of today, I will go home tomorrow." An online car-hailing driver told Tencent Technology this year. Some private car owners in the online car-hailing industry often choose to drive back to their hometowns in advance. In addition, the latest regulations on the new online car-hailing policies in Beijing, Shanghai and other places are local drivers who are willing to stay. Even local drivers in Beijing have greatly reduced their driving time.

　　Didi senior product director Luo Wen once posted on Zhihu to explain the reason for the difficulty of taking a taxi at the beginning of the year, which he believed was mainly due to the impact of the Spring Festival travel rush. Indeed, compared with the past five years, in the early stages of this year's Spring Festival, student flow and work flow superimposed on each other, resulting in a peak passenger flow peak at a new high.

　　The Spring Festival travel rush shown on Didi’s backstage is that drivers return home early and their capacity has decreased, while passengers’ travel demand has increased significantly.

　　Luo Wen mentioned several data in the article. First, after the Spring Festival travel rush began, the number of online drivers in Beijing has been declining, down nearly 25% compared with before January 10, while order demand has been increasing, with an increase of 30%. "This early and peak-high Spring Festival travel rush is as powerful as a sudden heavy rain, causing an increase in the supply and demand gap." Luo Wen mentioned.

　　Luo Wen then added that not only specialized and express trains, but also taxis are facing a surge in order demand, and supply and demand are significantly imbalanced. Taking Shanghai on January 20 as an example, the user demand is 5.8 times the capacity, which also makes it significantly more difficult to hang a taxi online.

　　China Special Cars also felt the increase in passenger demand for vehicles.

　　Wang Tao, director of public relations at Shenzhou Youche, told Tencent Technology that according to its internal data, as the return home before the New Year and the peak of tourism approaches, passenger car demand continues to rise after the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month. According to previous forecasts, the week before the Spring Festival, the orders for pick-up and drop-off of China's special car increased by 27% month-on-month compared with the same period last week. The highest peak in car use before the New Year was concentrated on the 28th, 29th and 30th day of the New Year, and the transportation capacity would be relatively tight; the demand for car use on the first to the third day of the New Year was relatively declined, and the fourth day of the New Year began to welcome the peak of car use on the return trip.

　　In terms of ensuring peak transportation capacity, since Shenzhou Special Car itself is a B2C model, all drivers are formal employees of the company and use the order assignment mechanism. Therefore, the company will require drivers to go online to receive orders on time during peak use of the car. From the first to the third day of the Lunar New Year, drivers will be arranged to adjust their leave according to actual conditions.

　　Regarding the U+ platform of C2C mode launched by Shenzhou Special Car last year, Wang Tao said that the company encourages drivers to go online and take orders as much as possible during holidays and dynamically adjust the supply and demand balance to support capacity guarantee during the Spring Festival.

　　E-commerce platform that is open

　　Unlike the embarrassing situation faced by O2O services such as taxi, housekeeping, and takeaway mentioned above, some e-commerce platforms choose not to close.

　　JD.com launched the "Spring Festival No Close" event and announced that it would invest about 75 million yuan to support employees who stayed at their posts during the Spring Festival to bring their children to their side for the New Year.

　　On the one hand, this ensures that employees and families reunite during the Spring Festival, and also ensures that the production and distribution of fresh cold chain orders in 110 cities across the country will not be affected during the Spring Festival. According to Tencent Technology Experience, you can still receive the package the next day by placing an order in Beijing through JD’s self-operated product area.

　　Similar to JD.com, Tmall Supermarket also put up a slogan "Buy as usual during the Chinese New Year, pay if you are late" and promised to refund orders that cannot be delivered on time.

　　It can be seen that many e-commerce platforms have regarded the Spring Festival as the norm. Obviously, compared with home-to-door services, e-commerce companies are more willing to improve their shopping experience through the Spring Festival and thus enhance the competitiveness of the platform.

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