E-commerce, delivery firms accelerate speed to help Shanghai

E-commerce companies and delivery firms are upping the ante in replenishing stocks and expanding courier fleet in Shanghai as the city strives to make daily necessities more accessible to residents living under a coronavirus-induced lockdown.

A series of contingency measures have been put in place to ensure provision and supply chain under the premise of prevention and control of the virus, following the instructions of Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan during her inspection visit in Shanghai.

Local services platform Ele.me, through which people normally order take-outs, has dispatched additional 2,800 couriers in Shanghai to expedite delivery, said Senior Vice-President Xiao Shuixian during the regular media briefing on latest COVID development on Sunday.

According to Xiao, the platform now supports community-based group purchasing, covering 1,000 neighborhoods citywide, to meet the bulk-buying needs and therefore enhance efficiency.

"We see completed daily orders more than double in the past several days," said Xiao, adding over 25,000 households have benefited from the service in obtaining necessities such as meat, eggs and dairy.

E-commerce giant JD has donated fresh produces such as milk, meat and pastries worth 4 million yuan ($628,700) to address the demand in Shanghai. Some 16 million units of rice, flour, and cooking oil are in place via the platform to ensure daily supplies for a month, said Wang Wenbo, vice-president of JD.

Priorities will be given to fresh produces provisions, as well as meat and seafood. The company will also replenish some 80,000 infant and maternal goods as well as 100,000 drugs to meet the needs of patients with chronic illnesses, he added.

To smoothen delivery, JD is deploying 2,000 more couriers and will put to use what Wang called "fifth-generation driverless vehicles" to accelerate delivery while minimizing physical contacts.

Such efforts are the latest answers to vice-premier Sun who called for maintaining "a sense of urgency" to ensure a stable and smooth supply chain. Key levers will be to iron out logistics blockages during transportation and delivery, and allow more enterprises and personnel offering basic supplies to resume business.

On Saturday, local authorities said Shanghai will be subdivided into three zones based on latest COVID test results and exposure risks-namely precautionary zone, controlled zone and lockdown zone.