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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers

Hungry Now? Crackdown on China’s Food Delivery Apps Eleme and Meituan

China’s food delivery app market has been booming over the previous year. Apps like Eleme, Meituan and Baidu Takeout make ordering in a piece of cake. But China’s popular food apps are under scrutiny now that Chinese media exposed that these apps illegally sell food from unqualified vendors.

Manya Koetse

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China’s food delivery app market has been booming over the previous year. Apps like Eleme, Meituan and Baidu Takeout have made ordering food a piece of cake. But China’s popular food apps are under scrutiny now that Chinese media exposed that these apps illegally sell food from unqualified vendors.

Ordering food in China’s urban areas has never been so easy. Apps like Eleme (roughly meaning ‘Hungry Now?’) or Meituan make it possible to order virtually anything you want from restaurants and shops in the vicinity and have it delivered on your doorstep. The variety of choice depends on one’s location – there are more vendors to choose from within the app in city centers of, for example, Shanghai, Beijing or Tianjin, than the available options in their suburbs.

But once you’re in the right spot, there’s a ton of options. Due to the hyped market, there are competitive prices and vendors often offer deals and discounts to lure customers. Eleme and Meituan allow users to order anything from pizza to Mexican, from dim sum to sushi. Besides food, the apps also have options to buy beverages and alcohol, different kinds of medicine (including the morning after pill), face masks for smoggy days, or sex toys for hot nights.

Eleme and Meituan have now become the focus of scrutiny since CCTV’s annual consumer rights day TV show took aim at China’s food apps, as People’s Daily and Reuters report.

According to Chinese media, Eleme and Meituan are involved in illegal business by selling food from unlicensed restaurants.

Local restaurants can apply to sell their goods through these popular food apps. Especially now that cities like Beijing have been cracking down on street food, selling food door-to-door and being relatively ‘invisible’ to authorities is an appealing way to make money for many vendors.

After the CCTV programme aired on Tuesday, the food and drug administrations in Shanghai and Chengdu stated on Wednesday that they have launched investigations into Eleme, China Daily reports. CCTV reported on Weibo that Beijing authorities will also investigate different food order platforms in the capital. Meanwhile, Eleme’s vice president Guo Guangdong (郭光东) apologized to the public and vowed to take measures to rectify the situation.

cctv weibo eleme

But, as People’s Daily reports, Eleme users point out that vendors who have gone offline on the app are now offering their services under a different name.

This is not the first time apps like Eleme are targeted by Chinese media. In October last year, CCTV also reported that Meituan and Eleme facilitated illegal vendors to do business.

Meanwhile on Weibo, it is not the food quality or safety that worries netizens, but Eleme’s service. As one netizen called Black Mad Devil Tang Official writes:

Such a lousy app like Eleme shouldn’t be allowed to exist! The delivery guy was already halfway to bring me a salad and still it takes two hours with him calling me every other minute to ask for directions, are your delivery staff crawling their way to my house or what? He’s not only slow, but he first calls me to tell me he’ll be there in half an hour, and then five minutes later he calls me again to tell me it’ll take another 20 minutes, are your delivery guys like ticking time bombs?!

One commenter said: “Instead of ‘Hungry Now?’ they should change their name to ‘I’m Starving’.”

– By Manya Koetse

You might be also interested to read: China’s Top 10 Apps by What’s on Weibo (2015) 

Image: http://img2.iyiou.com/Cover/2015-10-29/gongsi-elemmeituan.jpg

©2016 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

Manya Koetse is the founder and editor-in-chief of whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer, public speaker, and researcher (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends, digital developments, and new media in an ever-changing China, with a focus on Chinese society, pop culture, and gender issues. She shares her love for hotpot on hotpotambassador.com. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.

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6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Avatar

    Sarita Gupta

    December 24, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    great blog….In today’s era people have reached to mobile phone and most of the restaurants are move themselves into online platform by publish android application to grab business from online platform. AppsBazar have a unique Restaurant Business Solution which will provide you an option to create your own app and move your restaurant at online platform.

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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers

Tick, Tock, Time to Pay Up? Douyin Is Testing Out Paywalled Short Videos

Is content payment a new beginning for the popular short video app Douyin (China’s TikTok) or would it be the end?

Manya Koetse

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The introduction of a Douyin novel feature, that would enable content creators to impose a fee for accessing their short video content, has sparked discussions across Chinese social media. Although the feature would benefit creators, many Douyin users are skeptical.

News that Chinese social media app Douyin is rolling out a new feature which allows creators to introduce a paywall for their short video content has triggered online discussions in China this week.

The feature, which made headlines on November 16, is presently in the testing phase. A number of influential content creators are now allowed to ‘paywall’ part of their video content.

Douyin is the hugely popular app by Chinese tech giant Bytedance. TikTok is the international version of the Chinese successful short video app, and although they’re often presented as being the same product, Douyin and Tiktok are actually two separate entities.

In addition to variations in content management and general usage, Douyin differs from TikTok in terms of features. Douyin previously experimented with functionalities such as charging users for accessing mini-dramas on the platform or the ability to tip content creators.

The pay-to-view feature on Douyin would require users to pay a certain fee in Douyin coins (抖币) in order to view paywalled content. One Douyin coin is equivalent to 0.1 yuan ($0,014). The platform itself takes 30% of the income as a service charge.

According to China Securities Times or STCN (证券时报网), Douyin insiders said that any short video content meeting Douyin’s requirements could be set as “pay-per-view.”

Creators, who can set their own paywall prices, should reportedly meet three criteria to qualify for the pay-to-view feature: their account cannot have any violation records for a period of 90 days, they should have at least 100,000 followers, and they have to have completed the real-name authentication process.

On Douyin and Weibo, Chinese netizens express various views on the feature. Many people do not think it would be a good idea to charge money for short videos. One video blogger (@小片片说大片) pointed out the existing challenge of persuading netizens to pay for longer videos, let alone expecting them to pay for shorter ones.

“The moment I’d need to pay money for it, I’ll delete the app,” some commenters write.

This statement appears to capture the prevailing sentiment among most internet users regarding a subscription-based Douyin environment. According to a survey conducted by the media platform Pear Video, more than 93% of respondents expressed they would not be willing to pay for short videos.

An online poll by Pear Video showed that the majority of respondents would not be willing to pay for short videos on Douyin.

“This could be a breaking point for Douyin,” one person predicts: “Other platforms could replace it.” There are more people who think it would be the end of Douyin and that other (free) short video platforms might take its place.

Some commenters, however, had their own reasons for supporting a pay-per-view function on the platform, suggesting it would help them solve their Douyin addiction. One commenter remarked, “Fantastic, this might finally help me break free from watching short videos!” Another individual responded, “Perhaps this could serve as a remedy for my procrastination.”

As discussions about the new feature trended, Douyin’s customer service responded, stating that it would eventually be up to content creators whether or not they want to activate the paid feature for their videos, and that it would be up to users whether or not they would be interested in such content – otherwise they can just swipe away.

Another social media user wrote: “There’s only one kind of video I’m willing to pay for, and it’s not on Douyin.”

By Manya Koetse

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Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.

©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers

Tsingtao Brewery ‘Pee-Gate’: Factory Worker Caught Urinating in Raw Material Warehouse

The pee incident, that occurred at a subsidiary Tsingtao Beer factory, has caused concerns among consumers.

Manya Koetse

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A video that has circulated on Chinese social media since October 19 shows how an alleged worker at a Tsingtao Beer factory climbs over a wall at the raw material production site and starts to urinate.

The incident reportedly occurred at the Tsingtao Beer Factory No. 3, a subsidiary of the Tsingtao Brewing Company, located in Qingdao, Shandong.

After the video went viral, the Tsingtao Brewery Company issued a statement that they took the incident very seriously and immediately report it to the authorities, who have started an investigation into the case. Meanwhile, the specific batch in production has been halted and shut off.

The incident has caused concern among consumers, and some commenters on social media wonder if this was the first time something like this has happened. “How do we know this hasn’t happened many times before?”

Others speculate about what might have motivated the man to urinate at the production site. There are those who believe that the man is part of an undercover operation orchestrated by a rivaling company, aimed at discrediting Tsingtao. It’s even suggested that there were two ‘moles’ leaking in this incident: one doing the urinating, and the other doing the video ‘leak.’

Meanwhile, there are voices who are critical of Tsingtao, suggesting that the renowned beer brand has not effectively addressed the ‘pee gate’ scandal. It remains uncertain how this incident will impact the brand, but some netizens are already expressing reservations about ordering a Tsingtao beer as a result.

But there are also those who joke about the “pissing incident,” wondering if Tsingtao Beer might soon launch a special “urine flavored beer.”

By Manya Koetse

Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our newsletter and get access to our latest articles:

Featured photo by Jay Ang (link).

Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.

©2023 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.

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