Ele.me Launches ＂Resonance Program＂ to Help Shanghai Merchants Resume

"During the period when I didn’t open the door, I opened my eyes every day for money, and it cost 40,000 to 50,000 a month. It was too anxious." After finally reopening in late April, Boss Li of Pingcheng Boutique Fruit Store in Jing’an District, Shanghai, he faced a new challenge: opening takeout for the first time and learning to operate online from scratch.

At present, in accordance with the principle of "orderly liberalization, limited flow, effective control, and classified management", how can small and medium-sized merchants who resume business and resume market in stages speed up recovery, reduce pressure, and better "touch the net" development? In this regard, on May 22, Ele.me announced the launch of the "Resonance Plan" for the merchant market, hoping to support merchants and help riders, and do its best to better serve the public, add vitality to the market, and fully support the recovery.

Incentive subsidies + fee reductions, "resonance plan" focuses on merchant pain points

Since this round of epidemic in Shanghai, Ele.me has fully invested in anti-epidemic supply and vigorously supported citizens’ living security and emergency needs. Ele.me has tens of thousands of riders shuttling through the streets and alleys to deliver fresh vegetables, living expenses, urgent medicines and other materials to the city’s communities.

Among them, Ele.me "All-round Supermarket" ensures the safety of parity and distribution through the service model of "community collection + fixed-point distribution". Since it started operation on March 28, it has distributed necessities such as meat, eggs, milk and rice noodles grains and oil to hundreds of thousands of families; in response to the dining needs of the public, Ele.me and Shanghai fixed-point catering merchants have increased transportation capacity investment and community coverage in the way of "community group meals", and delivered tens of thousands of group buying meals in time every day; in the face of the public’s drug demand, Ele.me has also launched a variety of new modes of drug delivery, including community group buying medical materials for epidemic prevention, "community collection + centralized distribution", and also cooperated with hospitals to "emergency drug delivery special car", etc., to continuously increase supply At the end of April, the average daily delivery of medicines exceeded 100,000 orders.

As Shanghai accelerates the pace of business resumption, Ele.me launched a special project relief plan to fully support the recovery of Shanghai merchants.

During the epidemic, business operations have been affected to varying degrees. At present, in the market recovery stage, many businesses are facing pressure such as liquidity and market investment. The "Resonance Plan" of Ele.me includes four measures: provide 500 million yuan incentive within two months after the lifting of the ban to reduce business operating costs; provide special project fee reduction subsidies to ease financial pressure; provide special mentoring training and digital support to improve business operation capabilities; provide riders with nearly 70 million yuan in additional subsidies to enhance employment security.

According to the introduction, the first batch of 500 million yuan incentive subsidies of the "resonance plan" will provide over 200 million yuan to merchants, including order subsidies and incentives, distribution cost subsidies, marketing cost subsidies and special project traffic support; about 300 million yuan will also be invested to distribute consumption red envelope coupons to citizens, provide project special membership discounts, etc., and will also extend the food card that cannot be used under objective conditions and compensate for food beans, so that merchants with high-quality service and honest management can increase revenue more quickly and effectively.

At the same time, in order to ease the financial pressure of merchants, Ele.me and the Financial Institution Group provide discounted loans of varying amounts and up to 500,000 yuan for eligible merchants, hoping to help merchants reduce the burden of opening after the epidemic.

In addition to subsidies, there are fee reductions. Ele.me provides a "green channel" for merchants, which can launch takeaway business within 1 hour at the soonest. In addition, newly opened online and eligible high-quality catering merchants will be given a rate discount of up to 5%; eligible retailers such as general merchandise and fresh fruits can also get a certain rate discount.

Ele.me will also enhance the digital operation ability of merchants through special service and special project training.

For riders, the first phase of Ele.me will provide an additional about 70 million yuan for order incentives and epidemic prevention subsidies, and will also set up more smart dining cabinets and "1 square meter warm rider station" to stabilize employment and improve security.

Community merchants receive traffic support and look forward to business resuming as soon as possible

Su Xiaoliu is a favorite dim sum shop in Shanghai. To overcome the pressure in this round of epidemic, he joined the guarantee supply on April 16. After the Ele.me platform resumed online, he obtained the platform traffic support in time.

Xuhui ITC store is one of the first three stores to resume supply, and the launch of same-day takeout is "order surge". To this end, Ele.me also helps to adjust the capacity allocation, provide distribution cost subsidies, and strengthen the guarantee of logistics performance.

"During this time, we sold more than 10,000 copies in a single store." Mr. Sheng, the operation manager of Su Xiaolu, told the author that from the background data, the various support effects of the platform are very obvious.

Heisei Boutique Fruit Store is also one of the beneficiaries of Ele.me’s support measures.

On April 20, the fruit store, which had been closed for more than a month, reopened. Previously, this store only had offline retail. During the closure and control period, Mr. Li realized the importance of takeaway, and the owner applied to open a store in Ele.me as soon as possible after opening. Soon under the green channel of the platform, the fruit store launched takeaway services.

"My parents distribute goods in the store, and I buy and receive orders at home. We are relatively affordable, and on the first day we went online, there were hundreds of orders." Mr. Li introduced that in order to strictly prevent the epidemic, the door will only be opened when there is an order. One door and one disinfection will be opened hundreds of times a day.

As a novice in takeout, he had never handled so many takeout orders. He learned a lot of free Ele.me tutorials online, optimized the operation and delivery method, and the takeout store quickly hit the right track.

Recently, his fruit store also received traffic support from Ele.me. "After going online for takeout, we have income, and we are finally relieved. With orders, we have living water, and we can survive. The order incentives, price-break discounts subsidies, and especially traffic support and marketing subsidies launched by the platform are all real needs for us."

After the launch of the "Resonance Plan", many merchants said that with the support of the food delivery platform, they can ease the anxiety of survival to a certain extent, and measures such as order incentives and subsidies can also effectively reduce costs and ease the pressure on funds. Ele.me said that further plans are still being formulated to provide greater support and jointly accelerate the market recovery. "We expect the fireworks in the market to continue as usual, and all business partners and the familiar Shanghai will get better and better."

Government and enterprises work together to bail out, and "fireworks" will return as soon as possible

"Shanghai’s current epidemic situation is generally stable and improving", this sentence at the press conference, the public began to feel: the rail transit bus gradually resumed operation, the park classification opened step by step, some downtown shopping malls have been unblocked to welcome guests, Moments posted more and more "return to work electronic pass", and even takeaway no longer needs group buying, even if one person, Blue Knight can be sent to the community.

Shanghai has been looking forward to the "fireworks" for two months, and it is slowly approaching you and me step by step.

According to the current schedule, commercial outlets should resume offline business in an orderly manner, and "online ordering, offline delivery" should be implemented. The catering industry should also implement services such as "online order, takeaway home"… Since the home epidemic prevention, the consumption habits of Shanghai citizens have also been slowly changing, and the consumption proportion of takeaway orders has become higher and higher. As an indispensable part of the city’s operation, takeaway has always tried its best to better serve the citizens.

However, we must also be aware that the social and economic impact of the epidemic will not disappear completely with the "lifting of the seal".

Faced with challenges in liquidity, service manpower, and material supply, some merchants may usher in "darkness before dawn". Due to the long-term closure and no income, the liquidity of closed merchants, especially small and medium-sized merchants, husband and wife stores, is difficult. At the same time, factors such as rent store expenses, labor costs, and labor return are also under great pressure. There are also challenges in supply and logistics supply chain.

How to retain the "fireworks" in the life of Shanghai? All parties in Shanghai are actively working hard. In the process of resuming business and the market, merchants and platforms cannot do without "gathering sand into a tower" and watching each other.

In order to reduce the losses of the epidemic to merchants, Ele.me has launched an emergency "shutdown protection" mechanism in Shanghai. Platform merchants that have suspended business due to the epidemic can open it independently, lock in monthly sales, scoring, etc., and remain unchanged during the shutdown period to ensure that merchants can quickly return to normal business after the lockdown is lifted. For problems such as the difficulty of temporarily recruiting workers in small stores, Ele.me also sets up a special channel in the background of merchants to help solve them.

At the same time, the business support plan pioneered by Ele.me is not limited to short-term assistance measures. It effectively targets the pain points of merchants, reduces the pressure of merchants, accelerates recovery, and overcomes difficulties together. It also helps merchants to go online and digital transformation as soon as possible, and truly "give it a fish".

At present, many merchants in Shanghai have switched from store retail to online takeout on the platform. While maintaining operations to generate income, it is also conducive to epidemic prevention and safety. In the stage of resumption of business and market recovery, effectively supporting merchants to "touch the Internet" will also help promote economic recovery.

For example, in order to reduce the impact of the epidemic, Ele.me provides merchants with a "green channel" to launch takeaway business within 1 hour at the soonest. In addition to special project incentives and traffic support, the "Resonance Plan" also enhances the digital operation capabilities of merchants through special service and special project training, including arranging a special project service team of more than 300 people to optimize the operation of targeted services merchants; providing nearly 2,000 hours of free open courses for merchants to conduct free takeaway operator training and certification services; supermarkets, convenience stores, fresh fruit, medicine and other merchants will receive intelligent diagnosis, management and marketing suggestions for goods, and the AI dish analysis system "Hungry Xiaowei" will also help catering brands develop new products for free.

Improving digital capabilities for the future and enabling businesses to achieve sustainable development may also become a "way to break the bottleneck" in the development of retail industries such as catering.

Of course, the full recovery of market economic vitality requires the participation of the whole industry and strong policy support.

Shanghai has issued the "21 Anti-Epidemic Helping Enterprises" policy, comprehensively implementing measures such as tax reduction and fee reduction, rent reduction and exemption, financial subsidies, financial support, and assistance to enterprises to stabilize jobs. At least 32 departments and 16 districts have issued supporting implementation rules. Relevant functional areas of business can join hands with the Internet platform and public service platform integration, support merchants’ liquidity, human employment, material supply, and stimulate consumption, etc., give full play to the greater role of the Internet platform in "urban services", and provide targeted services such as policy publicity, appeal coordination, and guidance and consultation for small and medium-sized businesses to resume work and production, and resume business and return to the market through a combination of online and offline methods.

At present, the epidemic prevention and control situation in Shanghai is generally stable and improving, and it is entering the transformation stage of normalization prevention and control. The fireworks on the street will also be restored to its previous vitality under the joint efforts of all parties.