Who Is Pushing Us to Go Faster? A Conversation Between Fresh Food Pickers and Consumers

@觀宸奕: I used to work at Meituan’s Xiaoxiang. No social insurance, grueling work. You’re not allowed to rest on weekends or statutory holidays; if you need time off, it has to be Monday to Friday, meaning roughly four days off a month. You get scolded for missing deadlines, and realistically, you’re expected to pick two orders within three minutes. Some orders are entirely frozen goods, meaning you spend ages hunting for items in the freezers until you’re numb from the cold. You have to give 30 days’ notice to quit, with no option for immediate final pay, and you still get scheduled shifts until your last day. Workdays are basically 8 to 12 hours. No matter how long you’re on shift, the Xiaoxiang supermarket staff app only counts 11 hours a day, yet they schedule you for more than that. Hours beyond 11 don’t count towards paid time, so you just have to wait to clock out at the end of the shift. Otherwise, you’re marked absent and forced into unpaid labour, earning just a few cents in commission.

@Quella Lin: I did this as a part-timer, so here’s my experience: shifts are 7 to 8 hours, typically from 4 pm to midnight, averaging 25,000 to 30,000 steps a day (and that’s just part-time—I can’t imagine how full-timers cope with regular 10- to 11-hour shifts!). A customer complaint about produce freshness results in a 10 RMB deduction (you have to be extra careful checking items when sorting vegetables and fruits quickly, especially time-consuming ones like blueberries, strawberries, or loquats). A cracked egg, even if it wasn’t the rider’s fault, costs you 20 RMB. I caught a mild cold after just three consecutive days. You’re constantly running between the frozen, chilled, and ambient zones. The ambient area only has fans, so you sweat profusely, only to freeze solid when you dash into the low-temp and frozen sections. That’s exactly why turnover is so high in this job; they’re always recruiting.

@热情华夫饼: I often see delivery e-bikes on the road with external subwoofers blasting music at high volume. My friends and I used to speculate that this might be a way for couriers to assert their presence in urban space. But later, I heard a rider with this habit explain that the tight delivery windows force them to run red lights frequently. Playing music loudly lets drivers at intersections notice them sooner, reducing the chance of accidents.

@蒹葭: Pickers on fresh-food e-commerce platforms are constantly under high pressure driven by algorithms, data targets, and piece-rate pay. Mistakes like wrong or missing items are an unavoidable structural issue, just as scrapes and traffic accidents are nearly inevitable for every courier. My uncle does this work; he’s been at it for at least a decade, surviving several tech upgrades. He always eats like a whirlwind. I barely get my chopsticks moving before he’s finished. He’s actually quite a cautious person. But last year, on a rainy day, he collided with someone while making a delivery. He fractured his thigh and is still recovering at home. Low educational attainment and a lack of a voice in public discourse have left this group, crushed by the weight of livelihood and algorithms, as a silent underclass.

@Anonymous: I’ve never used a grocery delivery app. For environmental reasons, I’ve disliked them since the day they launched. I reuse plastic bags when I shop in person, but fresh-food e-commerce deliveries always arrive with a whole load of single-use plastic packaging.

@来去之间: They’ve wiped out physical stores. Have you noticed there are fewer and fewer brick-and-mortar supermarkets?

@6: For a consumer, these ‘life-or-death’ three minutes might just be a brief moment when my mind wanders. In my experience, Xiaoxiang does deliver quickly, but honestly, if it were a bit slower—five or ten minutes—I don’t think most customers would even notice. What really matters to me is the quality and the correct quantity. I believe most people are still willing to show some mutual understanding. Treating humans like machines and machines like humans is a deeply distorted value system. A little slower won’t bring the sky down.

@露mio: Why do we let algorithms wear us down? Sigh, I’m being worn down too. Hearing someone speak up for us just makes my heart ache.

@cora: Why must orders be picked within three minutes? This is just another way the platform exploits its workers. If a customer is truly in a hurry, they shouldn’t be placing an order online; they should just head downstairs and buy it themselves. Choosing to have it delivered means you’re prepared to wait.

@来去之间: The platform isn’t going to give you that breathing room. Their systems are packed with performance metrics. Your stress is what drives their KPIs.

@暮夏之后: Honestly, as a customer, I’m not in a rush over those extra ten minutes. I’m buying fresh produce, not something I need to eat immediately. Once it arrives, it goes straight into the fridge until I’m ready to use it. The 30-minute delivery standard is simply a tactic platforms use to grab market share, which then gives them an excuse to relentlessly squeeze ordinary workers.

@G: Saying you’re not in a rush doesn’t help. The platform’s algorithm doesn’t care whether riders survive or not; it demands on-time delivery no matter what.

@Lzx: Worked 5½ hours yesterday and got seven customer complaints. Absolutely unbelievable.

@尤利西斯: If I find items missing when the order arrives and contact the store manager directly, does that not count as a complaint?

@哦喔: If a customer complains about a product for a valid reason, the picker still has to take responsibility. On top of that, pickers face pressure from two other fronts. First, the three-minute picking limit cannot be exceeded. If you consistently go over time, the site manager will reprimand you, as they need to protect the station’s fulfilment rates. Second, if you finish picking and immediately tap “packed”, the riders will have a word with you, as will the rider manager. But if you don’t tap it early enough, the manager will scold you for missing the deadline.

@Freya: This is quite heartbreaking to read. I rely on Hema and Dingdong quite a bit, and I had no idea the convenience comes at such a brutal cost. It reminds me of a few days ago when a delivery rider knocked over my order. Some of the broth from the steamed fish head with chopped chilli spilled out. He kept apologising and offering to reimburse me. I told him it was fine and I’d just use a bowl from home. I thought that was the end of it, but the next day I noticed he’d left a message on the delivery app begging me not to leave a negative review or request a refund, warning that he would face severe performance penalties…

@范范: I’ve been ordering from Pupu and Xiaoxiang regularly for the past year, especially since there’s a Pupu store right downstairs from my place. I’ve seen their part-time job ads, and had no idea the picking stage of the job was so exhausting. Algorithms themselves aren’t designed to exploit workers, but capitalists use them to enforce a rigid form of “time management” that allows for absolutely zero “unexpected events.” Anyone who tries to manage their own schedule with that level of precision will know how unachievable that is. But the author shouldn’t feel guilty about filing complaints in the past. It’s the capitalists who have deliberately linked complaints to the wages of gig workers. I’ve filed complaints twice myself, for instance when vegetables weren’t fresh or the weight was short. Consumers’ legitimate needs have to be met as well.

@油菜花: This article really resonated with me. When job hunting didn’t go well last year, I was forced to interview for a part-time role at Pupu. Their model is pretty much the same as Xiaoxiang’s. During the interview, I felt the tension and pressure the pickers endure. They race against time, memorising product locations and address zones, all represented by codes. Once you get the hang of it, you have to pick multiple orders at once. Everyone carries several bags, many with heavy items. It’s truly a job demanding both mental and physical stamina, and it’s incredibly exhausting for women. I wondered if I could actually handle it, and in the end, I decided not to take the job.

@观花: Last week, I bought soy products, yoghurt and fruit at Chaoshifa via Taobao Flash Sale. As soon as I placed the order, I saw it calling for a rider three minutes later. I told my dad, ‘Platforms really don’t need to be this competitive!’ If I happen to be missing a piece of ginger for a dish and need it urgently, they won’t even deliver a single item, so I’d have to go down to the small greengrocer in the residential compound anyway; what I buy through them is never time-sensitive, so there’s no need to rush it all like this.

@jam: Duoduo Maicai also needs pickers to sort items. For large items, it’s 0.68 RMB per piece.

@黄映红: I used to work as a part-time picker at a Walmart supermarket. You earned 0.3 RMB per item. Sometimes an order had only one or two items, but you still had to pack them properly before moving to the next order. Regardless of how many items an order contained, you had to finish it within ten minutes. If you spent ages looking for an item that wasn’t there (out of stock), you had to call the customer to confirm whether to swap the brand or specification. On average, you only made 10 to 15 RMB an hour.

@来去之间: That won’t work. Once an order is placed, it’s only tracked within the system. If you call the rider to say the delivery window has run out and ask them to mark it as delivered and bring it over slowly, the system monitors call logs. If the rider actually dares to mark it delivered, they get fined straight away. If they mark it delivered, you haven’t received it, and you call the rider or customer service, then the rider answers that call: a full day’s work for nothing, plus a 300 yuan fine!

@芽口: Peak hours run from 4:30 to 7:30 pm, so you can try placing orders outside those times. Avoid ordering too many heavy items per order, and try shopping in-store more often to reduce your reliance on fresh-food supermarkets.

@yyyyyyyyyyyy: Actually, shifting spending from online shopping to in-store purchases is the only way to truly boost the economy. Otherwise, once all the brick-and-mortar shops go out of business, online retailers will face no competition and prices will just keep climbing.

@殷羽sama: Consumers need to band together and boycott platforms that exploit pickers and couriers to the extreme. We should support a platform where workers can anonymously rate these companies. Any firm found abusing staff, withholding pay, or fostering a high-pressure culture should be given low scores, which would naturally lower their standing in public opinion. We can’t keep waiting until someone dies before we finally decide to boycott a brand.