Market Wars in the Rain: The Delivery Rider’s Bitter Summer

Take Beijing this summer, which suffered frequent bouts of abnormal rainfall. It is said that the wave of extreme storms starting on 24 July delivered a year’s worth of rain in just four days. When the rain was at its heaviest, looking out the window revealed nothing but a vast, white blur. The roads, streets, traffic lights, streams of cars, billboards, shops, shopping centres, and residential blocks—all were submerged in the downpour, as if the city had come to a standstill, leaving only the relentless drumming of the rain.

Those inside their rooms, and even the customers waiting for their food, have no way of knowing what the riders—who continue to race through the rain—are actually experiencing.

Having stopped working as a delivery rider four years ago, I wanted to find out how my former colleagues were coping during these successive bouts of extreme weather.

I. Feet Soaked Raw by the Rain

The sound was coming from his feet. It had rained all day in Beijing, and his shoes had been soaked through since the first wave of the lunchtime peak at 11 am.

As we spoke, he kept shifting his feet on the spot. He told me he had lost all feeling in them, yet there was a dull ache in the balls of his feet; he suspected the skin had been soaked raw or that he had developed blisters.

Old Cai is 37 years old. He came to Beijing from his rural hometown in Gansu and has been a delivery rider for four years. As a Meituan Lepao rider, he has to deliver “difficult orders”—such as those to high-rise buildings without lifts or residential compounds that ban electric bikes—all while wearing sodden shoes and socks. With visibility blocked by rain, phones becoming difficult to operate, and slippery roads, the difficulty of delivery increases. To avoid being late, he must concentrate more intensely; as for the state of his feet inside his shoes, he cannot afford to check, simply powering through the entire day.

“So you just endured that for 12 hours?” I asked when we met the next day.

Old Cai replied with a hint of bitterness mixed with pride: “It was 14 and a half hours. I log on at 10 am every day. After I spoke with you yesterday, I didn’t finish until 1:30 am.”

Shocked, I asked who on earth orders takeout so late in such weather. Old Cai, completely unfazed, took a drag of his cigarette and replied: “It’s nothing unusual; plenty of people do. Not long ago, the latest delivery I made was at 2 am—someone wanted bubble tea.”

Little Tan, a dedicated delivery rider for Ele.me, was equally amused by my surprise. Born in the 2000s, Little Tan only arrived in Beijing from his home in Henan last year. He views himself as someone with few burdens—”as long as I’m fed, my family doesn’t go hungry.” Compared to Old Cai, his life is less pressured and he seems more relaxed, yet he too must persevere in working every rainy day.

To him, being soaked from head to toe on a rainy day is a commonplace occurrence. Even when it doesn’t rain, in the scorching Beijing summer, the sweat from rushing around all day is enough to drench his clothes.

On 12 August, a sudden cloudburst hit Beijing. Little Tan was on his way back to a commercial district. The cheap raincoat he had bought for 20 yuan had ripped during a delivery, and with the fierce winds, he was soaked through in no time. He simply took off the raincoat and kept going.

“I can endure those things,” Little Tan said. What he couldn’t endure was that he’d only had a bowl of porridge for breakfast, expecting to eat lunch a few hours later. Instead, he found himself working straight through until 8 pm. The sudden downpour had prompted hundreds or thousands of customers to pick up their phones and order food simultaneously, and Little Tan’s system kept alerting him: “You have a new order.” The surge in orders left him no opportunity to stop, forcing him to weave through the wind and rain. By the time he logged off, his power bank was empty and his phone was at 4%. He bought a meal to take home, but he was so hungry he had to stop at a roadside bus stop.

He took off his blue helmet and set it aside; raindrops still dripped from his face into his food, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Little Tan ate his meal calmly beside a billboard. A moment later, in one fluid motion, he put his blue helmet back on, mounted the electric bike that was his constant companion, and vanished into the long Beijing night, as if he had never been there at all.

I recounted these stories to Old Wei, who remained indifferent. A 43-year-old from Shandong, Old Wei now delivers for JD.com, though he has been in the delivery industry since 2018. Looking back, he feels that suffering a bit of hardship or getting injured is perfectly normal in this line of work. What truly bothers him these days is that despite his best efforts to speed up and ensure food reaches customers on time during the rain, he still receives unexpected complaints.

II. The Worse the Weather, the More You Have to Work

Old Cai held up one finger. I stared at his index finger and asked: “Did you work one day? Or take one day off?”

“I didn’t take a single day off,” he said with a smile. “Not just these past few days—I’ve been doing this for four years, and except for the Spring Festival or urgent personal matters, I never rest.”

As the primary breadwinner for his elderly parents and children, Old Cai carries the weight of the household. The eldest of his two children has just finished the high school entrance exams; due to disappointing results, they can only attend a private high school from September, with annual tuition fees costing forty to fifty thousand yuan.

“As children grow, education costs money. Do you think I don’t feel the pressure? Working fourteen or fifteen hours a day, I can earn thirteen or fourteen thousand a month, but in the end, there’s hardly anything left.”

However, his family is not only the reason he exhausts himself; they are also why he stays alert to protect himself while racing through the streets. He said his bottom line is ensuring he doesn’t have an accident; not only would an accident delay deliveries, but he has a wife and children relying on him.

For a delivery rider, physical safety and money for the family are equally important, yet often contradictory. However, there is a sense of confidence in Old Cai’s voice; he believes he can strike a balance between the two through superior skill.

Once, when the platform assigned him a dozen orders all at once, he spent his time calculating the fastest routes while simultaneously observing the speed and behaviour of passing drivers to judge whether it was “safe” enough to drive the wrong way or run a red light.

When a delivery to a residential complex—one that prohibits e-bikes and requires delivery on foot—causes his subsequent orders to verge on timing out, he returns to his bike drenched in sweat, only to light himself a cigarette first. He says: “The more anxious I feel, the more I need to keep a clear head. Delivering food isn’t just manual labour; you have to be calculating in your head every single second.”

It is effectively dancing on the edge of a blade. At first glance, the pressure forcing Old Cai to work regardless of wind or rain seems to stem entirely from his family, but that is likely only half the truth.

Under the management systems of platforms like Meituan and Ele.me, the space left for riders to “dance on the blade” is actually incredibly narrow. The blade may look like something the riders choose to stand on, but often it is not a choice—and it is not something you can simply stop doing once you’ve started.

Firstly, Old Cai mentions that one purpose of Meituan’s “Le Pao” (incentivised) rider model is to address the shortage of riders during extreme weather, such as heatwaves, torrential rain, gales, or snow. “We take the orders others won’t. Some of the younger ones don’t have as much pressure as we do; when it rains, they don’t want to come out, so the team leader forces them online.”

Ele.me’s “Youxuan” (preferred) model is a mirror image of Meituan’s, operating under the same rules. Xiao Wang, an Ele.me Youxuan rider, explains: “Crowdsourcing on Meituan and Ele.me isn’t as free as it used to be. For those of us doing Youxuan, the order volume is more guaranteed than for general crowdsourced riders. But if you don’t come out to work a few rainy days in a row, the team leader kicks you out of the squad.”

In contrast, Ele.me’s “Zhuan Song” (dedicated) service relies on fines to manage attendance during foul weather. Xiao Tan grumbles: “The per-order rate for dedicated riders is slightly higher than for crowdsourced ones, but the worse the weather, the more you’re forced to work. On a bright, sunny day like today, we can actually take leave.”

Once, when he set off, the rain had already submerged the wheels of his e-bike; by the time he reached the main road, the floodwater was up to the traffic warden’s knees. But he had no choice. He had tried to make excuses to take time off: “It’s always the same two reasons” he says, “my e-bike is broken or my phone is dead. Do you think the station manager is stupid? Our order volume affects the manager’s wages, and since the delivery wars began, riders have been in short supply. If fewer riders show up, it inevitably hits the delivery efficiency for the customers.” Xiao Tan reveals that if a station manager is pushed too far, they will genuinely fine the riders–amounts ranging from 300 to 500 yuan–and post the fine in the group chat to make an example of them.

Secondly, attendance requirements compel delivery drivers to work in extreme weather. Whether it is Meituan or Ele.me, the platforms allow riders one day off per week; exceeding this limit results in the loss of the “attendance bonus”. However, Old Cai, Xiao Tan, and Xiao Wang all understand that while it is called losing a “bonus,” it is effectively a disguised “fine.” “That’s our money. Losing the bonus is like losing a yuan per order, which adds up to hundreds or even thousands a month. I certainly wouldn’t dare take leave lightly. I’ll just work through the rain; otherwise, if something real happens, I won’t be able to take time off.”

Beyond the loss of the “attendance bonus,” there is another point that Meituan Le Pao and Ele.me Youxuan riders find particularly distressing: on rainy days, orders often pile up one after another without pause. If a rider wants to reject an order to take a short break, they actually have to pay a fee to the platform. “For the first four orders, it’s 2 yuan to transfer each order out; from four onwards, it’s 3 yuan, then 5, then 7. The charging standard is tiered,” Xiao Wang explains.

If we accept the current reality where delivery drivers must persevere through extreme weather, who then pays the price for the toll it takes on them?

A week after that rainy night, when I contacted Old Cai again, he was in the hospital undergoing tests. It turned out that during heavy rain the previous day, the roads were slippery and the fog on his helmet visor obscured his vision; he rear-ended a car while delivering and was thrown over the handlebars.

I was stunned for a moment, unable to believe the accident had happened so quickly; Old Cai’s casual tone when discussing how he “danced on the blade” was still ringing in my ears. But reality is cruel and dangerous, far from the trivial matter he made it sound like.

When I asked Old Cai and Xiao Tan whether there were subsidies for working in rain or extreme heat, the answer was that “there’s no real difference between having them and not.” On rainy days, because fewer riders are on the road, the per-order price fluctuates based on supply and demand, but there is no specific subsidy for the rain itself. Furthermore, all costs and losses”from small items like raincoats, helmets, and uniforms, to major ones like damaged phones and e-bikes”are borne by the riders themselves.

Both Old Cai and Xiao Tan mentioned that spending long hours delivering in the rain had previously caused their phones to suffer water damage. Old Cai, who is always frugal, had no choice but to pay for a new phone himself. Xiao Tan complained that on one particular day, he earned 400 yuan, but replacing his phone screen cost 450 yuan”spending a whole day toiling in the rain only to end up 50 yuan out of pocket.

As for heat subsidies, Old Cai finds them laughable. The Beijing municipal standard for heat subsidies for outdoor workers this year is no less than 180 yuan per person per month. This summer, Meituan launched its “2025 Summer Cool-down Action,” claiming to “increase the labour income of riders in high temperatures through more precise and diversified methods, such as per-order subsidies and long-term activities.”

In Old Cai’s actual experience, the so-called “per-order” and “precise” approach translates to this: Meituan does not issue a lump-sum monthly heat subsidy. Instead, it requires riders to complete a certain volume of deliveries between 13:30 and 17:00 daily: 0–4 orders earn no reward; 4–12 orders earn a 1 yuan reward per order; 12 or more orders earn 3 yuan per order.

Anyone who has delivered food knows that 13:30 to 17:00 is the period with the lowest order volume, falling between the lunch and dinner peaks; meeting such a KPI is no easy feat. Moreover, this is the hottest part of the day, with temperatures often exceeding 35 degrees. Consequently, under the guise of “precision,” the heat subsidy”which should be a gesture of empathy for the riders’ hardship”has instead become a mechanism for the platform to coerce riders into working during the most extreme heat.

Xiao Tan had also never heard of any “heat subsidies”. When I asked him how he hoped the platform could improve, he replied with a smile: “At least provide some Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid or something like that.”

Last summer, during his first few runs, he suffered from heatstroke. He recalled feeling dizzy with a ringing in his ears and a profound sense of distress, vomiting bitter fluid, yet he still persevered to finish his deliveries. He only began to feel better after buying some Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid from a pharmacy. “Since then, I’ve learned my lesson—you have to keep Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid on hand in the summer.”

Lao Wei, a JD rider, spoke about these issues with a more relaxed air. According to him, JD provides full-time riders with a monthly heat subsidy of 300 yuan, and this is actually implemented. Additionally, welfare items such as cooling sleeves and Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid are available for riders to collect for free.

Lao Wei admitted that he hopes JD continues to improve and maintains these welfare standards. However, there was a hint of anxiety in his voice; he knows that some benefits do not depend on the riders, but on the platform’s commercial considerations. Just a few months ago, to attract riders, JD Delivery initially offered a rate of 10 yuan per order, but that has since dropped to around 4 yuan.

As Lao Wei spoke, I recalled a woman who had told me about the “Delivery War” ten years ago. In the summer of 2015, before Baidu Waimai and Dianping were absorbed by Ele.me and Meituan, riders could earn over 2,000 yuan a month in combined subsidies for rainy days, long-distance deliveries, and extreme heat. Once the delivery market became monopolised, these subsidies almost vanished. In this latest three-way battle between the giants, while competition exists, the subsidies flow more towards the users than the riders. With the labour market for delivery already saturated, platforms no longer need to woo riders to capture market share and traffic; they would rather absorb the cost of wasted bubble tea than invest in rider welfare.

In truth, from a small bottle of Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid or a pair of cooling sleeves, to a genuine rain or heat subsidy, and onwards to more reasonable delivery windows during foul weather—these detailed changes, regardless of size, allow riders to work and live with more dignity, better health, and greater peace of mind. Indeed, they did not even mention social security. In any case, this summer has ended, yet their voices remain drowned out by the heavy rain and heatwaves. Will change happen next summer, or any summer thereafter? The answer does not seem to rest entirely with them.