Meituan, Ele.me relax food delivery time targets after backlash over risky conditions for riders

Many food delivery riders in China risk their lives to meet deadlines even under extreme weather conditions, according to a report that has gone viral

Meituan will add eight minutes to its dispatch time while Ele.me will allow customers to indicate willingness to wait up to 10 minutes more for deliveries

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A Meituan Dianping delivery driver (front yellow) and a Ele.me delivery driver (back) sit on standby in the Futian district in Shenzhen. Photo: SCMP / Roy Issa

Published: 7:15pm, 9 Sep 2020Updated: 4:35pm, 10 Sep 2020

Chinese food delivery giants Meituan Dianping and Ele.me have both made changes to relax tight deadlines for riders to deliver orders, in response to public backlash over the treatment of couriers.

Meituan, which accounted for more than 68 per cent of the market as of the second quarter of 2020 according to market research firm Trustdata, said in a statement on Wednesday that its dispatch system will include an extra eight minutes for riders to “wait for elevators and slow down a little bit at the crossroads”.

“We will continue to optimise the system to guarantee the riders a safe driving time,” it added. “Under bad weather conditions, the system will lengthen delivery times for riders and even stop taking orders.”

Ele.me also said on Tuesday that it will launch a function that allows customers to indicate whether they are willing to wait up to 10 minutes longer for their deliveries.

The move comes after an investigative story by Chinese magazine Renwu went viral on Monday, garnering over 1 million views on Chinese super app WeChat soon after it was published.

The report, based on interviews with over 30 delivery riders from Ele.me and Meituan – which collectively dominate 90 per cent of the food delivery market in China, according to Trustdata – found that many riders violate traffic laws and risk their lives to meet ever-shortening delivery windows.