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Avoid the crowds at the markets this Mid-Autumn Festival by ordering fresh produce and seafood online.
With the Mid-Autumn Festival just around the corner, some people are beginning to prepare their festive food, searching for a parking place, wandering around the markets, comparing the freshness of the produce, and fighting to keep the children in order during long shopping trips.
However, there is an alternative. Canny shoppers have joined an online carnival of fresh produce and seafood.
During the holiday season, a host of online grocers will be making a raft of promotions, offering the "freshest" food at the best prices.
Traditional brick and mortar promotions such as "buy one get one free" or "50 percent off" may no longer be eye-catching enough, and so online food retailers are optimizing the promise of "freshness", with food culled directly from the farms, as a new marketing tactic.
Shun Feng You Xuan (sfbest.com), or "Shunfeng First Choice", is a popular online food retailer owned by Shunfeng Express, one of China's largest delivery companies.
Yang Jun, director of sales and marketing at Sfbest, says the company is pledging fresh produce and seafood directly from the producers and straight to the consumers' doorsteps, using their own logistics to remove all middlemen and sectors in between.
Hairy crabs are one of the most sought-after delicacies during the Mid-Autumn Festival season. The festival itself falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, usually sometime between September and October in the Gregorian calendar. It is also the best time to eat crabs because the two months fall at the height of the crab-fishing season.
However, this year the festival will arrive earlier, on Sept 8, before the crab fishing season kicks off. Still, all the big online grocers have cashed in on the golden festival time by issuing eye-catching vouchers for crab at end of August.
Ben Lai Sheng Huo (benlai.com), which literally translates as "Original Life" will sell 12 types of vouchers for Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs ranging from 398 yuan ($65) to 3,698 yuan. The vouchers are valid from Sept 26 until Dec 31.
Many online retailers of fresh produce and seafood are currently sourcing the origins of their fresh items to ensure quality and freshness.
According to Ben Lai Sheng Huo 's promotional pamphlet: "Our professional buying team made 15 study tours to Yangcheng Lake in 2013, and finally decided to cooperate with Yu Sannan, which has 20 years' experience of farming crabs, and is dubbed 'Number One' among the crab breeders in its locality. Yu Sannan's crabs went on sales last year on our website, winning great praise from consumers. This year, we will continue to sell Yu's crabs." The pamphlet also featured photos of Yu, and of the crab-farming operation.
Lelife.com, an e-commerce site that is a subsidiary of Leshi Television, a online video portal, began online operations on Aug 18, with the aim of marrying the Internet and eco-agriculture, and cooperates with 3,500 farms and seafood producers nationwide.
The first products it launched were hairy crabs from six major production areas, including Gaoyou Lake and Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu province, and Panjin in Liaoning province.
"We are committed to changing the information asymmetry of produce on the market. People have a mania for crabs from Yangcheng Lake, and are unaware of crabs from other areas that are equally tasty and nutritional," said Lelfie's Vice-President Jiang Zhengwen at a news briefing on Aug 24.
Some experts have also urged consumers to buy crabs from other areas - especially breeding grounds in Jiangsu province such as Hongze Lake and Tai Lake, and Poyang Lake in Jiangxi province - and not to become fixated on produce from Yangcheng Lake, partly because some retailers sell hairy crabs that are purported to be from Yangcheng Lake, but aren't.
In 2013, the trading volume of e-commerce in fresh produce and seafood in China totaled 13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 221 percent. This year, the figure is projected to reach 26 billion yuan, a rise of 100 percent, the Economic Daily reported in August.
Wang Xiaoxing, an e-commence analyst with the Beijing-based consultancy Analysys International, says the e-commerce system for fresh produce and seafood in China is still at the stage of investing, financing, and creating new markets.
"Few of the e-commerce companies in the fresh food sector have made a profit as yet. Many online grocers are pondering their next move by conducting promotions and advertising," he says.
According to Wang, a major challenge facing e-commerce outfits in the sector is the high cost of cold-chain logistics. "In Beijing and Shanghai, some online food firms have their own cold warehouses to achieve fast delivery. But to reach smaller cities and the central and western parts of China, most online food firms and suppliers have to choose third-party cold-storage logistics, which is usually Shunfeng Express."
Wang says that despite the large amount of advertising being undertaken, the actual transaction volume of fresh items is still very limited, and that the demand for fresh produce and seafood online is low.
Industry insiders says online buyers of such foodstuffs are mainly aged between 25 to 40, with white-collar women in their 30s accouting for most of the sales because they are economically secure and tend to care more about culinary quality.
Zheng Xiaoqing, a 60-year-old retiree in Beijing, said: "No matter how fresh and convenient it is, that's for young people. We are not conscious of shopping online and don't have the habit. When it comes to fresh produce, I believe in what I see, touch, and smell, and in the process of selecting those foods in person at the market. Shopping for groceries is part of my daily routine."
Tian Xiaoshu, a chef who owns a small restaurant in Beijing, says: "I think that only families will try to buying fresh food online because their demand is not large. I, and probably other restaurant owners, already have established regular suppliers at local markets."
However, Jiang Jian, 33, went online for almost everything for his recent housewarming dinner party. "I ordered most of my party food at benlai.com, including chicken wings, beef, scallops, and lobsters. The lobsters were half the price of those in the shopping malls, and they arrived live and on time."
Wang Pin, an avid foodie from Beijing, says: "I buy lots of imported produce and seafood online, such as US-farmed pork, Thai fruit, and Norwegian salmon, which I can't find in the local market."
"I can have a quick glance at the product descriptions on the website. I can book my delivery time. Once the goods arrive, I also can open the package and inspect the items on the spot. Why not? It saves time and the cost of travel between home and the market. Plus, I usually get off work late in the evening when the produce in the supermarkets is no longer fresh."
Contact the author at: dongfangyu@chinadaily.com.cn
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