Shanghai market regulator requests eCommerce platforms to regulate price amid pandemic

Shanghai's market regulator has summoned a total of 12 eCommerce platforms to talk about price gouging amid the city's pandemic situation. Participating platforms include Meituan and Ele.me. On Weibo, Shanghai's market regulator said it had required eCommerce platforms to take necessary measures in a timely manner against their operators on the platform who violate laws and regulations, and to continue to strengthen the review of packages and blind box products.

At the same time, eCommerce platforms were required to strengthen the management of riders, standardise the management of fees for errands and purchasing services, and prevent riders from privately increasing prices and other inappropriate behaviours.

In response to the requirements, Meituan said it will roll out measures to improve the quality of services. A special governance team had been established to increase the frequency of inspections, and set up limits on the prices of different categories of commodities. After detecting unreasonable pricing and price hikes, the commodities will be immediately taken offline. Ele.me said it had issued a price stabilisation initiative and new regulations for blind-box vegetables to merchants three times. It had also established a special management team to monitor and control the prices of 25 fresh food items, such as potatoes and cucumbers. 

Shanghai is facing a wave of COVID-19 cases and experiencing lockdown. Some luxury brands in the city have sent fresh food to customers, including vegetables, fruits and eggs. According to images circulating on Weibo, some customers of Gucci in Shanghai had received a wide variety of fresh food amid lockdown, including vegetables, eggs, beef steaks, mushrooms, and strawberries. In addition to Gucci, HK01 reported that Cartier offered bamboo shoots with nice packaging to its customers, while LV provided dim sum boxes to some of its customers with a card containing messages from the brand.

Although some customers of luxury brands did receive food supply, many citizens in the city were angry about the shortages of fresh food. It's reported that Weibo had banned the hashtag "上海買菜" last week, leading to some netizens deriding the platform that it successfully address the problem of fresh vegetable shortages. Also, some netizens criticised that the fresh food offered by the luxury brands signified the disparity between rich and poor. However, some of them said it was a common practice to offer gifts to delight customers, but this time they offered something unconventional.

The Standard said many residents in Shanghai needed to wake up early in the morning to get fruits and vegetables from online stores before the items were quickly snapped up by other citizens.

(Photo courtesy:123rf)

Related articles
Luxury brands send fresh food to Shanghai customers amid lockdown, draws ire from netizens
Chinese authorities ask delivery platforms to lower service fees
Chinese food delivery group Meituan fined ¥3.4 billion for monopolistic behaviour