Wuhan restarts: Public transportation, fast food record jump in payments

Life in Wuhan is getting back on track after the city lifted its months-long lockdown due to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The recovery is most obvious in such sectors as public transportation, beauty service and restaurants, technology portal TechWeb reported on Wednesday.

The offline transactions via WeChat Pay rose 162 percent during March 25 to April 3 compared with the period from February 25 to March 5.

The payments on public transportation, including bus and subway, surged 1,502 percent, and the consumption on fast food jumped 349 percent.

As the city recovers, the night-time economy is springing up again. Between 12 pm to 4 am on April 3, the consumption growth on snacks and fast food increased 198 percent and 105 percent, respectively, from same period on March 27.

At 8 am on April 3, the breakfast consumption data reached its peak during March 25 to April 3.

Cailinji, Wuhan's fast-food iconic chain restaurant, received 20,000 orders in past 10 days.

Moreover, some e-commerce platforms – Tmall, Taobao, JD, Suning and Pingduoduo – launched online sales promotion to help local merchants and famers sell products.

Alibaba bought crayfish valued at 1 billion yuan from Hubei province, and is selling it via its branches including Hema Fresh stores, Taobao and Tmall to customers.

From April to June, the company will hold 100 sales promotions to assist the local products.

Pinduoduo reported it has sold 2.65 million orders of agricultural and sideline products from Hubei with the total sales surpassing 150 million yuan during March 29 to April 2.

Cooperating with celebrities on livestreaming platforms opens a new path to traditional enterprises and farmers to access markets.

On April 6, a two-hour livestreaming session jointly hosted by CCTV news host Zhu Guangquan and celebrity Li Jiaqi on Taobao Live sold 16 products from Hubei provinces and attracted 15.45 million visitors and about 660,000 orders, generating a total turnover of about 23 million yuan.

In addition, another livestreaming session on Pinduoduo on March 15 attracted 1.25 million visitors and sold 30,000 kilograms oranges from Zigui, a county in Hubei province.