E-commerce and the booming courier industry

Online shopping is incredibly convenient in China – it is always the case when you click the mouse, the product travels 500 miles overnight and arrives at your home the next day you placed the order. What’s more, the delivery fee is almost nothing. However, what is backing up the mouse-clicking efficiencies of speedy capitalism is numerous hardworking delivery men who are always on the run. When Hulme puts forward the notion of ‘invisible workers’ and ‘unfollowable commodity’, the first thing comes to mind is those busy couriers (usually migrant workers from rural areas), given that the fast and cheap delivery has for a long time been taken for granted. Some critics even claimed that the whole booming e-commerce market in China is built on the exploitation of couriers.

See news report on busy couriers in China:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30572809

Thanks to the media drawing attention to their heavy workload, delivery companies have been constantly under pressure to raise their salaries and keep improving the welfare program since then. In this sense, this case provides an excellent example for the value of examining the unfollowable things.

Contributed by YuranYan on 05/02/2018

Comments are closed.