Comparison of PCHome and MOMO Shopping Logistics for Home Epidemic Prevention Online Shopping

As the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19 for short) ravages the island of Taiwan and most areas within the Republic of China have now entered a Level 3 alert, people’s online shopping frequency has increased significantly, putting great strain on the logistics systems of various shopping platforms.

Even the veteran online retailer PCHome Shopping Center, originally highly praised for its 24h (24-hour delivery), has been delayed and congested to the point that people joke it should be renamed 240h or 24d (10-day, 24-day delivery).

In fact, although the nationwide logistics system is currently strained, it has not reached a state of collapse (except that last week Black Cat low-temperature home delivery announced it would suspend fresh food delivery for a few days).

The main problem is that PCHome, in order to provide fast and convenient transportation services in the past, established a large dedicated warehouse park in New Taipei City, unifying the shipping and logistics of warehouse goods. This is an advantage in normal times, achieving fast delivery efficiency, but during the outbreak, the warehouse workers, due to cooperating with epidemic prevention split-flow management measures, resulted in a shortage of manpower, and work efficiency dropped to only 30% of the past.

The current situation is that after placing an order, it stays in the backend for a while, but once picking and packing begins, the goods can be delivered to the consumer very quickly.

In contrast, many products on other online shopping platforms (such as MOMOSHOP, Rakuten, Yahoo Kimo Shopping Center, etc.) are still shipped by the merchants themselves, or, like MOMO Shopping, which has dedicated warehouse systems built in many counties and cities on the island of Taiwan, the shipping capacity is split, so it is naturally less affected by the surge in order volume. And although logistics drivers or Chunghwa Post postal drivers are currently under high pressure, they can still maintain normal logistics delivery services.

Also worth discussing is “Carrefour,” whose system is divided into two delivery modes: general shopping and same-day delivery. General shopping is contracted with a specific logistics company, and orders are currently scheduled to be delivered only half a month later, which is far too slow for buying fresh food and adds many variables. Although same-day delivery has set many rules (purchase time, order items limited to ten kinds), as long as you can successfully place an order, it can be delivered via FoodPanda through the nearby Carrefour, and consumers can receive the goods very quickly the same day (with an additional shipping fee of more than 40 yuan).

If you insist on buying only on the PCHome platform, then I suggest you “do not buy” products shipped within 24h, that is, the red button “Add to 24h Shopping Cart” shipped from the New Taipei main warehouse; instead, choose the yellow-green button “Add to Shopping Cart” of the general marketplace. Those shipped by the merchants themselves will actually arrive faster.

PCHome Shopping Cart buttons

Taking my personal experience as an example, after placing an order on PCHome, the product shows a waiting state in the backend with the credit card not yet charged and the invoice already issued. Then one day, when I was not even paying attention, the product mysteriously arrived.

In addition, products purchased on the MOMO Shopping and Rakuten platforms are not much different from the past, and can be received in about two to three days.