As the coronavirus continues to spread in Hong Kong, online shopping has further gained popularity among citizens. The Consumer Council says Tuesday (Dec. 15) that complaints about online grocery shopping have skyrocketed over the past year.
The Council evaluates the services of five online supermarkets after shopping with them, namely Wellcome, ParknShop, city'super, HKTVmall, and Big Big Shop. The report identifies a series of problems throughout the experience of online shopping with these supermarkets.
The apps of the online stores are poorly designed and rather user-hostile, the watchdog says. In the worst case, it took almost a whole day to complete the entire ordering process. Besides, the temperature of most frozen or perishable foods was higher than desired when they arrived, while in some cases the foods had already rotten, which posed risks to food safety.
The Council points out that the delivery service of "Big Big Shop", run by Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), was the worst. Among five orders placed at the grocer, one was not delivered until 26 days after its placement, while multiple goods were left out in other cases.
The watchdog also finds that most of the fresh and frozen food items from "city'super" arrived at a temperature above eight degrees Celsius, despite its relatively fast delivery.
The Council urges online supermarkets to strictly comply with Food and Environment Hygiene Department (FEHD)'s guidelines and to ensure that relevant frozen or perishable foods are kept at or below four degrees Celsius when being transported. The Council also calls on consumers to carefully check the products once they arrive and report any problems to the online stores as soon as possible.
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