Ordering Sushi via Post (ie buying sushi on taobao)

You may remember that a couple of months ago now, I made a post showcasing all the weird shit you could find on Taobao, the Chinese online shopping app that compiles lots of sellers - sort of like a combination of Dote (minus the racism) and Depop. One of these items was convenience store sushi;

it was not sold by FamilyMart themselves, but a private seller who - I presumed - would, when he received an order, run out to his nearest FamilyMart, buy the sushi, then post it from his location of Suzhou to wherever in China it was ordered. In my case, Shanghai, at least a day away in terms of postal services - and Suzhou and Shanghai are pretty close, so who knows how long it would take if you ordered from, say, Inner Mongolia. Anyway, yes, I decided I had to order it, just to see what the fuck would happen.

So that's what I did.

A really inane thing to do, I know, but in my defence, the sushi was AUD$3 and the delivery cost was the same, so it wasn't too big a loss. AND it had one positive review!:

I didn't hear anything for a week, which is very unusual for the quick service on Taobao. I assumed, then, that this whole sushi operation was just something that someone had posted years ago as some sort of quick-money scheme, like kids who discover depop and start selling everything in their house. They'd probably gotten bored of it very fast, and forgotten that they'd never taken the listing down. So, when I hadn't heard anything for 7 days, I resigned myself to the fact that my sushi was not to be. Alas!

So, imagine my delight when, on the morning of the eight day, I awoke to a message from Taobao saying my purchase had been sent out, as well as a personal text message from the seller himself!

Translation: are you there? I'm the taobao seller, last time you ordered sushi from us, I've sent it today, look out for the delivery tomorrow, the shelf life is short.

Being the socially-anxious prat I am, I didn't answer. It was on its way, anyway. He'd also called me a couple times. I suppose I didn't communicate because I was scared he'd judge me for doing something as weird as buying sushi on taobao, but then again, he's the one selling it, so...

The next day, as you can see above, the sushi was due to arrive, and he anxiously texted and called me more. And then, at around 10am, I got the much-anticipated message from CaiNiao, the postal parcel locker system on campus:

I was out at this time, but I picked it up on my way back to my dorm around 4pm.

My first impression was that it was a hefty box for two rolls of sushi. Actually, I did an unboxing video, so I'll let that speak for itself:

I hope you enjoyed that review. As promised, I did go to a FamilyMart and smell their fresh sushi, and it smelt pretty much the same. 

The packaging had a very specific use by date:

If you can't see it, it says the 10th of May at 3pm. It was, in fact, the 10th of may at 4pm, which means I got it juuust outside of its use-by date, but that's my fault for picking it up late. If I had picked it up right when it arrived, as the seller had implored me to, it would have been fresh and ready to eat! If you dare.

At this point, the who, what, where, and when had all been resolved. Only one question remained: why? To this end, I decided to swallow my awkwardness and just straight up ask him.

Me: Received, many thanks! May I ask, why do you sell sushi on taobao?
Him: Dear, we are resellers/purchasing agents, earning a little bit of "running errands" commission money.

This didn't quite satiate the curiosity I had, so I looked more closely at the seller's page. His shop is... full of contradictions. Its official name on Taobao is "苏州美食探店", ie "Suzhou food exploration shop", but the pictures on its home page are all baked goods, which would indicate to me that it's a bakery. The picture of its physical store also has a completely different name.

 This is its description, in English no less:

"Welcome to the candy house cake mania. I am the owner small sweet, baked cake, my friends and I in his own store store address is the lane single yuan 111. We ferrandi in Paris after learning the west to make, just returned home to open a own cake mania, the wish came true at last. Store is very warm, welcome to patronize stores!".

Quite endearing, if slightly incomprehensible. But when you look at the products it lists, very few of them are actual baked goods - most are random food from other shops like our dear sushi, but also some items even more inconceivable to receive via post, like chicken feet.

So what's going on here? The story I've constructed in my head is this: This man really did study baking in Paris. He came back home to Suzhou, excited to bring the delicacy of western baked goods to China, but for some reason, his enterprise met with little success. To keep up with rent costs, and to actually earn some sort of profit, he began to sell other shop's items in the online part of his store, like sushi and chicken feet. 

I searched Dianping (China's ubiquitous version of tripadvisor) for both "苏州美食探店" and 花园饼屋/Garden Bakery, but neither yielded results.

I still have so many questions, but I think this is as far as my inquiry can go, unfortunately, unless I go to Suzhou at some point. In any case, I think I've proven that I have way too much time on my hands.

Overall Review

This went much better than I expected, really. Health and safety procedures were put in place, and the seller seemed very invested in me receiving my product within its consumable window. Is it more convenient than going to one of the literally three family marts within 500m of my dorm? No. In fact, I think the CaiNiao lockers where I'd have to pick up the delivery is further away. Would I make this purchase again? No. If I anticipate that I will crave sushi in exactly a week's time, however, - I still wouldn't make this purchase again because I hate seafood so I never crave sushi. 

Still, he seems sweet enough. In fact, I think he's just ahead of his time. His service seems to mirror that of Postmates app in LA, where you can pay someone to buy whatever you need from whatever shop and deliver it to your house. All he needs to do is develop the right software, instead of using the existing Taobao app. Maybe one day, we'll see this anonymous man from Suzhou become the next Jack Ma. Godspeed, mister.