Recently, a unique phenomenon of “student courier service” has emerged on the streets of Shenzhen, attracting widespread social attention. On August 1st, reporters from Red Star News visited the Huaqiangbei area in Futian District of Shenzhen, revealing the prevalence of this service during peak delivery periods, and the calculations behind it involving students, parents, and delivery workers.
In commercial areas like SEG Plaza and Baohua Building in Huaqiangbei, whenever delivery workers on bikes arrive, a group of children wearing QR code signs around their necks rush forward, shouting loudly, “Need a courier service? Choose me, choose me!” They have become a unique sight in the bustling delivery network.
Most of these children are elementary school students, with the youngest being only 8 years old, generally studying in grades four to six, with some junior high school students also participating. They wear QR code signs responsible for collecting payments on their chests, their main task being to help delivery workers deliver food or drinks to customers, saving time for the delivery staff in using elevators or locating customers. For each completed delivery, the children receive a courier fee of 2 yuan from the delivery worker.
However, the competition is extremely fierce, and not every child can directly get a delivery order. Some children who are unable to directly receive orders will receive tasks transferred from “professional couriers,” but this means earning only 1 yuan per order, with half of the courier fee being taken by intermediaries as “brokerage fees.”
Parents: Allowing children to “exercise” and understand the value of earning money
For parents, involving their children in courier services is a way to train them and make them understand that earning money is not easy.
Mr. Guo from Xingning, Guangdong, brought his two children and two nephews who came from their hometown to Shenzhen for the summer to participate in the delivery service together. He said, “I see them just playing on their phones at home, so I decided to bring them out to do courier services.” He mentioned that the children come out at 11 a.m. every day and return by 4 p.m., delivering 50 to 60 orders a day, earning about a hundred yuan. Although the unit price is not high, seeing his nephews earning over 20 yuan in a day makes him “very happy.” To motivate the children, Mr. Guo allows them to compete freely, even if he gets an order, he shares the earnings with the children without taking a cent.
Another teacher, Ms. Chen, brought her 10-year-old daughter Xiao Chen to experience the service. At 1:30 p.m., Xiao Chen successfully delivered 8 orders, earning 16 yuan. Excitedly, she said that this money, along with her previous pocket money, can help her “buy a better Rubik’s Cube.”
Many children participating in the courier service live nearby, with their parents doing business in the Huaqiangbei area. They are familiar with the surroundings, and with parents working or accompanying them nearby, parents feel relatively at ease.
A junior high school student from Suixi County, Guangdong, stated that he came to Shenzhen to visit his cousin and also engage in courier service as a form of training. “At first, I couldn’t speak, my voice was so low that I couldn’t even hear myself, now I can actively promote courier services loudly.”
Delivery workers: Sharing earnings is also beneficial, children are more efficient and “preferred”
For busy delivery workers, the student courier service is obviously cost-effective. They earn about 4 to 5 yuan per delivery, but during peak times, waiting for elevators can consume half an hour, leading to overtime charges. “If it exceeds by 10 minutes, half of the delivery fee is deducted, if it’s 15 to 20 minutes, the delivery fee is gone.”
Handing over parcels to couriers not only saves valuable time but also avoids overtime fines. Delivery workers state that once a student courier takes over, they can mark it as delivered, even if they give 2 to 3 yuan as the courier fee, it is still profitable and can attract more orders.
Surprisingly, delivery workers highly prefer the service of children. They even willingly increase the delivery fee to 3 yuan per order for some electronic market orders with complex internal structures that are hard to find. Delivery workers generally believe that “compared to professional couriers, children usually deliver the goods promptly once they receive an order, whereas professional couriers usually get many orders before delivering. Food delivery isn’t as timely when done by professional couriers. Professional couriers take a lot of things at once, things are easily lost, and the soup in the food is also easily spilled.”