McDonald’s sells a delivery box in China because food delivery is so popular.

On September 14, 2020, McDonald’s (China) launched its McDelivery Day promotion campaign. During the event, in addition to cutting food prices, McDonald’s also launched a McDelivery Box on its official tmall e-commerce website. 

According to reports, the McDelivery Box sells for 1917 Yuan ($247.35), with a custom nameplate and personalized sticker. 

This McDelivery Box is the second generation Delivery Box, in service of McDonald’s (China). It has been developed by professionals for several years. The box is made of EPP material and equipped with an independent air circulation system to ensure constant temperature and humidity in the box. The box is divided into upper and lower layers to separate the dinner from the drink or ice cream.

This is the first time that McDonald’s has sold its boxes for food delivery to the public, which had previously been distributed only as work appliances to McDelivery staff. Although these boxes can be used as real delivery boxes, McDonald’s (China) actually sells them as collectibles.

Different from European and American markets, food delivery has become one of the main ways for Chinese urban residents to eat.

According to research data from iResearch Consulting, the transaction volume of China’s food express delivery in 2019 is about 653.6 billion yuan ($84.335 billion). After the outbreak of the epidemic, the scale of food delivery further expanded. According to Meituan, a Chinese food delivery platform, food delivery transactions will account for 20% of the entire catering industry in 2020.

The super popularity of food delivery, coupled with the marketing behavior of the food delivery platform, makes it a cultural symbol. Earlier, Meituan and ele.me, China’s two major food delivery platforms, installed yellow rabbit ears and blue bamboo dragonflies on couriers’ helmets to attract consumers’ attention.

These strategies are clearly successful, with Chinese netizens sharing a large number of meme pictures on social networking sites, caused by strange accessories. And there is even a challenge to the collection of these accessories. 

Affected by the outbreak of the food delivery market, McDelivery also has a wider audience in China than overseas. And for those loyal fans, McDelivery Box will be the perfect collection.