Luxury brands send fresh food to Shanghai customers amid lockdown, draws ire from netizens

As Shanghai is experiencing lockdown due to the pandemic, some luxury brands in the city have sent fresh food to customers, including vegetables, fruits and eggs.

According to images circulating on Weibo, some customers of Gucci in Shanghai had received a wide variety of fresh food amid lockdown, including vegetables, eggs, beef steaks, mushrooms, and strawberries. A user of Weibo commented on one of the posts that showcased the fresh food, "What (the brand has) sent are practical and abundant."

The creator of the post replied, " Super abundant. I have never imagined that I can enjoy meat, strawberries and eggs."

In addition to Gucci, HK01 reported that Cartier offered bamboo shoots with nice packaging to its customers, while LV provided dim sum boxes to some of its customers with a card containing messages from the brand.

Although some customers of luxury brands did receive food supply, many citizens in the city were angry about the shortages of fresh food. It's reported that Weibo had banned the hashtag "上海買菜" last week, leading to some netizens deriding the platform that it successfully address the problem of fresh vegetable shortages.

Also, some netizens criticised that the fresh food offered by the luxury brands signified the disparity between rich and poor. However, some of them said it was a common practice to offer gifts to delight customers, but this time they offered something unconventional.

The Standard said many residents in Shanghai needed to wake up early in the morning to get fruits and vegetables from online stores before the items were quickly snapped up by other citizens.

Fashion brands in China have been using many ways to please customers. Italian fashion brand Prada has turned a wet market in Shanghai into a photogenic spot, attracting many influencers to drop by and take photos and live-stream the partnership, which naturally led to the market going viral. The campaign took place at Wuzhong market in downtown Xuhui district, Shanghai. During the recent National Day holidays in early October, the wet market offered everything on sale wrapped with Prada-branded paper and customers could get a paper handbag for free if they bought more than ¥20 (US$3.10) worth of items.

According to a report from Global Times, the market was fraught with people - many of whom were dressed in high fashion. These shoppers picked up grapes, pineapples, ginger and even eggs with Prada package branding for photos. One resident said this led to a huge footfall to the market and added that the campaign had successfully turned the market into an art gallery with fresh produce being wrapped in beautiful wrappings. However, not everyone was happy about the event. Some vendors said they hoped the event could come to an end "sooner rather than later" as the sales hadn't grown much. Others added that people who came to the market loved to toss the produce and many left empty-handed.

(Photo courtesy: Weibo)

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