Another kind of start-up has staff to do your wet market shopping for you
Hong Kong pair Jessica Lam, a Columbia graduate and start-up veteran, and Hinz Pak set up company that helps people too busy or too far from markets to buy their famously fresh and cheap produce themselves
For those who dread visiting Hong Kong’s crowded and clammy wet markets but still want to buy cheap and fresh produce, new start-up Jou Sun is the answer. The outfit handles the shopping for its customers through website jousun.com.
Convenience culture: start-ups serve as middlemen for busy Hongkongers
Launched in May 2015 by Columbia University business graduate Jessica Lam Sai-man and her partner Hinz Pak Yu-hin, Jou Sun (which means good morning in Cantonese) matches grocery customers with owners of stalls selling fresh pork and vegetables, and with grocery wholesalers.
With four full-time staff including the two co-founders, Jou Sun employs more than 20 part-time workers including housewives, retirees, motorcyclists and van drivers.
Lam, whose last start-up was butlur.com, which helps people buy gifts for their loved ones, says their customers include both housewives and busy full-time workers.
“Markets are usually closed after workers get off work. Mothers are worried that their domestic helpers don’t know how to distinguish between Chinese pork and local pork, which is free of chemicals. Some are customers living on The Peak for whom the wet market is too far away.”
When a customer places an order, staff will divide the shopping list up and send part-time workers – housewives and retirees, who work for HK$50 per hour – to different market stalls to fulfil the order.
