PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Reading Terminal Market is considered an essential business during the coronavirus pandemic, and as such, it is open for in-person shopping at fresh food merchants, as well as delivery services.
But ever since the virus forced business closures and stay-at-home orders across the state, online orders have skyrocketed about 80 times more than usual.
Anuj Gupta, general manager of Reading Terminal, said the volume of online orders began to increase significantly on March 7, which was the last Saturday of the Philadelphia Flower Show.
“That was kind of the early onset of the crisis in the Philadelphia region,” he recalled.
The market launched its e-commerce and delivery service, Mercato, about a year-and-a-half ago. Up until that point, the market would receive about 50 online grocery orders a day. Now, more people than ever before are suddenly placing online orders.
“By the time we got to February 2020, we were doing on average maybe 50 orders a day, but with the COVID-19 crisis,” said Gupta, “we have surpassed 4,000 orders (in one day), and that has all happened within a span of three weeks.
“At the time, I was still getting email notifications every time a Mercato order came in, and my phone was blowing up.”
To keep up with the demand, Gupta said they’ve had to rethink how they do business.
“The main seating area, what we refer to as Center Court, half of that has now become the fulfillment center,” he said, which is now filled with shelves and tables to organize orders.
“We very quickly realized we had nowhere near the capacity that we would need, and so within a matter of days, we started hiring people part time,” he added.
Although online orders are not making up for lost revenue, the online portion of the business is still growing.
“Once the crisis ebbs, I think the volume of online orders will fall from where we are today, but it will be substantially more than what our norm was before the crisis started,” Gupta said.
The market is open daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is offering free delivery for orders within a 16-mile radius.
Parking is free if shoppers opt for curbside pickup.