(Photo/Xinhua)

The rising cost of online food delivery has sparked complaints among Chinese customers, especially young adults who are under financial pressures such as paying for a mortgage and child care, Workers’ Daily reported on March 29.

A large number of customers have found that they’re paying more when using O2O applications for food delivery. With fewer discounts and higher delivery fees, it’s becoming more costly to order food online.

Young working adults make up the majority of China’s online food buyers.

Different from the older generation, Chinese adults today are largely excluded from the cheap but fine food offered by company-sponsored canteens, and seldom have time to cook for themselves owing to the common practice of working overtime.

Instead, more people choose to order food online and get the food delivered to their door, thus leading to a flourishing food delivery industry, a version of the sharing economy.

From 2015 to 2018, the revenue from the online food delivery sector saw a remarkably average annual growth of 117.5 percent, which was 12.1 times the growth rate in the traditional catering sector, according to a report released by the State Information Center.

In 2018, revenue totaled 471.2 billion yuan ($73.7 billion), the report said.