Voices from the Two Sessions | How to make finding a household service as convenient as ordering a car? Member: build a large market platform to connect precisely and efficiently
Is it difficult to find and retain a good auntie for domestic service? How to make domestic services more convenient and efficient?
On January 16th, a specialized meeting of the 14th third session of the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference was held. In the session focused on “Strengthening Universal, Basic, and Basic People’s livelihood construction to enhance people’s sense of gain and happiness”, Shanghai Political Consultative Conference member, Party Secretary of the Pudong New Area Women’s Federation, and President Pan Xiuhong proposed to establish a large domestic service market platform to enable precise matching between domestic services and user needs. She also suggested that finding domestic services should be as convenient, rapid, and reliable as ordering a taxi.
Pan Xiuhong, who also serves as the secretary of the Women’s Federation in Pudong New Area and President of Shanghai’s home service industry association, elaborated on the need for such a platform at the meeting. According to her, there is a rigid demand for domestic services. The national market size of the home service industry exceeds one trillion yuan, and diversified employment requirements are a reality. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a large home service market platform similar to “taxi-hailing” services to efficiently match home service resources with user needs.
Pan Xiuhong noted that although some leading home service enterprises have their own platforms, these platforms are relatively scattered and their services are not perfect. Government supervision of the home service market is difficult to implement, and user trust in the industry needs to be improved. Moreover, many small and medium-sized home service enterprises still operate in traditional intermediary modes due to limited resources, resulting in poor service efficiency, difficulties in transformation and development, and weak market viability. Although platforms such as Shanghai’s Comprehensive Domestic Service Management Platform have been launched for trial operation, and there is also a platform from the Ministry of Commerce, these platforms only aggregate basic management information but have not yet accumulated data on user ordering, evaluation, service personnel rating, nor empowered the management of home service enterprises. Therefore, their social awareness is relatively low.
According to data from Shanghai Home Service Industry Association as of October 8th, 2024, a total of 204,460 domestic service personnel in Shanghai have been registered on the Shanghai Comprehensive Domestic Service Management Platform, with a cumulative 185,908 certified personnel.
In Pan Xiuhong’s view, there is a large demand for domestic services, especially among young consumers who prefer to seek such services through online platforms. Therefore, she suggests that Shanghai should list domestic services as a liveable necessity, be governed by the government with relevant industry departments taking the lead. Leveraging big data to integrate information and collaborate with leading home service enterprises to overcome data barriers and create a leading home service industry platform in Shanghai and even nationwide. This platform can provide a package of services including training, certification, employment, subsidies for domestic personnel, promote the development of home service enterprises, provide users with functions such as service inquiry and personnel matching, service tracking and evaluation feedback, and service complaints. This will not only ensure consumer confidence and convenience but also help stimulate market vitality for the government, accumulate data assets, and strengthen industry supervision.