Post couriers will deliver 1.5 billion packages to set a record high during the Chinese Double-Eleven shopping carnival, the China Post predicted.
According to preliminary estimates, in this year’s double 11 shopping frenzy from November 11th to 16th, the postal service will handle more than 1.5 billion mails and express packages, growing by 35% over the same period last year. The maximum daily processing volume could reach 340 million, which is 3 times higher from the daily processing volume.
The postal service will put into operation nearly 30 million square meters of operation sites with nearly 90,000 trunk transport vehicles and nearly 3 million staff.
In the meantime, Chinese delivery firms have recently announced price hikes. Some medium and small express companies as well as weak courier franchisees could face challenges in handling their deliveries during the high-volume retail event, an insider said.
Companies struggle to attract additional workers during this period -- even by offering high pay -- as a staff shortage exists in the industry. Some e-commerce sellers who have their own logistics facilities in China have made it clear that they will not increase their prices.
An officer at JD Logistics said that it will not change its rates and it will offer USD318 million in logistics subsidies to merchants and operate its unstaffed warehouses during the period, increasing sorting and transporting efficiency by a factor of 1.5 to 1.8.
The Double-Eleven e-commerce festival that falls on November 11 is also known as Singles’ Day. It started as a counter-Valentine’s Day male students at Nanjing University pioneered in the 1990s to protest and resist societal pressure to marry. They may have taken their inspiration from the four single digits in the date, which is the prevailing, if erroneous view as to the origin of the term. The celebration has since evolved into China’s Black Friday.
