Delivery companies braced for Singles' Day sales onslaught

Many express delivery companies at Sunan Express Industrial Park introduce automatic sorting to increase efficiency after Singles' Day sales on Nov 11. Distribution staff members need only to arrange packages face up and place them on the conveyer belt, before the process becomes entirely automated. [Photo/wxrb.com]

With the Singles' Day sales carnival around the corner, express package delivery companies in Wuxi have hired extra staff, ordered more equipment and employed the latest technology to ensure customers get their bargains shortly after the Nov 11 sales extravaganza.

The creation of Chinese e-commerce giant Taobao in 2009, "Double 11" as it is also known, is similar to "Black Friday" in western countries. It is the world's largest online shopping day, last year generating a massive $17.8 billion in sales in just one day, which is more than the online sales made in Brazil for an entire year.

Each year the burden grows on the entire express delivery industry to keep up with orders, requiring mass preparation, more staff, more transportation routes and more efficient workflows.

Sunan Express Industrial park is located at Wuxi Airport Economic development zone in Wuxi New district, is the largest express industrial park in the southern Jiangsu province covering Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou and Zhenjiang.

A total of 14 express delivery companies are located on the industry park, including EMS, SF Express and ZTO Express. Over four million goods are processed at the industry park every day.

To speed up the delivery of packages, many express companies have introduced automatic sorting, which can increase sorting speeds and improve sorting quality greatly at such a busy time.

For SF Express, packages weighing less than three kilograms will be arranged face up on conveyor belts by staff so that barcodes are visible for scanning and auto-sorting.

From start to finish, the whole assembly line is able to accurately process a package for delivery in about a minute.

Ni Qikun, manager of SF Express, says his team is fully prepared for the mass influx of packages. "Express buses and staff are teaming up to better handle this 'Double 11'," Ni said.

Other express delivery companies have also added extra workers and networks nationwide, with packages being separated by distance and weight to increase efficiency.

Fang Xuebin, manager of ZTO Express, says the company's extra resources brought in should be able to cope. "We have added 15 trucks for Guangdong province, Zhejiang province and Beijing, reducing transport times by half," Fang said.

SF Express and JD.com will also make sure customers' personal information is kept confidential on the express lists to deal with any online information security issues.