Singles Day Online Shopping Sales Overload Delivery Services
by Peter Barefoot on Thursday, November 15, 2012
Mountains of Parcels at Express Delivery Companies after “Double Eleven” Holiday
November 12, many domestic electrical appliance stores held a 24-hour madness sale on “Double Eleven [Singles Day]” and as a result, express delivery companies too were overloaded. At an STO Express Delivery salesroom in Guangzhou’s Liwan District, the parcels were piled up like a hill, the warehouse unable to accommodate them all. The express delivery company claimed they had already begun deliveries since 4 in the morning, and these parcels alone were what’s still left that hasn’t yet been dispatched.
According to statistics, during the sales promotion of electrical appliance stores on “Double Eleven”, just Taobao alone set a record 19.1 billion yuan single day sales “miracle”. What more, this figure is more than twice as much as the 7.16 billion yuanin sales achieved by 130 major commercial enterprises in Beijing over 8 days during the “October First [National Day]” Golden Week holiday this year. Because the orders are largely concentrated, they far exceeded the processing abilities of online shops and the delivery capabilities of express delivery companies. For many urgent merchandise, some online shops will need as much as around a month before they can send them out.
November 12, Guangzhou, in the warehouse of an express delivery company, merchandise have already been piled out the door, with workers continuously carrying more goods into the warehouse for scanning.
November 12, At the parcel sorting center of STO Express in Ningxia, workers are sorting a mountain of parcels. November 11 has been jokingly called “Singles Day” by many people, and during this just passed “Double Eleven”, many electrical appliance stores seized this business opportunity to launch an online shopping promotion and discount sales season. After the peak of online shopping, all kinds of goods began being sent out, with express delivery companies also facing a peak period for parcel deliveries. According to a person in charge of a parcel sorting center at an express delivery company in Nanchang, the number of incoming parcels on November 12 reached 50,000 items, 25% higher than normal, predicting that the highest peak in parcel deliveries will be around the 13th.
November 12, at a parcel sorting center in an express delivery company in Nanchang, workers were handling the parcels.
November 12, workers of an express delivery company in Hefei were sorting the parcels.
This sort of “holiday sale” is similar to America’s Black Friday, or perhaps Cyber Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
