Couriers sort through piles of packages on Saturday. Photo: IC

 

A delivery truck caught on fire, burning packages worth 1 million yuan ($156,000) on Thursday. Photo: CFP

 

Couriers arrange packages on a truck. Photo:IC

 

A courier rides on a motorcycle with dozens of packages. This is an ordinary sight in the streets of China. Photo:IC

A student finds her package at a collection center at Communication University of China in Beijing on Friday. Photo: CFP

It's a normal scene in almost every office building in China. The busiest people are not company men, but courier men. Waves of delivery men flow in and out of every office. They often know the buildings better than the staff themselves.

The four days following China's Singles' Day online shopping spree are the busiest and happiest Peng Ningbo has had in his job. He woke up at 5  o'clock to start his day on November 11, also known as Double Eleven Day or Singles' Day. In the morning, he dropped off over 100 parcels. In the afternoon, he delivered another 100. When he got home, he was exhausted. He checked his phone and saw that he had walked over 35 kilometers to deliver those parcels.

In the processing center of his company, there are 100 staff members selecting and scanning packages. Automatic parcel selection and transmission machines then sort the parcels into different bags.

Between the parcel processing center and their final destination, Peng couriers people's purchases on his electronic bicycle.

"Once we see the order, we pick the product up, process it and deliver it. Every minute is crucial in this business. Singles' Day is all about competing for speed. Speed is competitiveness." Peng said.

"Now, I just want to lie down and sleep," Peng said.

According to China Post statistics, during Singles' Day, major e-commerce companies processed over 460 million orders, a 65 percent increase from the previous year. On Alibaba's T-mall, China's largest e-commerce platform, trade volume reached 91 billion yuan ($14 billion).

The Yuantong company in Shanghai, one of China's largest couriers, received more than three times as many orders as the previous year's Singles' Day.

Zhou Chuantao works at Yuantong. He said that he delivered 200 parcels during Singles' Day in Shanghai. His company dealt with 200,000 items.

On average, a courier makes around 7,000 yuan per month.

Global Times