Daily deliveries tipped to hit 490m following Singles Day

China's courier sector is expected to deliver over 490 million packages a day following next month's Singles Day online shopping promotion, the State Post Bureau said on Wednesday.

The country's logistics firms are rolling up their sleeves to cope with a doubling of deliveries in the days after the Nov 11 event, said Bian Zuodong, deputy director of the bureau's market regulation department, with the peak period expected to last until Nov 16.

He said major courier companies have hired 490,000 temporary staff in advance, and arranged to use 100,000 extra vehicles and another 5.39 million square meters of warehouse space to ensure deliveries flow smoothly.

Courier companies are being encouraged to adopt digital waybills and avoid excessive packaging and single-use woven plastic bags in an effort to reduce waste and promote green packaging, Bian added.

The Singles Day shopping promotion was launched by Alibaba's Tmall e-commerce platform on Nov 11, 2009, and has since become one of the world's largest online shopping sprees.