More than 80 per cent of parcels shipped in China last year were eCommerce purchases, and 87 per cent were at no cost to consumers.
On average, parcels throughout China were delivered in 2.6 days – 14 per cent faster than a year ago, according to a report from eCommerce giant Alibaba and Chinese research firm CBN Data.
In densely populated areas, the average delivery time is less than two days, according to the China Smart Logistics Report jointly released by Alibaba’s logistic affiliate Zhejiang Cainiao Supply Chain Management  and CBN data. Shanghai consumers receive their online orders in only 1.7 days, says the report.
With 20.6 billion parcels delivered in China last year, the volume of eCommerce parcels grew 40 per cent, says Cainiao chief technology officer Wang Wen.
The report finds that 89.4 per cent of parcels delivered to China’s central region are shipped free, as consumers in that area often exceed the threshold to avoid shipping costs.    
Cross-border shipping times also improved. The waiting time for packages from overseas fell by a third last year.
A quarter of parcels in China were delivered to villages, with a 50 per cent increase in parcels for under-developed areas.
Meanwhile, Cainiao, which helps logistics companies process 70 per cent of parcels shipped in China, says it has started to use robots in some warehouses to sort products.
The company has also announced that users of Alibaba’s Taobao.com, China’s largest online shopping portal, can cancel orders when the products are in transit. In some test cases, shoppers doing this received refunds in 19 instead of 73 hours.
There are now 2.03 million Chinese workers in the eCommerce logistics sector, up 340 per cent from five years ago. Sixty per cent of them are delivery workers.
In China, the shipping cost for a typical domestic parcel that arrives in 2.6 days is about 15 yuan (US$2.30).