Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao Network has committed RMB300m (US$47m) in subsidies to incentivize 150,000 logistics employees and courier personnel in 300 Chinese cities ahead of the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.
More than 50,000 Cainiao Post stations across 198 Chinese cities will remain open, ensuring that Chinese consumers will be able to receive their deliveries from Taobao and. During the week of the Spring Festival celebration (January 30-February 5), e-commerce orders made before 3pm will be delivered by Cainiao Post to consumers’ doorsteps before 9pm on the same day.
In anticipation of a surge in consumer demand, Cainiao’s warehouses have pre-stocked over 200 million festive-related goods, with export warehouses seeing a five-fold increase in pre-stock volume compared with last year. The pre-stocked goods include food, beauty products, furniture, household items and electronic appliances to support cross-border deliveries for over 10,000 Chinese merchants.
In 2021, Chinese consumers alone spent approximately US$127bn on shopping and dining, which represented a 28.7% increase from 2020. Other countries also saw growth in retail consumption during the Spring Festival last year. For example, Singapore recorded a 5.2% year-on-year increase in retail sales and Malaysia saw an increase in online shopping figures last year. These figures are expected to increase this year as a result of the pandemic.