Express delivery at people's serviceBEIJING, Dec. 25 -- China, according to reports, may become the largest express deliveryservice country in 2014. But the fast growing express delivery sector still has manyloopholes, as was evident last month when packages soaked in a deadly chemical killed onerecipient in Shandong and left seven critically ill.
The growth of China's express delivery industry has been amazing. In the first 11 monthsof this year, the industry had delivered 8.12 billion packages, second only to the UnitedStates. The industry has grown at such a fast pace because of the astonishing developmentof e-commerce coupled with China's gift-giving tradition. The volume of e-commerce hasgrown from 10 billion yuan ($1.65 billion) in 2000 to about 10 trillion yuan in 2013, a1,000 times increase.
According to data from Taobao and Tmall, on Nov 11 alone, more than 70 million packageswere wrapped for delivery. Alibaba Group's figure show that the about 7 million shops onTmall and Taobao need to send 5 million new packages every day. E-commerce indeed hasbeen the greatest driving force for the express delivery industry.
China's traditional gift-giving culture, too, has played a big role in the industry's stunninggrowth. Since gifts, especially during festivals, carry great cultural value in China, people incities quite naturally choose express delivery agencies to send them to their loved ones.The changes in people's living and working styles, too, have helped the express deliverybusiness to boom.
The industry today is more competitive than ever, with courier agencies opening morebranches in more cities across the country to fight for a bigger market share. Behind thisbooming market, however, lie potential risks.
The lure of winning a larger market share - and conversely the fear of losing customers -has prevented the delivery agencies from raising their charges. The result: expressdelivery charges have not risen for years, a rare market phenomenon considering thatinflation and higher labor costs have pushed up prices of almost all products. That meansthe industry, owing to increased operational and labor costs, is facing a very tight cash flow.
To overcome the above constraints, some delivery agencies have chosen to invest morefunds into their business while others have introduced franchise operations or raised theirbusiness commission.
The problem is that, once the national delivery demand slows down, such large-scaleexpansion could cause a break in the capital chain and create crisis in the industry.
【1】 【2】（Editor：ZhangQian、Huang Jin） Related reading
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