Couriers on the go as e-com grows in China

BEIJING - Zhang Shuai has only taken one day off in the past two months. Every day he has been running around a residential quarter in eastern Beijing to make sure packages from around the country are delivered intact and on time.

Zhang, 23, is one of the country's hundreds of thousands of delivery men who just helped set a record in the booming e-commerce industry. According to figures from the State Post Bureau, some 540 million parcels and boxes were delivered in six days from Nov 11 to 16 for Singles' Day, China's biggest online shopping holiday.

No matter where a package comes from, most are delivered by people like Zhang in the last mile before they reach their destinations. Zhang rides an electric tricycle fully loaded with parcels from a distribution center to the block where he works, hustling from one floor to another to deliver them.

Delivery companies need men like Zhang, especially at the end of the year, when online shoppers place online orders for the holiday season.

Young, diligent and ambitious to trade their labor for more income, they don't care about the freezing Beijing winter and demanding customers. Zhang does not have special windproof clothes to protect him as he rides, just a woolen hat and warm trousers.

As a newcomer to the business, he did not know that delivery workers are susceptible to stomach diseases and arthritis. "I know health is the foundation for making money, but sometimes I just don't have the time to attend to myself."

Apart from the Spring Festival and Christmas, e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com have also made Nov 11 (Singles' Day) and Dec 12 into online shopping extravaganzas. Alibaba smashed its online sales record this year, reaching 57.1 billion yuan ($9.33 billion) in Singles' Day sales on Taobao.

For days after the Singles' Day shopping craze, Zhang only ate instant noodles because he was so busy.

It is easy to find job postings for delivery companies claiming workers can earn as much as 10,000 yuan per month, much higher than what an assembly line worker can earn.

Zhang earns less, with a monthly salary of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, because the block where he works is sparsely populated and the order flow is not very high.

"I don't doubt that the job is very promising, because even old ladies in this quarter know about online shopping. What would they do without us?"

Zhang delivers an average of 100-plus packages daily, which isn't too demanding. Yet he still has to be careful.