The conversation around China’s <a href="https://insidefashionlive.net/china-singles-day-sales-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Singles’ Day shopping festival</a> typically focuses on the staggering volumes of merchandise sold. However the logistics that now power Singles Day are as awesome as the consumer facing side of the event. Analysts increasingly claim that the figures can often be gamed to paint a rosy picture about the growth of both the e-commerce platforms and the economy in general. But even if they are off by a wide margin, the volume of merchandise sold during this mega shopping event is still mind blowing. But selling goods is one thing, getting them delivered to places are far flung as rural China and international destinations is another challenge altogether. Without a massive investment in logistics and technology by top e-commerce players like Alibaba and JD.com, Singles’ Day would never have been able to grow to the size it has reached now. Here’s a look behind the scenes at the logistics that powered Singles Day. <b>THE FRONT END</b> <b>$74.1 billion</b> in gross merchandise volume (GMV) during the November 2020 Singles’ Day event was sold on Alibaba’s platform. (<a href="https://www.alizila.com/alibabas-11-11-shows-retail-boom-in-china/">Alibaba</a>) <strong>$38.4 billion</strong> in transaction volume was reported by JD.com during Nov. 1-11 (<a href="https://jdcorporateblog.com/jd-reports-to-record-rmb-271-5-billion-singles-day-performance/">JD.com</a>) <b>BEHIND THE SCENES</b> <ul> <li>Alibaba technology and logistics supported <strong>800 million consumers</strong> and <strong>250,000 brands</strong> during the world's largest shopping festival.</li> <li>Between November 11-16, <strong>2.97 billion packages were delivered</strong> across China, up 28% year-on-year and double the normal daily volume (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/11/china-3-billion-parcels-post-covid-singles-day/">Tech Crunch</a>).</li> <li>Pre-sale allowed JD.com to allocate inventory closer to consumers in advance. It said that 93% of the shipment orders fulfilled by its own logistics system were completed in <strong>less than 24 hours</strong>.</li> </ul> <b>TITAS OF TECHNOLOGY</b> <ul> <li>Alibaba's real-time cloud computing platform, powered by Apache Flink, processed data streams totaling <strong>4 billion items per second</strong> during peak time, up from 2.5 billion in 2019. </li> <li>MaxCompute, Alibaba's proprietary data warehousing platform, handled <strong>up to 1.7 exabytes</strong> (an exabyte is equal to 1 billion gigabytes) of data a day during the 11-day festival from Nov. 1 to 11. No downtime was reported throughout this year's extended festival period.</li> <li>PolarDB, one of Alibaba’s cloud-native databases, set a new record with <strong>140 million queries per second</strong> during peak time, a 60% increase from 2019. </li> <li>AnalyticDB, a cloud-native data warehouse, processed up to <strong>7.7 trillion lines of real-time data</strong>.</li> <li>China Post handled <strong>more than 100 million orders</strong>, with about 100,000 China Post users checking their parcels' real-time status online.</li> <li>Alibaba offered a 3D modeling design platform for brands, <strong>reducing model creation time to 10 seconds</strong>, instead of typical 3 hours. </li> <li>Retailers leveraged the technology to create <strong>over 100,000 showrooms</strong> with virtual 3D products, used by 60 million consumers during the event.</li> </ul> <b>LOGISTICS ON STEROIDS </b> <ul> <li>JD.com’s subsidiary JD Logistics will acquire a controlling interest in Shenzhen-based courier services provider Kuayue Express, operates an integrated transport network with <strong>more than 17,000 delivery vehicles</strong> and 13 freight charter aircraft. (<a href="https://www.scmp.com/tech/e-commerce/article/3097405/jdcom-ramps-china-logistics-expansion-us432-million-deal-acquire">SCMP</a>)</li> <li>JD.com has a network of over <strong>800 warehouses</strong> with a total of approximately 20 million square meters, including warehouse space managed under the JD Logistics Open Warehouse Platform. (<a href="https://corporate.jd.com/ourBusiness">JD Logistics</a>)</li> <li>Alibaba has nearly <strong>20,000 self-serve package pick-up machines</strong> across 150 cities nationwide.</li> <li>JD.com uses innovative drone technology to speed deliveries to consumers in some of China’s remote areas. (<a href="https://jdcorporateblog.com/jd-coms-drone-delivery-program-takes-flight-in-rural-china/">JD.com</a>)</li> <li>Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, processed an estimated <strong>2 billion orders</strong> this year.</li> <li>Cainiao <strong>chartered 3,000 flights</strong> <strong>and long-haul cargo ships</strong> to bring goods into China for Singles’ Day as the event this year featured nearly double the number of foreign brands as last year.</li> <li>Cainiao operated more than <strong>700 chartered flights</strong> to deliver parcels outside China. </li> <li>Cainiao also employed nearly <strong>3 million workers</strong> to power its massive Singles Day operations.</li> </ul>