Buzz on the streets keeps the e-commerce business running
Growing numbers of motorised tricycle express delivery boys is a sign that logistics industry has to keep pace with e-commerce
Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the Alibaba Group, is the face of China’s exploding e-commerce industry. But beneath the glittering surface of rock-star initial public offerings on Wall Street is a group of young Chinese, mostly men, whose work is essential to the industry’s success.
They are the faceless foot soldiers in the battle for greater domestic consumption, delivering packages and collecting economic growth; they are China’s army of motorised tricycle express delivery boys. They buzz about the nation’s cities weaving in and out of traffic. Their growing numbers are a cause for reflection, a sign that e-commerce is the future.
It is not just Ma, but also President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, and half of Wall Street who are banking on Chinese e-commerce success. China needs to transform its economic structure, shifting from an economy built on exports and investment to one driven by domestic consumption. This shift has even been given an official phrase: “the new normal”.
“Everybody benefits if China grows more strongly, especially if growth is rebalanced from investment and exports towards consumption,” Daniel Gros, director of the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, told Xinhua.
There are few celebrations of consumer culture as epic as China’s November 11 Single’s Day shopping bonanza, named for the four ones in its date. It is a day where online retailers offer considerable discounts, and China’s economists smile at the sound of coffers filling. China’s e-commerce industry — comprising business-to-business and retail transactions — was worth about 13 trillion yuan (HK$16.39 trillion) in 2014, according to the Ministry of Commerce on January 21.
The total number of packages express delivered in 2014 reached 14 billion, up 52 per cent on the previous year, according to China’s State Postal Bureau on January 6. And with the e-commerce industry set to explode — KPMG estimated in 2014 that the Chinese e-commerce industry would surpass that of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan combined by 2020 — China’s logistics industry is going to play a integral role.
