Originating at China’s Nanjing University in 1993 as a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day, Singles’ Day is celebrated by unmarried people in China on the 11th November. The occasion falls on that date because 11/11 represents four ones, or four singles, standing together.
Single people mark the occasion by spoiling and treating themselves to gifts and presents, but it wasn’t until Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba chose the date to offer heavily discounted merchandise on its platform for 24 hours, starting at midnight on the 11th November, 2009, that Singles’ Day became a major commercial event. And although it is not officially recognised as a public holiday in China, it has become the largest online shopping day in the world.
Retailers now use the occasion of Singles’ Day as a platform to generate more sales, and like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it has become stretched out to last a week or more. This has led to Singles’ Day becoming one of the world’s largest online shopping peaks and is growing in popularity in other countries.
The data around Singles’ Day is staggering. Online transactions in greater China grew 237% during Singles’ Day 2023 sales compared to the same period in October, and were up 9% YoY. Sales volume across all platforms on Singles’ Day 2023 is estimated to have generated $156 billion (€144 billion), making it the biggest global online shopping day ever. The total sales volume of traditional eCommerce platforms was cn¥923.5 billion (€120 billion). Livestreaming eCommerce platforms had a total sales volume of cn¥215.5 billion (€28 billion).
Of course, this enormous spike in volumes puts retailers’ supply chains and distribution networks under extreme pressure. Scenes of chaos at parcel hubs and fulfilment centres have become commonplace. As recently as five years ago, when retailers were still trying to figure out how to match the supply with the demand, some retailers pushed out their promised delivery timeslot from two days to over two weeks! There are famous images of heaps of parcels piled high on pavements, with angry shoppers literally climbing up them to retrieve their order.
To counteract such scenes, warehouses boosted their permanent staff by recruiting hordes of temporary workers for anything from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, all of whom needed expensive and time-consuming vetting, onboarding and training. Many rented extra storage capacity and hired additional trucks and delivery drivers as goods leaving the warehouses came in wave after wave. So, while the retailers may draw in considerable additional revenue during the Singles’ Day peak, it becomes diminished when the cost of expanding and then shrinking the fulfilment operation is taken into account.
However, smart eCommerce retailers are now turning to automated storage and tote handling systems in their distribution centres to ensure they can maintain service levels even during such volume peaks. For example, a system such as the 3D vertical sorter from Libiao Robotics enables retailers to handle exceptional volumes of items even at peak times.
Libiao’s 3D vertical sorter is a highly flexible solution – its capacity can be easily and quickly increased or decreased simply by adding or taking away robots. Also, at particularly busy times such as the period around Singles’ Day, additional sorting chutes can be added to cope with very high traffic sorting demands. The system has the additional benefit of being able to help couriers by sorting items according to their destination.
If set up as a single-layer system, it can handle up to 3,000 items per hour. A two-tier version doubles that hourly capacity, making it one of the best sorting solutions on the market for businesses who have previously struggled to process increased seasonal volumes. Requiring no infrastructural modifications or special floor surface conditions, the fully customisable T-Sort system is designed so that a single robot failure will not affect the rest of the operation, a must-have when a facility is already running at full capacity.
“In recent years, we have played our part in making sure scenes such as those mountains of parcels by the roadside are a thing of the past,” says Ronan Shen, Libiao Robotics’ Global Head of Business. “For example, our customer Skechers, after adopting Libiao’s robotics systems, have reduced dramatically their need for temporary staff during the Singles’ Day and Chinese New Year peaks. Rather than hiring additional people, they simply increase the number of robots for the peak season and can then promise their customers with confidence that all orders will come out on time.
“After the peak, we will come and take away the additional bots, ensuring the retailer is not paying year-round for redundant assets. Previously, they would also have needed to expand their available storage space to allow for the waves of orders being dispatched, but now with Libiao’s T-Sort and AirRob systems, that flow has become regulated within the existing footprint of the storage facility.”
Instead of large groups of warehouse workers scrambling to help the retailer meet the additional demand at peak times, Skechers’ Taicang Distribution Centre is a scene of relative calm at peak times, with only a couple of Libiao service technicians required to check that all is running smoothly.
“In summary, retailers are coming to us to provide a solution that will help them keep the promises they are making to their customers,” says Ronan Shen. “Libiao’s sorting solutions are flexible, modular and scalable, and designed to be rapidly and easily deployed in one to eight weeks, depending on the scale of the operation. Highly stable and offering picking accuracy greater than 99.99%, the system will increase throughput two- or three-fold versus manual picking, and deliver a very competitive return on investment.”
