China's express delivery industry has seen rapid expansion into the country's rural areas with at least a quarter of the 400 million parcels nationwide each day now delivered from and to rural areas.
By Tuesday, the country's express delivery sector has handled 100 billion parcels this year, reaching the same milestone 71 days ahead of last year's pace.
The average monthly delivery volume has exceeded 13 billion parcels, while monthly revenue has surpassed 100 billion yuan (13.9 billion U.S. dollars), both setting new records, according to the data released by the State Postal Bureau on Tuesday.
In Gaobao, a village in southwest China's Guizhou Province, resident Guo Fang has just received her bed ordered online. The furniture was sent from Foshan, a city almost 1,000 kilometers away in Guangdong Province.
"I have always wanted to buy a new bed, so I placed an order online. The delivery was very fast, sent straight to home in three days. They even helped me carry it upstairs and install it. I think it is very convenient. In the past, I had to go to malls to buy furniture, and I might not be able to choose a satisfactory one in one trip. Sometimes it was not so convenient to go there myself. But now I can buy it at home," said Guo.
This convenience was unimaginable in the past when picking up a parcel meant traveling 20 kilometers to the county town. Now, with an improved transportation network and a three-tier logistics system covering counties, towns, and villages, rural residents can easily access a wide range of products.
"The business volume of our town this year has increased 10 to 15 percent year on year. The category with the largest growth is basically large goods heavier than three kilos, especially furnitures and home appliances, which registered a growth of about 20 percent," said Wu Guiru, general manager of an express company's Guizhou branch.
Behind the radical change is the improving infrastructure. Over 1,200 county-level public delivery service centers and more than 300,000 village-level logistics stations have been set up across China, creating a comprehensive rural delivery network.
This network has led to a tenfold increase in rural parcel delivery over the past decade.
Express delivery companies are also investing in smart equipment, significantly reducing delivery times in western regions. At transfer centers, advanced 360-degree barcode recognition technology and automated sorting systems enable delivery to major cities within two days.
"The rural areas have turned from a vast outback without convenient shopping in the past to being convenient to buy anything at present. Express delivery is helping China's villages achieve a leap in consumption pattern," said Wang Yuehan, director of the State Postal Bureau's development and research center.