During the recent Women's Day shopping festival, e-commerce platforms in the mainland launched major promotions, driving a surge in orders.
The Women's Day shopping festival triggered a shopping spree on the mainland's e-commerce platforms, with many offering enticing promotions, including free shipping to HK. These discounts, which reduced costs for cross-boundary shopping, attracted a wave of orders from consumers.
However, the surge in logistics volume during the holiday overwhelmed self-pickup points in HK, with some locations experiencing severe overcrowding and storage issues.
According to posts shared in Facebook groups, customers reported chaotic scenes at multiple self-pickup points, where packages were scattered in alleys behind the facilities. Many customers were forced to search for their parcels themselves among heaps of disorganized packages.
One user pointed out that platforms like Pinduoduo, which offered free shipping deals, did not allow customers to select more organized pickup locations such as Cainiao Stations, while Taobao's RMB 99 free shipping promotion further exacerbated the strain on logistics. As a result, smaller private pickup points became overwhelmed with parcels.
Photos shared online showed some pickup points storing excess parcels outdoors, leading to long queues of customers waiting to retrieve their orders. The disorganized state has raised concerns about potential theft or loss of parcels, as well as privacy risks due to exposed shipping information.
Some users suggested that e-commerce platforms optimize their logistics arrangements by consolidating shipments to improve efficiency. Others proposed offering home delivery as an alternative to reduce the burden on pickup points.
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