The Singles’ Day online shopping festival kicked off on Nov. 11, and the volume of express delivery resulting from the festival is estimated to be over 1 billion packages, according to China’s State Post Bureau. Technology is therefore indispensible for parcel delivery during this period.

Best Express Company has established over 160 cloud warehouses, in which transfer robots will be deployed to collect items. Additionally, 22 automatic sorting systems will be used by the company in 24 provinces and regions, uniting big data analytics, cloud computing, intelligent terminals and image processing.

JD.com, another e-commerce giant, will use drones for parcel delivery in cities including Suqian, Xi’an and Beijing. Liu Qiangdong, CEO of JD.com, said the company has been planning its routes carefully since drones have been authorized to fly in four provinces.

ZTO Express will use its own independently developed automatic sorting system to deal with up to 23,000 parcels per hour. Ni Genyan, the deputy operating manager of ZTO Express, said that just 85 workers can handle nearly 500,000 parcels thanks to the system.

Meanwhile, the Beijing branch of China Railway Express will utilize 200 high-speed trains departing from Beijing, and the Beijing Railway Bureau will specially operate four freight trains for deliveries to Shanghai and Guangzhou, with over 300 tons of cargo being transported by each train. All the express trains can arrive at their destinations the same day as they depart.