(Yicai) Jan. 23 -- Chinese express delivery companies are tripling salaries and rolling out other incentives to encourage their deliverymen to forego the Spring Festival break, which is the most important holiday in the calendar, and stay behind to ensure that, as shopping on China’s e-commerce platforms surges, the huge number of parcels are delivered on time.

"We're busier than during the Double 11 online shopping bonanza in November!" said Du Kang, manager of a ZTO Express delivery station in Fuping county, northwestern Shaanxi province. His station sends out over 100,000 boxes of locally produced persimmon cakes, a cake made of dried persimmons, a day across the country.

The number of persimmon cake orders has more than doubled in the run up to the Spring Festival this year compared to the same period last year, Du added.

“Our parcel collection volume has soared 40 percent recently,” said Liu Chunsheng, a ZTO Express courier in Harbin, which is the largest city in China’s northernmost region. “Winter is peak tourism season in Harbin and apart from online sales, there are also many souvenirs purchased by tourists to deliver. I send out over 100 packages of local specialties each day," he said.

Many employers gift their employees presents at Chinese New Year. This can include bonuses which leads to a rise in personal spending. Once the Spring Festival travel rush started on Jan. 14, demand for sending goods jumped, pushing up the number of deliveries, according to data from the State Post Bureau. Daily deliveries from Jan. 14 to 16 surged 29 percent from the year before to more than 670 million parcels.

Triple Salary

Most people spend Chinese New Year with their families. In order to persuade their couriers to stay behind over the holiday to deal with the increased number of parcels, many delivery firms are rolling out incentives including higher pay.

Those couriers who work over the break will earn three times their usual salary, Ye Wenhui, the manager of a ZTO Express station in Shanghai’s Fengxian district, told Yicai. And should the company be unable to meet this guarantee, it will provide additional subsidies to make up the difference.

ZTO is organizing a Lunar New Year’s Eve banquet for those deliverymen who stay behind to work, Ye said. And it has arranged rotational leave for them after the holiday.

Cainiao Express is offering a number of incentives to encourage couriers to stay on duty during the break that aim to triple their income, a representative told Yicai. This includes red envelopes, which is a form of gifting money, both before and after the holiday, extra transportation allowances and double the usual commissions.

Editor: Kim Taylor