China's Singles' Day shopping event was the biggest 24-hour online shopping bonanza in the entire world, but breaking sales records opens up new daunting tasks - such as delivering more than 275 million packages to customers.

Singles' Day occurs every November 11 - derived from the four ones that make up the date - and increases in terms of popularity and sales every year. Last year's Singles' Day event generated a total of $5.8 billion, while this year shattered that record bringing in $9.3 billion worth in salesn and 278 million packages for the online giant Alibaba.

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To put it into perspective, 278 million packages represents about one in every five people in China.

"I don't care much about the sales figure. What I am concerned about is how we can deliver these packages safely," founder of Alibaba Jack Ma said. "I am concerned about possible accidents on the way, and how rain, snow or weather might affect deliveries."

Alibaba aimed to send out all packages as quickly as possible by buying extra delivery vehicles, expanding warehouses in more areas and even brought on thousands of extra temporary couriers to add to the 1.2 million courier estimate.

But according to delivery company Cainiao, Alibaba was only able to send 40 million packages in the first three days. That may seem like a big number, but it accounts for just 14 percent of the total packages needed to be delivered, and Alibaba was hoping to have sent at least one-third of the packages.

Now after almost a week has passed, companies and mail couriers are still working 24-hours a day and there are stil millions of packages to be delivered.

The problem could be large part due to the customers themselves though, according to Tech in Asia. Many deliveries have been delayed because many customers were not answering phone calls from the unfamiliar numbers that were coming from the couriers. Cainiao has been asking customers to makes stops much easier by meeting them outside or in their apartment building's lobby.  

Singles Day was originally the equivalent to an anti-Valentine's Day holiday for bachelors and bachelorettes in China to celebrate the single life. But a couple decades later the holiday has now become the biggest online shopping event in the world, offering sales on anything from clothes to cars.

TagsSingles' Day online shopping event, mail delivery, sales records, courier