Estonian sees rise in online-shopping packages from China

Estonia's national Eesti Post is currently sorting through up to 9,000 Online-shopping parcels from China daily, which is a three-fold growth compared with last year and lingering at Christmas-rush levels, according to local media.

In the first two months of 2013, 55,000 packages were sent to Estonia from China, but the trend of buying cheap goods from online Chinese retailers has grown to 130,000 during the same period this year, Estonian internet portal Delfi reported Friday.

Kaido Padar, head of the state-owned Eesti Post's package service, said that deliveries from China have to be entered into the Estonian system manually, which takes up increasing man hours. He said European postal authorities are in talks with China over automating this process, the Estonian Public Broadcasting reported.

During the last Christmas and New Year holiday season, postal workers in Estonia sorted through around 10,000 parcels per day, mostly Estonian consumers' online-shopping from China for its huge variaty and competitive price.