Employees of a courier company sorting out delivery orders ahead of the Chinese New Year. PHOTOS BY GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY

Pre-sale period data from Tmall Global showed that their daily sales tripled, almost equivalent to the presale figures from Singles' Day. The most in-demand imported products include maternal and infant products (32 percent), health products (17 percent), beauty (17.5 percent), clothing (13.3 percent) and food (10.4 percent). The countries where these products are usually from are the US, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Australia.

Laura Xiong, vice-president and marketing head of JD.com, said that by analyzing big data, they discovered that the Chinese New Year period is when there is a spike in demand for food, wine, festive products, as well as big ticket items such as appliances.

"Big data enables us to tailor our promotion strategies. For example, we can have liquor promotions in places where particular brands are more popular, such as Niulanshan in Beijing, Maotai in Shanghai and Yanghe in Guangdong province," said Xiong.

According to Xiong, food sales begin to ramp up about a month before the Spring Festival and spike just before the holiday. Meanwhile, sales of mobile phones tend to peak one to two weeks before the festival as people are usually eager to have them in hand as they head back to see family and friends.

Compared to its Chinese rivals, Amazon China boasts a wide product selection and extensive cross-border shipping network. Orders placed by Chinese customers on Amazon US soared six times in 2015 from a year ago. Also, the Amazon China Free Trade Zone model grew eight-fold in just five months, with the sales revenue of Amazon China's Direct Import also increasing by 150 percent, according to Brandy Niu, vice-president of Amazon China.

"We have seen user numbers of the Amazon Global Store in Amazon China surge more than ten times in 2015, and domestic consumers are increasingly buying international products via payment methods that have been tailored to their preferences, such as fully localized web pages, local payment options and Chinese customer service. That is why we try to offer global products for the New Year stock up this year," said Niu.

The race against time

According to Ye, the key to winning more Chinese clients during the Spring Festival is to deliver goods faster than other e-commerce platforms. Imported goods normally require longer delivery periods and this poses a unique challenge to e-commerce businesses as consumers always demand that their goods arrive before New Year's Eve on Feb 7.

According to Ye, the goods prepped for delivery at Tmall Global's bonded warehouses can directly undergo custom clearance and be quickly available for shipping. This helps to shorten the time required from acknowledging an order to the customer receiving it.

Niu also said that Amazon is well prepared to deal with the increased demands during the festive period.

"We are aware of this special need for people's New Year's shopping, so Amazon China will continue to be available in more than 20 cities across China even during the Spring Festival, with the latest delivery time extended to 11 pm," Niu said.

After decades of development, Amazon has established a network of 123 fulfillment centers across the world, providing customers access to 185 nations and regions. Of these 123 centers, 13 of them are located in China. With such extensive networks, Niu said that Amazon is able to deliver ordered products to 1,400 Chinese cities within one to two days.

Over at JD.com, Xiong said that tens of thousands of their staff in the logistics department and service centers will be on call to ensure speedy delivery in nearly 90 cities nationwide, more than double the number of locations available last year.