With the rapid development of e-commerce, people enjoy the convenience of online shopping and also want to get their carefully selected goods as soon as possible. This has brought about the logistics distribution and because of the size of each distribution center warehouse, the number of orders and different types of goods, sorting is also different. However, the commonly used sorting methods can be roughly divided into three categories: manual sorting, semi-automatic sorting equipment and automatic sorting system. Here we will analyze the differences and characteristics of these several sorting methods.      

 1、 Manual sorting

       Manual sorting is the original form of the express sorting,mainly on human eye to distinguish and handling, but with the development of the e-commerce, the sorting order quantity increases rapidly, the distribution area increased, and the artificial cost is becoming more and more high, low efficiency and error rate and efficiency of management and the user experience when demand has changed, only by manual sorting will be unable to complete the sorting task, It will even drag down the efficiency of distribution and the quality of service. In order to respond to the market demand, a variety of sorting equipment will be produced and put into use. However, manual sorting still plays an important role in the sorting of large, overweight and special-shaped parcels that cannot be processed by sorting machines, especially in the small load logistics industry

       2: semi-automatic sorting equipment

       Semi-automatic sorting equipment is mainly a belt conveyor as the main conveyer, and sorting is carried out by operating personnel at each sorting position. This kind of sorting method has little investment, which can reduce labor intensity and improve sorting efficiency to a certain extent. It is suitable for small sorting centers with daily sorting volume of about 10,000 pieces. But this sorting method only improves the efficiency in the handling link. If the sorting volume surges and exceeds the sorting line load, the sorting staff is prone to make sorting mistakes when they are not in good spirits.

        3.Automatic sorting system

        Automatic sorting system is not limited by climate, time and physical strength, and realizes continuous large-scale sorting of goods. It can also choose the most appropriate equipment according to the actual needs of customers. The sorting action of the equipment is gentle, and the profit sorting is refused. It not only reduces the labor cost and labor intensity, but also improves the efficiency of work and management. For example, the high-speed endless cross belt sorting system developed by Anhui etown has a measured sorting efficiency of up to 23,000 pieces per hour and a sorting accuracy of 99.99%. Automatic recognition function can be used to judge the barcode, size, weight and shape of goods, classification error rate is very low. Widely used in postal express, cross-border e-commerce, customs and other industries, widely praised by customers. 

       With the development of China's logistics industry, the improvement of infrastructure equipment is the foundation of the development of logistics enterprises, a major premise to achieve development leap. Only by changing the extensive artificial sorting to conform to the development trend of intelligent logistics can logistics enterprises obtain considerable development. In the future, artificial sorting is bound to be replaced by intelligent sorting. In addition, logistics, transportation, warehousing, distribution, packaging, loading and unloading and other basic activities are moving toward automation and high efficiency. This is the trend of The Times, but also the need for development.