How to Stock Up Packaging for the 11.11 and 12.12 Sales in Malaysia

29 October 2026

Short answer: work out your campaign packaging from your own order history, not from a guess. Take your average daily parcels over the last eight to twelve weeks, multiply by the uplift you expect in the sale (two to three times normal is a fair planning range for a first mega sale; last year’s figure is better if you have it), multiply by the campaign days, and add seven to ten days of buffer at the raised rate. Split that total by packaging type in the same proportions as your normal orders, then weight it one size up for a fifth to a quarter of the volume because sale baskets are bigger. Order in the last week of October for 11.11 and the last week of November for 12.12, so the cartons and flyer bags are on the shelf before the first day of the campaign and not stuck in the same courier backlog as your parcels. This guide gives the arithmetic, a worked example, the pack sizes to buy in, the ordering dates, how to set the bench up for three times the usual pace, and what to watch while the sale is running.

Why the sale catches sellers out on packaging, not stock

Every seller plans the product stock for 11.11. Fewer plan the packaging, because it feels like a background cost: a bag is a bag, the tape is in the drawer. Then day three of the campaign arrives, the A4 bags run out, and the next 40 orders go into A3 bags that cost more and bill more, or into cartons that were meant for the fragile orders. The tape runs out on the Saturday, when the stationery shop is closed. The label roll runs out mid-batch and the printer is reloaded with a roll that does not fit.

Three things make the sale weeks different from a normal week:

Volume arrives in a spike, not a slope. The campaign window opens, vouchers go live, and the orders that would have been spread across the month land in a few days. The trade reports describe 11.11 and 12.12 as the two biggest peaks of the Malaysian online calendar, and the 2025 Shopee campaign in Malaysia ran from the start of November through the 11th, so the orders arrive over roughly eleven days and then spike again on the day itself. Check Seller Centre for the 2026 dates, because they move.
The deadlines do not move. The seller guides that summarise Shopee’s February 2026 shipping policy describe Days to Ship counted on working days for most sellers, a 2pm daily cut-off for the handover metrics, a Late Shipment Rate threshold of 15 percent measured over the past seven days, and the Fast Handover Rate entering the penalty points system from May 2026. Lazada and TikTok Shop run their own equivalents. A shop that packs late on Monday is late on Tuesday, and a run of late parcels in the sale week lands the shop in trouble exactly when it is making the most sales.
Everyone else is restocking too. The courier that carries your parcels also carries your packaging order if it comes from outside your state, and the hubs are at their busiest. Ninja Van’s own guide says a tracking update that normally shows within a few hours can take 24 to 48 hours during 11.11, and a two-to-three-day parcel can take five to seven to show its next milestone. A packaging order placed on day two of the campaign, from a supplier two states away, arrives after the campaign.

So the goal is simple: enough of each size on the shelf before the window opens, bought in the pack sizes that are cheapest per piece, from a supplier that can top you up inside a day if the sale runs hotter than planned.

Step 1: work out your multiplier from your own numbers

Your packing records are the only forecast worth having. If you kept last year’s 11.11 orders, divide the campaign-week daily average by a normal week’s daily average and you have your multiplier. If this is your first mega sale, plan for a range rather than a point: two times normal as the floor, three times as the ceiling, and buy for the middle with a buffer that covers the ceiling for a week.

The arithmetic, written out:

Line	How to get it
Normal daily parcels	Total parcels over the last 8 to 12 weeks, divided by working days
Campaign daily parcels	Normal daily parcels × your multiplier
Campaign total	Campaign daily parcels × campaign days (count the 11.11 day itself as two)
Buffer	Campaign daily parcels × 7 to 10
Packaging units needed	Campaign total + buffer, split by packaging type in your normal proportions
Size shift	Move a fifth to a quarter of each type one size up

Counting the 11th itself as two days reflects what sellers see every year: the final day is the heaviest. The buffer is not waste. It covers the days after the campaign when the backlog of orders you could not pack on the day is still going out, and whatever is left becomes the start of the 12.12 stock three weeks later.

Worked example. A shop sending 20 parcels a day in a normal week, 60 percent in flyer bags and 40 percent in small cartons, planning for two and a half times over an eleven-day campaign:

Campaign daily parcels: 20 × 2.5 = 50
Campaign total: 50 × 12 (eleven days with the 11th counted twice) = 600
Buffer: 50 × 7 = 350
Total packaging units: 950, so about 570 flyer bags and 380 cartons
Size shift: of the 570 bags, roughly 430 in the usual size and 140 one size up; of the 380 cartons, about 290 in the usual size and 90 one size up

Round to the pack size. Flyer bags come in packs of 100, so that is five packs of the usual size and two of the next size up. Once-used cartons come in bundles of 10, so 29 bundles of the usual carton and 9 of the next size up; a shop at this volume is also at the point where a pallet of 300 or 500 of the main size works out cheaper per piece, and the product pages show the quantity prices.

If 350 units of buffer looks like a lot, remember that it is a week of sale-rate packing. The 12.12 order simply starts from whatever is left, so the buffer is not spent twice.

Step 2: split by size, and buy by the bundle

Packaging is cheapest in the pack sizes the supplier ships it in. The table gives the units we sell in and the way to size each line.

Material	Pack unit	How to size the order
Flyer bags with pocket, A5 to A2	100 per pack	Your soft-goods and non-fragile share of the total, rounded up to the pack, plus one pack one size up; see the flyer bag size guide for what fits in each
Once-used Grade A cartons, from RM1.10	Bundles of 10; pallets of 300 to 1,000	Your carton share, in the two sizes that cover most orders; a pallet of the main size once you pass roughly 300 of it
New cartons in the small sizes	Bundles of 10 or 20; pallets of 500	For the orders where a printed once-used box is not wanted, or the mini sizes such as the XS at 170 x 115 x 150 mm that the once-used range does not have
Bubble wrap, 10 mm	1 x 100 m rolls, or half rolls	At roughly half a metre per small item a roll is about 200 wraps; divide your fragile share by 200 and round up
PE foam, 2 mm	1 x 10 m or 1 x 150 m rolls	The 150 m roll if foam is your standard inner layer for flat goods; it is the cheaper metre
Clear packing tape, 48 mm x 80 m	Single rolls, sets of 6, boxes of 96	An H-seal takes 2 to 3.5 m, so a roll seals 25 to 40 cartons; divide your carton count by 30 and round up, then add a roll per bench for the flyer-bag pocket and the odd repair
Fragile tape, 48 mm x 50 m	Single rolls, sets of 6, boxes of 120	One roll per 30 fragile cartons; it supplements the clear tape and never replaces it
A6 thermal labels	Single rolls, cartons of 24	One label per parcel plus misprints; check the roll fits your printer before buying the carton, as the thermal label guide explains
Tape cutter	One per bench	If you are adding a second person for the sale, add a second cutter; a shared cutter is the slowest thing on a two-person bench

Two notes on the cartons. First, choose the sizes from the orders you actually send, not from the catalogue. For small marketplace parcels the once-used sizes that do most of the work are the Ain1000 at 320 x 220 x 280 mm in single wall, which is the RM1.10 carton, and the double-wall PM1073 at 420 x 220 x 190 mm, Tyson at 430 x 300 x 160 mm and Vita at 400 x 250 x 190 mm; the Yellow at 460 x 330 x 310 mm and TX at 450 x 380 x 380 mm are the next step up for multi-item orders. Second, a once-used carton has someone else’s print on it, which does not matter to a marketplace buyer and matters a great deal to your cost per parcel at 380 cartons; our fragile packing guide for Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop covers how to pack to the platforms’ standard in one.

Volumetric weight is the other reason to get the size right. A carton a size too big for a multi-item order is billed on its volume, and the difference across a few hundred parcels is real money; our flyer bag versus carton guide shows the arithmetic, and the courier size limits guide has the current bands for each courier.

Step 3: order on the right days

The campaign window opens at the start of November and the heaviest day is the 11th, so the 11.11 packaging order should land in the last week of October or the first two or three days of November. The 12.12 top-up goes in during the last week of November, after you have counted what the first sale left.

Inside KL and Selangor we deliver the next working day on our own lorry: free on orders of RM300 and above, RM30 flat below that. We are open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm and Saturday 8.30am to 1pm, and closed on Sundays and public holidays, so an order placed on a Saturday afternoon moves on Monday. Outside the Klang Valley delivery is arranged case by case, so allow a few extra days and order a week earlier.

Two timing rules that save money:

Do not buy December in October. Cartons stacked on a damp floor for six weeks lose crush strength, bags stuck together in a hot store room tear at the seal, and tape left in a car boot goes stringy. Our guide to keeping cardboard boxes from going soft in Malaysian humidity explains the storage, but the simpler rule is to hold three to four weeks of stock at a time and let the next-day delivery do the rest.
Keep a reorder trigger, not a reorder date. Write the sale-rate daily usage on a card above the shelf. When any line drops below two days of sale-rate stock, order that line the same day; it is on the shelf the next working day inside KL and Selangor, which is faster than the courier backlog will clear.

Step 4: set the bench up for three times the pace

A bench that takes a minute per parcel at 20 a day takes the same minute at 50 a day, so the problem is not speed per parcel but hours. Fifty parcels is close to an hour of pure packing plus the picking, the printing and the handover. Three changes make the hours fit:

Batch by packaging type, not by order number. Print the day’s labels in waves, sort the pick by bag or carton, and pack all the A4 bags, then all the PM1073 cartons. Changing material between every parcel is where the minutes go.
Prepare the inner layer in advance. Cut bubble wrap to the lengths your two or three main items need the evening before and stack the cut pieces; pre-tape the base of the cartons you will need in the first hour. Do not pre-tape more than a morning’s worth, because an open carton on the floor is a carton someone steps on.
Pack to the strictest item in the parcel, every time. Sale baskets mix a T-shirt with a mug, and the platforms’ standard says that parcel is a mug parcel. Shopee’s 2026 guideline, which all its Malaysian couriers follow, asks for an inner layer that stops movement, an outer layer that survives stacking, and photos before and after; the packing station guide sets a bench up for it. In the sale week the temptation is to skip the photo. Do not. The claim guide below is built on that photo.

Hand over before the cut-off, and hand over daily. The metrics measure the scan, not the moment you print the label; a batch of parcels sitting on the floor until the next morning is a batch of late shipments.

Step 5: during the campaign

Count the shelf every evening. Thirty seconds with the reorder card. The order you place at 4pm is on the shelf the next working day inside the Klang Valley.
Tell buyers about the hub delay before they ask. A line in the order chat saying deliveries run slower in the sale week, and the tracking number the moment the courier scans the parcel, saves most of the where-is-my-parcel messages. Ninja Van’s own figures, 24 to 48 hours for a status update and five to seven days for a two-to-three-day parcel to show its next milestone, are the honest expectation.
Keep the photo folder in order. One folder per day, phone photos named by order. A damaged-parcel claim in the sale week fails on the same thing it fails on in a quiet week, missing evidence, and our damaged parcel claim guide has the deadlines.
Split the heavy multi-item orders. A basket that comes to 25 kg in one carton is better as two parcels, both inside the courier’s weight band, than one that bounces at the counter.

Six mistakes that cost sellers money in the sale week

Buying one size. The A4 bags run out, the A3 bags bill more, and the cartons meant for breakables go on T-shirts.
Buying by the roll and the single carton. A single roll of tape in the sale week costs more per metre than a set of six, and the stationery shop is closed on the Saturday you need it.
Ordering packaging from two states away on day two. It arrives after the campaign, through the same backlog as your parcels.
Skipping the photo to save ten seconds. The one parcel in two hundred that arrives crushed costs the whole refund without it.
Packing to the lightest item in a mixed basket. The mug in the T-shirt parcel is the damage claim.
Holding the day’s parcels for one handover tomorrow. The scan is what the metric measures, and tomorrow’s scan is a late shipment today.

Checklist before the campaign opens

Normal daily parcels calculated from the last 8 to 12 weeks
Multiplier chosen from last year or set to a 2 to 3 times planning range
Campaign total and 7 to 10 day buffer worked out, split by bag and carton
A fifth to a quarter of each type moved one size up
Flyer bags rounded to packs of 100, cartons to bundles of 10 or a pallet of the main size
Tape at one 80 m roll per 30 cartons plus one per bench; fragile tape for the fragile share
Labels at one per parcel plus misprints, roll confirmed to fit the printer
Bubble wrap at one 100 m roll per 200 small items; PE foam if it is your inner layer
Second tape cutter if a second person is packing
Order placed to land in the last week of October; 12.12 top-up pencilled for the last week of November
Shelf dry, off the floor, with the sale-rate usage card and a two-day reorder trigger
Bench laid out to batch by material; label waves and pre-cut inner layer planned
Photo routine agreed with everyone packing; handover before the daily cut-off

FAQ

How many cartons and flyer bags should I buy for 11.11? Start from your own numbers, not a rule of thumb. Take your average parcels per day over the last eight to twelve weeks, multiply by the uplift you expect during the campaign (two to three times normal is a sensible planning range for a shop that has not been through a mega sale before; use last year’s figure if you have one), multiply by the number of campaign days, then add a buffer of seven to ten days at the raised rate. Split the total by packaging type in the same proportion as your normal orders. For a shop sending 20 parcels a day, 60 percent in flyer bags, over an eleven-day campaign at two and a half times with the 11th counted twice, that is 600 parcels in the campaign plus a 350-parcel buffer, so about 570 flyer bags and 380 cartons, which is six packs of 100 bags and 38 bundles of 10 cartons, with a fifth to a quarter of each one size up.

When should I order packaging for 11.11 and 12.12? Place the 11.11 order in the last week of October or the first days of November so it is on the shelf before the campaign window opens, and place the 12.12 top-up in the last week of November. Inside KL and Selangor we deliver the next working day, free on orders of RM300 and above and RM30 flat below that, Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm and Saturday 8.30am to 1pm, closed Sundays and public holidays. Outside the Klang Valley delivery is arranged case by case, so allow extra days. Do not buy the whole of December in October unless you have a dry place to store it; cartons stored on a damp floor for six weeks lose strength.

Do I need bigger or smaller packaging during a sale? Usually more of the same sizes, with a shift towards bigger. Sale baskets are larger because buyers stack vouchers and free-shipping thresholds, so a shop that normally sends one item in an A4 flyer bag starts sending three items that need an A3 bag or a small carton. Look at your multi-item orders from the last sale, or from your busiest recent week, and weight the order one size up for a fifth to a quarter of the volume. A parcel that is too small gets forced shut and splits; one that is too big is billed on volumetric weight and lets the contents move.

What are the Shopee shipping deadlines during a mega sale? The same ones as the rest of the year, and they do not relax for the campaign. The seller guides that summarise the February 2026 policy describe Days to Ship counted on working days for most sellers, a daily order cut-off of 2pm for the handover metrics, a Late Shipment Rate threshold of 15 percent measured over the past seven days, and the Fast Handover Rate joining the penalty points system from May 2026. Check the exact figures for your shop tier in Seller Centre before the campaign. The practical consequence is that a parcel packed late on day one becomes a late shipment on day two, and a run of them puts the shop over the threshold in the middle of the sale.

Why do parcels take longer to arrive during 11.11, and what do I tell buyers? Courier hubs sort several times their normal volume in the sale week, so parcels wait longer between scans. Ninja Van’s own guide says a status update that normally appears within a few hours can take 24 to 48 hours during a peak like 11.11, and a parcel that usually takes two to three days can take five to seven to show its next milestone. None of that is the seller’s fault, but the buyer sees your shop first. Hand over early, send the tracking number as soon as the courier scans it, and put a line in the order chat saying deliveries are slower in the sale week. Keep the before-and-after photos of every parcel so a claim for a damaged or lost parcel can be filed inside the deadline.

Where to get it

Everything on the list is on the shop, with current prices and the quantity prices on the product pages: once-used Grade A cartons from RM1.10 by the bundle of 10 or the pallet, new cartons in the small and mini sizes, flyer bags with pocket from A5 to A2 in packs of 100, bubble wrap by the roll and half roll, PE foam in 10 m and 150 m rolls, and 48 mm packing tape in sets of 6 and boxes of 96, fragile tape, tape cutters and A6 thermal labels by the roll or the carton of 24. Orders of RM300 and above are delivered free across KL and Selangor the next working day, which a sale-week order almost always clears.

Working out your 11.11 order and not sure whether the shop needs the PM1073, the Tyson or a pallet of the Ain1000? WhatsApp +60 16-891 6381 or contact us with your normal daily parcels and what you sell, and we will size the bags, cartons, tape and labels for the campaign and the 12.12 top-up. We are open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm and Saturday 8.30am to 1pm, and closed on Sundays and public holidays.