The invention provides a goods sorting system and method. The goods sorting system comprises a goods shelf, a four-way shuttle vehicle, a sky rail vehicle and a shunt vehicle, wherein a ground rail track and a sky rail track are laid in a roadway of the goods shelf, the ground rail track and the sky rail track extend in the length direction of the goods shelf, the four-way shuttle vehicle is slidably mounted on the ground rail track, a manipulator is mounted on the sky rail vehicle, the sky rail vehicle is mounted on the sky rail track in a sliding manner, a shunt vehicle track is arranged between the roadways, the shunt vehicle is mounted on the shunt vehicle track in a sliding manner, and the shunt vehicle is used for being clamped with the sky rail vehicle moving to the position so as to transfer the sky rail vehicle from one roadway to the other roadway along the shunt vehicle track. The goods sorting system and the goods sorting method are high in space utilization rate; the overall composite garage entering and exiting efficiency can be improved by increasing the number of vehicles, and expansion is convenient; the sky rail vehicle and the ground rail vehicle are arranged in an up-down split mode, the shunt vehicle slides along the shunt vehicle track to move the sky rail vehicle between roadways, dispatching can be conducted at any position of a goods shelf, and the risk of roadway congestion is reduced.