Jun 29, 2017|
Consumers Demand Supply Chain Visibility, and We Should Give it to Them
The following is a post by Yongli Yu, president of supply chain research and development for JD.com, China’s largest retailer.
Where does my stuff come from? Consumers around the world increasingly demand to know the answer to this question, and are surprised to discover that many companies don’t have the full answer.
Where were the ingredients sourced? Who were they purchased from? Were they properly, and ethically, produced and transported? And the most important question: is it safe for me to consume this product?
In China, we have these concerns to the extreme. Product safety scandals were once so common it was hard to tell which were real and which were made up. In 2008, parents were horrified to learn that most milk distributed in China was tainted with melamine. So as Chinese consumers gained spending power, they have responded to this environment by looking for quality, trusted brand names and imported products.
The truth is, even trusted brands and imported products can offer more visibility into their supply chains to give consumers more of the peace of mind they want. As China’s largest retailer, online or offline, we believe we can use technology to achieve this, which is why we’ve been testing a block chain program with some of our vendors, the JD Tracing and Anti-Counterfeit Alliance. Joining the alliance are 27 brands, including Mars, Nestle, Evian and Huggies, who have worked with JD.com to enable more traceability for their products.
As an example of how it works, we partnered with Inner Mongolia-based beef and dairy company Kerchin to create a list of criteria we wanted to trace for all beef sold on JD.com. We generated serial numbers for every cow slaughtered at the very beginning of this supply chain, which enabled us to track where any cow was raised, all vital information, and how resulting beef was handled, checked for quality, and transported, up to the point it reaches customers.
Customers who want assurances that they are buying meat that has gone through this quality control process will see an emblem on the product page on JD.com, and can rest assured knowing there is total transparency in the origin of that product. If they choose, they can see all the information for themselves.
We imagine doing this for many products, far beyond food. Products like wine, baby care, or even luxury and fashion products, for which Chinese consumers are constantly concerned about authenticity. Our 236.5 million customers trust us for quality, which is rare in China. We want to take that to the next level.
Of course, this will be difficult to achieve because supply chains are complex. They span multiple countries across multiple continents and involve many vendors and logistics providers. It can be hard to change a well-honed process. But consumers expect better, and winning their confidence will be well worth the investment. This is the future in China and beyond.
Please contact us if you want to know more about the JD Tracing and Anti-Counterfeit Alliance: http://zhuisu.jd.com. Let’s make this vision a reality.
Mar 26, 2020|
JD Supply Chain Alleviates COVID-19 Impacts, Facilitates Industry Resumption
by Yuchuan Wang
During the epidemic, JD has been continuously delivering daily necessities for consumers and aid supplies to the epidemic epicenter in Wuhan, Hubei province, all based on the company’s investment in next-generation infrastructure, including its in-house logistics network, smart supply chain and technology innovation over the last decade.
Guarantee national supply
As the world is under the stress of COVID-19, the importance of building strong supply chain capabilities is being emphasized repeatedly in helping economic recovery. According to Sarah Watt, senior director at Gartner Supply Chain, “Supply has been impacted in three primary ways: limited access to employees due to quarantines, factory closures or manufacturing slowdowns and limited access to logistics to move goods.”
Thanks JD’s early investment in smart supply chain, which dates back to 2007, the company has been able to be extremely agile in supplying goods during the epidemic period. JD collaborated with suppliers to efficiently allocate goods, worked with manufacturers to resume production based on big data analysis and maintained continuously delivery across the country, even in Wuhan.
From January 20th to February 28th, JD supplied 220 million products to its nationwide consumers including 290,000 tons of rice and flour, eggs and vegetables. JD Logistics transported 50 million medical supplies, and JD Health collaborated with over 13,000 offline pharmacies to provide 30-minute delivery service.
JD’s supply chain also helped 3,900 tons of agricultural products that risked becoming unsellable due to the coronavirus outbreak to be delivered to consumers nationwide. For example, in Hefeng county, Enshi city in Hubei province, JD helped 350 local farmers make 50 tons of citrus for sale online, with over 1,500 orders per day.
Help brick-and-mortar stores resume business online
Through various omnichannel solutions, JD is helping tens of thousands of offline stores resume business online.
With the help of JD, over 700 Five Star Appliance’s stores are transforming into community warehouses to supply online orders from social platforms such as WeChat groups. It also helps JD sell online inventory, which is fulfilled by JD Logistics.
Based on Location-Based-Services (LBS), JD’s online sales events are enabling offline stores to interact with and deliver to its surrounding consumers. In addition, JD Live helps offline stores conduct live streams to attract consumers.
Ensure enterprises resume operations
TIEM is a manufacturer for gaming products in China. Affected by COVID-19, the company faced factory shutdown. JD quickly provided support in warehousing, logistics and supply chain financing for TIEM, helping the company fulfill its backlogged inventory and reach even more consumers.
At the same time, the company has helped support work resumption needs such as office supplies, protective equipment and services. JD’s enterprise procurement business JD Business has served over 1.3 million enterprise clients since the outbreak.
JD’s strong supply chain ability helped Chengdu Railway source and supply 60,000 protective supplies in as few as 48 hours.
JD also helped Deyin, an MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) products supplier from Qingdao, Shandong province, sell nearly RMB 1 million in products in half a month, helping the company increase revenue even when operations were temporarily shut down.
To get a sense of JD’s smart supply chain capabilities, take a look at the graphic below:
JD.com and China Eastern Airlines Announce Strategic Partnership
