by Doris Liu

The J Shop, JD’s upgrade of its Fashion and Lifestyle business, officially launched the first flagship store on July 2 in Chengdu, one of the largest cities in southwest China, offering local customers around 400 brands, 2,000 products and several immersive experience areas featuring various themes.

The 1,000 square-meter brick-and-mortar retail store, located in the well-known Chunxi Road shopping district, brings together a full range of new fashion and lifestyle categories of cosmetics, apparel, lifestyle, sports, luxury fashion, watches and more.

With JD’s core capabilities in digital supply chain and omnichannel, the J Shop can quickly complete new product launches and product circulation based on dynamic changes in consumer trends and product adjustments by brand merchants, leading to a stronger ability to meet consumers’ needs in new fashion and lifestyle purchases, said Terry Wang, general manager of JD Beauty.

In order to enhance customer experiences at the mall as well as strengthening the links of both online and offline businesses, the J shop has set up photo-ready scenarios featuring products for social media posting. Also, customers can occasionally join livestreams in the mall to enjoy a more comprehensive shopping experience.

In addition, the store will soon kick off one-hour delivery services, which enables customers to receive their orders within an hour as long as their homes are within a radius of 5 kilometers from the store.

The J Shop deeply integrates JD’s capabilities in commodity and service in omni-channel retailing. The online channel of the J Shop became available on JD’s App from early May, followed by the opening of pilot offline stores in five cities of Xi’an, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Yinchuan and Beijing.

In the JD618 Grand Promotion that ended on June 20, the overall performance of the J Shop had improved dramatically, with 531 categories and 9,707 brands doubling sales while omni-channel business rose by 83 percent year-over-year (YOY).

The flagship store in Chengdu was completed with an in-depth cooperation between JD and Chinese cosmetics brand Perfect Diary. The previous pilot stores also saw JD’s cooperation with Italian luxury retailer COSCIA, Huaguan Shopping Mall and JD Mall to provide new sales channels and display scenarios for more brand merchants.

In the process of exploring the new model of digital omni-channel ecosystem, the J Shop will join hands with more partners to actively embrace offline business and create new growth value, said Carol Fung, Senior Vice President of JD.com and President of JD Fashion and Lifestyle business group. The J Shop will continue to improve and innovate through practice to better accommodate consumers’ needs in fashion and lifestyle consumption and experience, Fung added.

(liujun215@jd.com)