By Ella Kidron and Yuchuan Wang

JD is launching a new initiative to help farmers who are seeking a sales channel for their products due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. The “National Fresh Produce Green Channel”, referred to as the “Green Channel” for short, will help them sell products through JD’s channels, providing JD customers with more access to high quality and fresh produce.

In attempt to prevent further spreading of the coronavirus, there have been road closures and other transportation restrictions across China, putting pressure on the transportation infrastructure still in operation. As a result, many farmers had lost their sales channels and risked their seasonable produce becoming unsellable. At the same time, with the epidemic, demand for high, fresh quality produce which can be bought online is at an all-time high.

JD’s Green Channel leverages JD’s strengths in supply chain, logistics, platform operations, online marketing and omnichannel retail to address these challenges. Open to both existing and potential partners of JD Fresh, JD’s online fresh food business, the initiative provides 25 supportive policies to merchants, including fast enrollment, extra traffic, discounts or fee-free use of the platform, and more. Furthermore, JD Logistics will establish a special transportation channel to prioritize the delivery of produce, and ensure they arrive in a timely manner. JD Fresh will also launch two dedicated entrances on JD APP to the Green Channel by Feb. 14^th, making it easier for customers to find.

Before the channel was officially launched, JD already saw some success from this approach. In early February, a strawberry farm from Sichuan province reached out to JD.com with an urgent request. Heavily affected by the outbreak, the farm’s usual wholesalers weren’t making the purchases they typically would, and it faced huge foreseeable losses. To help this farm, JD quickly allocated sales and marketing resources and launched the strawberries on JD.com. They are now being delivered across the country.

Quality is of utmost importance and JD applies a rigorous evaluation process for potential applicants. Yisheng Tang, Head of JD Fresh, said:

“We will accelerate the sale of agricultural products facing sales difficulties while exercising strict quality control to guarantee the safety and quality of the fresh food we provide. Leveraging JD.com’s advantages in fresh food supply chain and cold chain logistics, we hope to better meet the demand during this special period of time.”

In addition, JD will launch a channel for local vegetables and fruit farms to sell produce  in its 7FRESH brick-and-mortar  supermarkets in Hebei, Tianjin, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Guangdong provinces. ‪JD’s Friend Shop group buying business for communities will also provide an “instant sales” policy for suitable suppliers of unsellable fresh goods. In Wuhan, Friends Shop is now delivering food supplies to approximately 30 communities, covering 50,000 families.

With the help of JD.com, sales of strawberries from Dandong, Liaoning province that were previously deemed unsellable have reached RMB 1.3 million since early February. In addition, JD has worked with mango producers in Sanya, Hainan province, to launch a “buy one, give one” initiative, with the aim of donating 200 tons of mangos to citizens in Hubei Province, where Wuhan is its capital.

JD is collecting information about reliable, unsellable produce from the public via xunxian@jd.com.

(ella@jd.com; yuchuan.wang@jd.com )