JD’s Data Insights Help Top Consumer Goods Brands Boost Sales

JD is teaming up with several of the world’s top fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands to provide data-driven insights about how best to cater to Chinese consumers. Launched several years ago, JD’s Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) model leverages JD’s big data and customer analysis capabilities to optimize a brand’s products specifically to meet unique demands of the Chinese market.

Two household favorites, Huggies diapers and Head & Shoulders shampoo, are the latest brands to benefit from JD’s C2M initiative, resulting in significant sales increases. These successes were announced at JD’s recent annual FMCG conference, where the company gathered more than 900 representatives from top brand partners to share its business strategy for the coming year, including its continued focus on C2M projects.

As China’s largest retailer with more than 300 million customers, JD has access to a vast database of customer feedback. JD’s specialized data analytics tools, which can perform sophisticated key word searches and trend analyses, helped Huggies understand how to maximize performance and comfort of their diapers in the Chinese market and boost customer satisfaction. Last year, after leveraging JD’s extensive consumer insights to better understand the reasons for the rising popularity of domestic Chinese diaper brands, which mostly use composite material rather than wood pulp, Huggies released a new composite material version of its diapers in China. This material doesn’t become rough when soiled, making it more comfortable for longer term wear. Since the new product’s launch last year on JD’s “Super New Product Day” — a sales event that helps brands drive more traffic and market new products to the e-commerce giant’s consumer base — sales of the new collection accounted for more than 62% of Huggies’ sales on JD. Further, analyzing the frequency of customer diaper shopping trips and babies’ average daily diaper needs led JD and Huggies to introduce a new 104-diaper package that has proved wildly successful for the brand on JD.

Anti-dandruff and scalp-care expert Head & Shoulders also benefitted from JD’s C2M initiative. After analyzing data and customer feedback, JD helped Head & Shoulders see how Chinese consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental friendliness and chemical composition of the products they use. After observing and analyzing the rising popularity of natural hair care products across its platform, JD supported Head & Shoulders launch an exclusive collection of natural shampoo free of silicone. In its first four months, sales of this collection exceeded 10 million RMB.

“JD is unrivaled in its understanding of how China’s consumers shop online, and the insights they provided were invaluable to us in designing this new line of shampoo,” said Janet Cai, e-commerce director of Head & Shoulders, P&G. “P&G looks forward to deepening our partnership with JD to ensure our products fulfil the needs of China’s discerning consumers.”

“As the first-choice online shopping platform for millions of customers in the world’s largest retail market, JD is uniquely placed to advise established consumer brands on how best to tailor their products through a demand-driven production model,” said Carol Fung, president of JD FMCG. “Our deep understanding of customers is based on extensive consumer insights and user feedback, allowing JD to provide valuable advice to our partners in the design of both their products and marketing campaigns.”

JD has also leveraged its C2M capabilities to assist brands in other categories such as consumer electronics. In 2015, JD and HP jointly launched the OMEN Gaming PC built exclusively for gamers. Through deep learning and semantic analysis of millions of customer reviews and searches, combined with market trend analysis and market research, JD and HP customized many aspects of the PC to best suit gamer needs. HP has since launched a series of OMEN gaming products with JD.

In December 2018, Logitech launched the Pebble wireless mouse featuring a modern design with a slim appearance and noise reduction. This particular model was recommended by JD as a result of the platform’s big data analysis identifying “silent” and “slim” as two of the most common search keywords. Logitech began working with JD to identify products that meet changing needs and expectations of consumers in 2015. Since then, sales of Logitech’s “silent” mouse have tripled in China and continue to grow.