Jul 2, 2020|
JD’s Observation: Three Trends for Service Consumption
by Vivian Yang
JD Life and Services provides online-to-offline services covering car maintenance, travel booking, home-buying, auctions and fresh flowers delivery. As the provider of diversified services, which attend to various consumer needs and have a long consumption chain, JD Life and Services has been striving to improve its “Product + Service” integration model to let customers immerse themselves in handy, fluid and tailored-made shopping experiences.
Such integrated services have been well-received by customers as reflected in JD’s 618 Grand Promotion consumption data. Three trends about the rise of service consumption are identified:
Rise of Spending on High-Quality Services
From buying goods to buying services, Chinese consumers’ demand for services that enable greater life convenience has grown rapidly in recent years while JD ensures that customers are in good hands with premium service providers and omnichannel solutions.
For the automotive aftermarket, online-to-offline conversion rates keep going up. During 618, over 80% tire buyers on JD selected platform-offered offline car repair services. Transaction volume of car maintenance services on JD increased 293% YoY.
JD Real Estate introduced an RMB 6.18 yuan (less than US$1) “Five Benefits Service Package”, comprising of housing selection assistance, exclusive offers, price protection, “cancel for any reason” insurance, and online reservation. During 618, over 500,000 home-buying orders were made with these standard benefits on JD.com.
Increased Demand for Door-to-Door Services
From going out to search and shop to matching products and services and deliver them to customers’ doorsteps, JD Life and Services leverages its technology, resources, channels and infrastructure to make the shopping process more transparent and efficient.
For example, flower service has long been bugged by problems such as decentralized planting, long supply chain, high risk of packaging damage, and inconsistent service quality. To solve these pain points, JD brought in its cold chain logistics and Allianz insurance services (JD has a 30% stake in Allianz China) in its flowers booking and delivery service, standardizing several products and services, such as one-hour flash delivery. The transaction volume of flowers on JD platform increased by 150% during 618 Grand Promotion.
Through developing door-to-door services, JD is plugging in more and more quality guaranteed offline merchants and service providers on the platform who make daily chores easier for JD customers and gradually help JD Life and Services expand its business scope at the same time. For example, during 618, laundry pick-up service orders increased 15 times. Online payment for bills of electricity, water, gas, phone services, and more increased 9 times compared with the same period last year.
Enthusiasm for Offbeat Products and Services
Many offbeat products and services are finding favor with customers. For example, young customers who seek to display their lifestyles via their motorcycle gear, are seeking more personalized and fashionable products on JD. JD has held several cycling culture events and enriched product selection and after-sales services to meet this demand. During 618, transaction volume of retro motorcycles increased 5 times YoY.
Online auction starts to gain traction as well. During 618, JD offered an array of auction items, including house properties, jewelries, luxury goods, ceramics, art collections, handicrafts, tea and wine, automobiles, etc. Online auction of old coins has been viewed more than 1.21 million times, and auction of Pu-erh tea cakes has been viewed over 270,000 times during 618.
According to China’s National Statistics Bureau, service consumption expenditure in 2019 accounted for 45.9% of per capita household consumption expenditure, 1.7% higher than in 2018. The steady growth is mainly attributed to the country’s rapid urbanization and the widespread consumption upgrade.
Compared with the over 60% share of service consumption expenditure in developed economies like the US and Japan, China has vast potential to further develop in this field. Under the backdrop of post-COVID economic recovery, JD is playing its role in boosting the development of service consumption based on the trust it builds with both the customers and merchants as well as the insights it has accumulated through integrating online and offline consumption.
Apr 22, 2024|
JD.com Debuts AI Digital Representative of Founder Richard Liu During Livestream, Drawing 20 Million Views in Under One Hour
During a livestream on April 16th, JD.com introduced an AI digital representative of its founder, Richard Liu (Qiangdong Liu), nicknamed “procurement and sales manager Brother Dong (采销东哥).” Liu appeared in both JD Home Appliances and JD Supermarket’s livestreaming rooms, attracting over 20 million views within the first hour and generating RMB 50 million in sales throughout the entire livestream.
The digital representative almost perfectly replicates Liu’s facial expressions, body language, gestures, and voice, capturing even the subtlest movements of his fingers. Behind this technology is JD Cloud’s ChatRhino, an advanced large language model (LLM) that brings the avatar to life.
Behind the Technology
The LLM precisely mirrors Liu’s distinctive expressions and movements, naturally weaving in his occasional finger twiddles while he speaks, accentuating points with hand gestures, and adding nods at just the right moments for emphasis, creating a natural and authentic representation. Perfecting the voice proved to be a greater challenge. Those who have heard Liu speak are well-acquainted with the distinct inflections of his Suqian accent—a characteristic touch from his small-town roots in Jiangsu province. Observers will note the brisk pace of his speech, lighter enunciation, and his tendency to meld words in a seamless flow. His “sh” sounds carry a nasal quality, and he often addresses people as “brothers” to boost morale.
While programming the standard Mandarin dialect is relatively straightforward, teaching the AI to adopt the nuances of the Suqian dialect and Liu’s unique vocal patterns required a precise level of customization from the ChatRhino LLM. For example, the LLM had to provide accurate judgments on when to introduce the nasal tonality or the specific moments to merge words, ensuring the AI’s linguistic output mirrored Liu’s signature speaking style authentically.
Beyond replicating vocal characteristics, the AI’s voice must also be suitable for the casual, dynamic atmosphere of e-commerce livestreaming, such as adopting colloquialisms like “xiong di men” — a phrase comparable to “folks” or “guys” in English — to create a friendly rapport with the audience. JD Cloud’s ChatRhino team fine-tuned the model to focus on sociable nuances. The initial dataset for the LLM consisted predominantly of Liu’s formal speeches—spirited and compelling, yet too ceremonious for the interactive world of livestreaming. To cultivate a more congenial and approachable persona, the team utilized Liu’s recent casual conversations as the primary source material, rich with personal anecdotes and travel tales. This approach shaped the AI’s voice into one that is that is not only natural and approachable but also genuinely engaging for the end user.
As a fully self-developed technology product of JD Cloud, the ChatRhino Digital Representative solution has already served over 4,000 brand merchants, contributing to a 30% increase in order conversion rate during idle hours and helping merchants reduce livestreaming costs, enhance operational efficiency, and optimize user experience. Equipped with 50,000 hours of voice data, this technology enables digital representatives to intelligently adapt to various livestreaming styles dynamically.
The AI is also adept at managing 70% of routine live chat inquiries autonomously without any manual intervention, while also optimizing its responses with a self-improving algorithm. For instance, digital representatives can autonomously fields questions using product details and scripts, and post-livestream, and assimilate new information. Mirroring the acumen of seasoned sales professionals, it boasts a 90% accuracy rate in offering tailored product recommendations when solicited by customers.
The recent introduction of a cutting-edge livestream control console serves as the “brain” for the digital representative solution. It diligently monitors real-time inventory, adjusting the showcased products in the livestream and tailoring the script to ensure relevance—sidestepping items that are out of stock and spotlighting those in high demand. It also gauges and fine-tunes the frequency and style of interactions based on live audience engagement. With this advanced platform, businesses managing multiple livestreams can effortlessly operate thousands of sessions concurrently via cloud services, bypassing the need for intricate local setups. This innovation yields a substantial cost reduction of 30%.
Human-Machine Synergy
The intention behind digital avatars is not to outshine or compete with human talent but to harness the potential of technology to work in concert with livestreamers, maximizing overall growth. Essentially, the digital representative solution serves as a tool for brands and merchants to leverage long-tail traffic once real livestreamers conclude their broadcasts. JD’s analytics indicate this strategy can boost order conversion rates by 30% during off-peak hours, such as late into the night.
Digital representatives also excel in specific product categories that require detailed explanations, such as health products like nursing beds, electric wheelchairs, and oxygen concentrators. The solution can provide constant, round-the-clock guidance, adding substantial value to livestreams when traffic is typically lower.
Last week, JD.com announced an investment of one billion yuan into video content creation. This investment underscores JD’s commitment to leveraging the power of short videos and livestreams to transform the online shopping experience for its users and create new growth avenues for brand merchants.
Apr 20, 2024|
JD.com Unveils Ambitious Plans for 618 Grand Promotion: Aiming to More Than Double High-Performing Merchants
JD.com is gearing up for this year’s 618 Grand Promotion with an ambitious goal: to more than double the number of merchants achieving sales over one million yuan on its platform. At the recent Conference of Merchants and Ecosystem Partners on April 18, JD.com introduced a range of supportive initiatives aimed at achieving this ambitious target.
Sandy Xu, CEO of JD.com, noted at the conference that the company will dedicate significant resources to bolster traffic support, incorporate advanced AI technology, and enhance service capabilities. These efforts are particularly focused on empowering third-party merchants, including small and medium-sized enterprises in its marketplace.
Key initiatives include optimizing the platform’s traffic distribution ecosystem to prioritize highly-rated stores and products and competitively priced products through enhanced search and recommendation mechanisms. Additionally, JD.com will continue to offer merchants free access to high-traffic channels, which include significant incentives such as the popular 10-billion-yuan discount and free shipping programs.
To engage more content creators, JD.com recently announced that it will allocate over one billion yuan in cash incentives and traffic resources. This investment aims to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem that supports merchants’ traffic, business growth, and innovation.
At the core of JD.com’s strategy is technological innovation, which involves integrating AI-driven solutions into merchant operations. This includes the deployment of JD’s proprietary large language model, ChatRhino, and an AI-empowered merchant operation platform that offers are variety of free AI applications, and more. These technologies streamline various operations scenarios, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs for merchants.
For instance, On April 16th, JD.com unveiled an AI digital avatar of its founder, Richard Liu, as a sales host on its livestreaming platform. This event attracted 20 million viewers in just one hour and generated sales exceeding RMB 50 million ($6.9 million). This AI-driven virtual host technology, developed by JD Technology, is now supporting over 4,000 brands on the platform. Additionally, merchants such as a sashimi knife seller can utilize JD.com’s AIGC content generation tool to quickly produce high-quality demonstration images, bypassing traditional costs associated with product photography.
JD.com also continues to enhance its service capabilities, particularly for small and medium-sized merchants. This includes personalized business guidance, comprehensive training programs, and upgraded after-sales services, ensuring a seamless shopping experience for customers.
As of March 2024, JD.com has seen a significant increase in active third-party merchants on its platform, surpassing one million. This growth is a testament to the platform’s effectiveness and its appeal to both new and established merchants.
100% of JD’s Nucleic Acid Tests on Fresh Produce Are Negative
