Sep 16, 2020| JD Retail

Leading UK Baby Food Brand Signs Cooperation Agreement with JD.com

Ling Cao

by Martin Li

As a result of the new cooperation, leading UK organic baby food brand Little Freddie forecasts 60% growth on the e-commerce platform, JD.com.

On September 12^th, Little Freddie and JD entered into a cooperation agreement with a view to leveraging their respective strengths to accelerate the growth of premium complementary baby foods and to increase Little Freddie’s category penetration on JD.com.

“JD has always paid high attention on the quality of products, which is also a high priority for Little Freddie,” said Jiang Longwu, general manager of JD’s mother and baby product procurement department. “We hope Little Freddie makes full use of its strength to build up its connection with customers by articulating its brand story regarding high quality raw materials, nutritious recipes, world class technical standards and fully traceable product safety.”

Taslim Ho, Little Freddie founder, stated that Little Freddie will continue to invest on JD.com as there remains so much untapped potential given low penetration rates vs. more developed Western markets.

“JD will become an even more important partner to Little Freddie,” she said. “In 2021, we will focus on expanding our market size and continue working together with JD to enhance the consumer offering.”

According to JD.com’s data analysis, complementary baby food is the fastest growing category in the mother and baby products market and customers tend to prefer premium, imported and organic brands.

China’s complementary baby food market increased from RMB 10 billion yuan in 2012 to RMB 40 billion yuan in 2019 with an average 10% growth rate, according to a domestic industry report.

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

Jan 19, 2023| JD Retail

Ambassadors Experience Chinese New Year Shopping and Meal at JD.com

Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

During JD.com’s Chinese New Year (CNY) Grand Promotion in the past two weeks, ambassadors and diplomats to China from 15 countries including Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, Uruguay and others sent their best wishes through videos and livestreaming to consumers at JD.com, while they enthusiastically recommended their countries’ specialties as Chinese people engage in the Spring Festival shopping.

It is a tradition for Chinese people to make special purchases – food in particular, ahead of the Spring Festival(CNY’s Day) with the highlight of a multi-course family dinner on the eve of the new year, which will fall on January 22 this year， ushering in the Chinese lunar new year of the rabbit.

A Chinese meal with imported food and wine

Ambassadors from Thailand, Moldova and Denmark visited SEVEN FRESH, the omni-channel grocery store under JD.com to personally experience the festival preparation atmosphere with local Beijing residents, and enjoyed a special Chinese-style banquet, on January 10, 2023.

Designed by William Wu, the star chef of SEVEN FRESH, the menu manifested the fusion of Chinese tastes with a variety of imported ingredients from countries the ambassadors represent, including black tiger prawns and rice from Thailand, pork from Denmark and wines from Moldova.

Moldovan ambassador to China H.E. Dumitru Braghis was delighted to invite all guests to appreciate the color and flavor of the wines and explained Moldova’s well-established wine industry and long history that offers classic quality wines for Chinese consumers’ choices.

“It’s simply astonishing what you can buy online here in China,” marveled H.E. Dorthe Lange, ambassador-rank Deputy Head of Mission of Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark at the variety of products from all over the world that are available for Chinese customers. Besides the famous Danish butter cookies, Ms. Lange also recommended Danish seafood, pork products and beers as good choices for new year grocery shopping.

Thai ambassador H.E. Atthayut Srisamoot and his wife Mrs.Kamoltip Srisamoot showed more familiarity with Chinese cuisine and the trend of ready-to-eat food. They recommended all kinds of Thai curries, Tom Yum Kung and other prepared cooking products with which customers can easily make delicious Thai dishes at home.

National pavilions and imported live lobsters

With the development of international cold-chain logistics, JD.com has been enhancing efforts in importing more fresh products globally to meet the increasing demand from Chinese consumers. During this year’s CNY sales, the transaction volume of frozen products directly procured by JD Fresh saw strong growth compared with the sales data from last year’s shopping festival, such as black tiger prawns from Thailand (up by 2 times), beef from Argentina (up by4 times), shrimps from Greenland of Denmark(up by 6 times), whereas the transaction volume of live lobsters jumped over 10 times compared with last month. These lobsters are harvested ashore from Canada and delivered to Chinese consumers in as soon as 17 hours through JD’s e-commerce platform, fresh and at a good price.

To facilitate more high-quality products to access the Chinese market, JD.com introduced the National Pavilions project which is supported by embassies, trade associations, and other official institutions, to serve as a window for products of each country to be more identifiable all in one portal and help merchants to test the water of the Chinese market. As of now, nearly 100 national pavilions are set up on JD.com, greatly enriching Chinese consumers’ shopping choices for the new year as strong sales are seen on Italian olive oil, Cyprus’ blue wine, South American mate drink and many more products.

This year marks the 11^th year in a row that JD Logistics commits to non-stop delivery service during the CNY holidays, as part of the company’s commitment to satisfy consumers whenever and wherever they need.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

| ESG, JD Retail

JD.com and APEC Women Leadership Forum Co-Launch Report on Women’s Contributions to Sustainable Consumption and Production

Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

APEC Women Leadership Forum, the premier platform on fostering women’s economic empowerment among the 21 economies of the Asia -Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and JD.com co-launched the “APEC Report: Observation of Women’s Value in Sustainable Consumption and Production,” on January 14 in Sanya Hainan province, which adopted extensive surveys and consumption data to examine the role of women as both producers and consumers in advancing sustainability.

The report found that women instinctively lead the green consumption path with their actions, and their shopping choices often determine the consumption patterns of each household. Meanwhile, women demonstrate prominent leadership in driving the “Sustainability/ SDG / CSR” fields in the corporate world.

Shopping greener “before you know it”

Based on the results of a survey conducted by JD.com’s Consumption and Industry Development Institute on over 2,000 respondents on the topic of responsible consumption, women weigh “environmentally friendly” as a much higher consideration than men when considering products. In fact, it is the only factor on which they outscored men, whereas the latter showed comparatively more concerns for other factors such as brand, culture, and price.

Interestingly, when being asked about the concept and their understanding of sustainable consumption, female respondents gave themselves more moderate ratings than male did, with only 49.75 percent choosing “understand very well” and “understand,” while 31.19 percent opted for “not sure.” However, their feedback on actual shopping choices unveiled a stronger tendency towards energy-saving, trade-in, replaceable and recyclable products, especially in the categories of home appliances, furnishing and decorations, office supplies, car accessories, footwear, health products and more. These results demonstrate that women may have a deeper understanding about the concept of sustainable consumption than they give themselves credit for, as they are more likely to choose sustainable products instinctively.

When asked, “Which player is more important in promoting sustainable consumption?” Forty-four percent of female respondents chose “consumers” over “product makers” （30 percent）, and “circulators” (27 percent). Female respondents also showed higher approval of producers for behavior categories including offering job opportunities, supporting disadvantaged groups, proper waste handling and more.

Shaping sustainable producers with “SHE Power”

With more and more enterprises setting up the dedicated function of “Sustainability/ SDG /CSR,” the role to implement these initiatives is mainly led by women, accounting for over 60 percent in surveyed companies that have set up such dedicated departments, and 82 percent in other companies that have relevant positions, according to APEC Women Leadership Forum’s research on women business leaders, in a new attempt to study women’s role as producers in sustainable consumption.

According to the surveys on which the report is based, women leaders demonstrate stronger focus on long-term value and innovation for sustainable solutions, with respondents expressing that they started formulating relevant thinking 6 to 10 years ago (30 percent). A majority are driven by the factors of “enterprise development need” (76 percent), “inspired by global trends” (73 percent), and “guided by domestic policies” (73 percent).

The report also noted that it is urgent for the whole society to enhance awareness of responsible consumption and production amid global uncertainties in order to continue making progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal. Meanwhile, how to strike a balance between the Goal and enterprise ROI, and the lack of unified ESG standards, talents and corporate capacities, all pose threats to this course.

As a leading supply chain-based technology and service provider, JD.com is committed to collaborating with upstream and downstream partners and the whole society to collectively build a more productive and sustainable world. JD.com’s green supply chain efforts, known as the “Green Stream Initiative,” have so far engaged more than 300,000 enterprises in carbon reduction activities ranging from packaging, warehousing, transportation, product recycling and more. On the demand side, the company introduced the “Green Impact Initiative” in May 2022, which made nearly a million kinds of products on its platform more identifiable with environmentally-friendly labels, in order to raise awareness among its hundreds of millions users.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)