by Hui Zhang

Continental, the world’s fourth-largest tire manufacturer from Germany and the largest automotive parts supplier in Europe, was awarded by JD.com as one of its Top 10 Smart Brand Partners at a May 20 kick-off event for this year’s 618 Grand Promotion (June 1-18).

In addition to Continental, some of the other brands receiving the awards of this category include, Samsung, Midea, OnePlus, Omron, and Xiaodu, a Baidu-owned AI speaker brand.

Continental, which develops pioneering technologies and services for the sustainable and connected mobility of people and their goods, has been constantly offering safe, efficient, intelligent and affordable solutions transportation and traffic solutions since 1871.

List of TOP 10 Smart Brand Partners including Continental, Samsung, Midea, OnePlus, Omron, Xiaodu, Yuwell, Garmin, Kaadas, and CHEERS

Continental and JD.com have continued to innovative cooperation in supply chain, consumer experiences, and after-sale services since partnering in 2017. In that year, sales of the brand increased 150% y-o-y from April to December. JD has successfully helped Continental tires to break into the Chinese market. Continental was awarded as the “2019 JD Retail Fastest Growing Brand”.

Leveraging JD’s omni-channel capabilities, both sides have deep cooperation to fulfill consumers’ rising demands of tire installation, exchange and maintenance. JD’s online and offline business which not only allow car owners to buy high-quality auto-related products, but also make it easy for them to access to JD’s offline auto maintenance stores to repair their cars. As of now, JD has opened over 1,200 car maintenance stores across 163 cities in China, serving over 10 million consumers. Consumers can purchase Continental tires on JD and go to the offline JD Auto shop nearest to them for services.

Following a successful partnership, the two sides announced agreements at the at the first China International Consumer Products Expo (Hainan Expo), earlier this month in Haikou, Hainan province, to further enhance consumer experiences.

“The JD Life and Services business unit was established to provide services to consumers within a three-kilometer radius of their residence. Our cooperation with Continental will further fulfill diversified needs of consumers and help both sides realize business growth,” said Minxian Wang, general manager of the auto products department within the JD Life and Services business unit.

 

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

by Hui Zhang

Union Chimique Belge (UCB), a leading global biopharmaceutical company from Belgium, was rewarded by JD.com as one of its Top 10 Supply Chain Partners at a May 20 kick-off event for this year’s 618 Grand Promotion from June 1-18^th.

UCB was rewarded along with other companies including P&G, Unilever, Li-Ning, and Chinese home appliances giant, Haier, etc.

The partnership which began in November 2019 takes advantage of JD’s strength in supply chain and e-commerce capabilities and UCB’s years of research and development focusing on treatments for severe diseases particularly in the fields of central nervous system (CNS) disorders (including epilepsy), inflammatory disorders (including allergies), and oncology. The two parties are also exploring how to help patients and make it easy for them to buy drugs at affordable prices online.

Representatives from P&G, Unilever, Li-Ning, Haier, Deli, JOMOO, Lam pure, winxuan.com, UCB China, and Zhenyun Technology receiving awards

In April, 2021, JD became the agent for UCB’s Cetirizine Dihydrochloride tablets for the treatment of allergies. With the agreement, JD Health will be working as an agent for a pharmaceutical company to undertake UCB’s online and offline pharmaceutical distribution businesses.

Last February, UCB joined JD Health’s platform to connect chronic patients with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies and provide timely information on where they can get the drugs they need, online or offline.

Coping with rising demands from patients with epilepsy during the pandemic, UCB in partnership with JD Health also jointly launched an Epilepsy Service Center within JD’s app to provide expert knowledge through livestreaming, pictures, and tests, online consultations, and medical drugs. Patients can enjoy a one-stop services covering medical reviews, repeat prescriptions, drug purchasing and delivery. So far, the service center has gathered more than 500 epilepsy specialists (both adult and pediatric) from major hospitals across China.

“We will take our cooperation with UCB as a starting point to continue strengthening our service capability in pharmaceutical distribution and work with more pharmaceutical companies to enhance the accessibility of quality drugs,” said Enlin Jin, vice president of JD Health and general manager of the company’s medicine business.

“UCB will continue to serve as a bridge between China and Belgium to promote more exchanges and cooperation for the benefit of Chinese and global patients,” said Xin Wu, general manager of UCB China.

 

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

 

by Ling Cao

Zespri was named among the Top 10 Agricultural Product Brands by JD, at an award ceremony held today at Zhengda Center, Beijing. At the event, JD kicked off this year’s 618 Grand Promotion.

Tao Lu, sales director of Zespri China (second from left) attended the award ceremony on May 20 at Zhengda Center, Beijing

Since 2016 JD and Zespri have cooperated to expand kiwifruit offerings in China. In March 2020, JD became the world’s first online retailer to supply Zespri kiwis from the brand directly to consumers. Despite the impact suffered from COVID-19 in 2020, JD Fresh sold 1.46 million boxes of Zespri kiwis the whole year, far exceeding expectations.

Shijie Jiang, general manager of the Greater China region at Zespri said, “Since 2019 China has been Zespri’s biggest single market, and it holds great potential in customer penetration rate and annual sales volume.”

E-commerce and doorstep-delivery are important growth channels for Zespri in China, Jiang said. “We will join hands with JD to build a closer relationship with our customers.”

Carol Fung, president of JD FMCG Omni-channel said, “As one of the top fresh produce brands for JD Fresh, Zespri has gained sustainable growth in customer base, traffic flow and sales. We are looking forward to deepening our cooperation in omni-channel, supply chain and marketing, to achieve even greater success and satisfaction among our customers.”

Based on JD’s nationwide cold chain logistics network as well as omni-channel retail model, JD and Zespri have expanded fruit supply directly from the brands to more cities in China, covering north, east and south China. JD has also provided special refund policies and other specific services to guarantee a superior customer experience.

In April, Zespri opened a new sales session of kiwis on JD, combining the resources of JD’s Yihaodian and SEVEN FRESH, with both sides announcing special benefits for customers.

Shijie Jiang (middle); Tao Lu, sales director of Zespri China (third from left); Guohui Huang, marketing director of Zespri’s Greater China region (second from left); and Xiang Gao, e-commerce director of Zespri China, kicked off a new kiwifruit sales session at JD, along with Carol Fung (third from right); Wei Ye, head of JD Fresh (second from right) and Xiaozhou Zhou (fruits department head at JD Fresh) on April 23^rd at JD headquarters.

Today’s award ceremony and kickoff event gathered representatives from JD’s global brand partners, covering Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, the U.K., the U.S. and more. JD presented them with awards in multiple categories, showcasing notable case studies in omni-channel cooperation, Customer-to-Manufacturer (C2M), innovation, smart products, service consumption and supply chain partnership.

 

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Vivian Yang

JD Pet released its upgraded business plan on May 19, pledging to incubate over 50 new tier-1 pet brands within a year through special efforts on pet services, omni-channel development and comprehensive support to brand partners.

During a partner’s conference in Beijing, JD Pet unveiled its value-added pet service packages, which range from pet food shopping, care services, medical services, to insurance policies and more. With these services, customers can not only enjoy standard JD shopping benefits such as 7-day price guarantees, flash return services and shipment insurance, but also customized services for pet owners like taste-test-before-buying offers, gift packs for new “pet parents,” healthcare insurance for pets and more.

Lu Liu, general manager of JD Pet, stressed the importance of omni-channel development in driving growth of the industry. Liu noted that more support needs to be given to offline pet service chain brands which provide offline grooming services and more. At the same time, the pandemic has driven many customers online for pet-related shopping. For this reason, JD Pet wants to connect the online demands and offline services.

Lu Liu, general manager of JD Pet

“JD Pet aims to create a nationwide network for pet brands both online and offline,” Liu said at the event. “The network can offer B2B connections between pet brands and brick-and-mortar stores, as well as O2O connections between offline stores and online customers.”

For online brand partners, JD Pet will make full use of its highly-efficient logistics network and on-demand one-hour delivery consumption models to empower them to reach a wider range of customers and improve customers’ shopping experiences.

During the partners’ conference, a number of pet brands received awards from JD Pet in recognition of their online sales performance and collaboration with JD. For example, Poqii, FRONTLINE,  Drymax, Royal and Myfoodie gained “The Most Influential Award”; and Nourse, Mars, Pure&Natural, PROPLAN, Navarch and Ziwi  received “The Super Brand Award.”

Award ceremony at JD Pet partners conference 2021

Ahead of the upcoming JD 618 Grand Promotion, JD Pet and JD Finance will co-launch a philanthropy project in which customers who purchase items through JD’s own payment systems can opt to donate food to stray dogs in collaboration with an animal protection foundation.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Vivian Yang

Trend #1

Enthusiasm for brands from both home and abroad

The rise of “China-chic” is an obvious trend since 2020 as Chinese consumers increasingly embrace products from domestic Chinese brands. This can be attributed to Chinese consumer’s more mature consumption mindset and local brands’ increasing channel penetration. Domestic brands in food & beverages, beauty & personal care, baby & maternal categories are showing a particularly strong rise.

According to a report by the JD Big Data Research Institute released on May 10, compared with international brands, the transaction volume growth of Chinese brands is 6% higher, while growth in consumers is over 18% higher, YOY. The highest ratio of consumption of domestic products is in tier 6 markets, but the appeal of Chinese brands to consumers in tier 1-5 cities is also rapidly increasing, among which the tier 2 cities are seeing the fastest growth.

JD’s C2M mooncakes featuring the Forbidden City

Meanwhile, Chinese consumers’ appetite for international brands is not going away. Imported products in luxury, healthcare and other categories maintained high-speed growth in the past year, prompting foreign brands to seek more innovative ways to align with local culture, social norms and customers’ shopping behaviors.

JD Worldwide, JD’s platform for imported products with over 10 million SKUs, celebrated its sixth anniversary on April 15. More than 20,000 imported brands from over 100 countries participated in the anniversary shopping festival, with purchases of more than 1,000 brands increasing by over 100% compared with the day before, indicating the surging demands for international brand consumption at home and the recognition of innovative marketing approaches.

JD Worldwide opened a duty-free store in Sanya, Hainan

Trend #2

Omni-Channel at Full Speed

China has become the benchmark for omni-channel retailing. The business model, which aims to meet customers’ diversified shopping demand whenever and wherever they need, asks for optimized supply chain capacities to deliver state-of-the-art shopping experiences.

As the vanguard in omni-channel supply chain management in China, JD’s omni-channel approach extends across multiple categories and industries, with its over 12,000 offline home appliance experience stores across China serving as a clear example of how offline stores can add value for consumers.

So far, JD.com has achieved one-hour on-demand delivery services for digital products, fresh groceries, medicines, even luxury products and more in many Chinese cities, enabled by JD Logistics’ nationwide logistics network as well as in collaboration with Dada Group. The company is expanding the model to cover more areas, customer cohorts and all categories, in order to improve overall retail efficiency, meet consumers’ diversified and instant needs for purchases of goods and services, and create value for merchants and consumers.

A JD Computer and Digital offline store

Trend #3

The Emergence of New Categories

Generation Z is becoming the main force of consumption in the market. JD’s data shows that in 2020, Gen-Z had the highest growth rate in online shopping turnover, at 23% higher than the average growth rate of the entire platform. A slew of new brands in new product segments are emerging on the internet as answers to young people’s need for individualization and new shopping experiences.

For instance, as many young people in China are getting more indoorsy and wanting to eat healthier, JD’s recent consumption studies identified several popular new food categories, such as pre-prepared dishes known as “fast-hand dishes”, buffalo milk, low-alcohol wine, compound condiments, enzymes, dietary fiber snacks, vegetarian meat and so on.

With JD’s Customer-to-Manufacturers (C2M) model which leverages AI, big data, and supply chain technologies to help partners to analyze consumption trends and insights based on JD’s 500 million user base, the company vows to create 10,000 new C2M products to better meet customers’ need in the next three years.

JD Super released seven new trending food categories in May

Trend #4

Lower-tier Cities and Rural Revitalization

Online retail is quickly going deep into China’s lower-tier markets, with more diversified shopping demands and consumption upgrading trends being seen. Consumers from mid to lower-tier cities are spending more than their peers from 1^st and 2^nd tier cities on home appliances and smart devices in part because they continue to buy property at affordable prices in these areas.

There’s an indication that in recent years more migrant workers have moved their children’s future education plans from the big cities to their hometowns, possibly also reflecting an overall improvement in the employment opportunities available closer to home. The trend can be verified by the orders’ addresses and consumption growth of JD’s children’s books and auxiliary teaching materials.

On the other hand, agricultural products in scalable production and good brand awareness become a vibrant driving force for rural revitalization. Up to now, JD’s platform has realized RMB 580 billion yuan in transaction volume of agricultural products. A JD survey published on Mar. 4 shows that the procurement volume of agricultural product merchants has seen explosive growth with the help of e-commerce, growing 51% and 82% YOY in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

The company aims to build a full supply chain for agricultural products covering planting, transportation, and sales, integrating upstream and downstream agricultural industry players through a products circulation middle platform. It also works directly with farmers or local partners to build up brands and add value to premier agricultural products, such as in the case of JD’s collaboration with Wuchang in Heilongjiang province to nurture the iconic “Wuchang rice” brand.

The owner and her friends of a JD convenience store in Qinghai province 

Trend #5

Responsible Consumption

Chinese consumers demonstrate rising tendency towards products which embody features like original, environmental-friendly, renewable, organic and more. This propels all the participants of the entire supply chain to collaborate closely to adopt eco-friendly measures in product offerings ranging from product design, procurement, transportation to end-of-life disposal.

As China’s largest retailer and a leading supply chain solution provider, JD.com is pioneering the ecosystem approach to green supply chain management in China. Under the “Green Stream Initiative” which was jointly initiated by JD and its partners, including P&G, Nestle, Lego, Unilever, WWF and more in 2017, a number of decarbonizing actions have been implemented throughout the supply chain.

JD.com released its first ESG report on Apr. 19. Stemming from its mission of “Powered by Technology for a More Productive and Sustainable World,” the report highlights JD’s long-term approach to ESG initiatives. It captures JD’s corporate social responsibility strategic framework, which is centered on using digitally intelligent supply chain to cover three pillars: boosting the real economy, improving social efficiency and enhancing environmental friendliness. A few areas worth noting include: green supply chain, green data centers, poverty alleviation and giving.

JD’s Green Stream delivery boxes 

Trend #6

Product + Service

From mobile phone trade-in plans, online medical consultations, at-home installation services to buying apartment via VR technologies online, service consumption is growing by leaps and bounds in China. On the one hand, the development of O2O and standardized services offered by trustworthy platforms like JD.com provide ultra-convenience and a peace of mind to consumers encouraging the adoption of buying services on the internet.

On the other hand, merchants are quickly seizing the opportunities to create services customized to e-commerce scenarios to satisfy the need of their customers. JD Auto’s cooperation with ExxonMobil is a prime case. The two companies will not only work on creating more tailor-made lubricant products for Chinese customers, but also integrate their offline car maintenance resources, namely JD Auto Service stores and Mobil 1 Car Care Outlet, to provide convenient and reliable services to car owners on the ground, Meanwhile, customers will be able to enjoy more shared benefits from both JD Auto and Mobil’s membership programs.

JD Life and Service business division focuses on providing O2O local life services within a 3-kilometer radius of people’s work and life, including car maintenance, real estate, travel, auction, fresh flowers delivery, home cleaning and other convenience services, with the goal to provide a “product + service” consumption model for more consumers.

A JD’s omnichannel car mantainance store – JD Auto Service

Trend #7

Supply Chain + Technology

The digitalization is happening quickly on both the consumption end and in the entire industrial value chain. For example, JD has applied its AI and big data technologies in creating its C2M products, crafting marketing content like product introductions for its e-commerce platform, and helping manufacturers to automatically inspect product quality on assembly lines.

By deeply engaging with manufacturers, suppliers, brand partners, and online shoppers, JD.com is at a unique position to gain and integrate its rich know-how in both the digital and real economies.

Now the company is opening up its core capacities in digital intelligent supply chain and cutting-edge technologies to support all businesses and partners with the goal of improving cost, efficiency and users’ experience, so as to optimize social resources for sustainable growth that benefits customers, businesses, industries, and the environment.

JD built a supply chain management platform for Hubei province at the peak of Anti-Covid-19 fight 

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

JD’s second E-Space store soft opens on May 19 in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui province. The store will be officially open on June 18^th, the peak day of JD’s 618 Grand Promotion.

Like the 50,000 square-meter JD E-Space store in Chongqing, the  store in Hefei also provides customers with immersive shopping experiences in multiple product categories, including home appliances, electronics, digital products, beauty, health and fitness, daily necessities and more. The 40,000 square-meter store welcomes over 500 brands, and over 200,000 SKUs are available for sale in store. To allow customers to enjoy state-of-the-art products and technologies, the store set up 11 “experience areas” including camera and photography, mobile gaming, computer gaming, beauty, sleeping, cooking and kitchenware, health-related products, outdoor sports, bakery, wine tasting and more. The extensive experience areas mean that E-Space can become part of the fabric of consumers’ everyday lives, serving as a “fourth place” for friends of all ages looking to gather together.

JD 5Star, the home appliance chain store brand that JD fully acquired in 2020, will be responsible for the operations of the store, combining JD’s supply chain advantages with 5Star’s experience in offline store operations.

“The first JD E-Space store in Chongqing was a great success. We saw strong sales performance in the store in the past year, and the store also became a destination for local customers to experience new products and have fun,” said Yiqing Pan, president of JD 5Star: “This give us great confidence in opening the Hefei store and more stores to come. We hope that the new JD E-Space will bring high-quality service and omni-channel shopping experience to local customers.”

In the Hefei JD E-Space store, the prices of products are synced in real time with prices on JD.com, ensuring customers always get the most favorable price for any product QR codes available next to all of the products in the store, which enables easy ordering without the hassle of having to take purchases home. The store is equipped with an adjacent warehouse, however, making it possible to take items home rather than having to wait for delivery, if desired.

Another highlight of the store is the services it provides. For example, for customers looking to engage in home decor, the Hefei JD E-Space store can provide space design, delivery and installment services for home appliances. In the future, Hefei residents can have their consumer electronics repaired at the store, no matter where the product was purchased.

 

(liuchang61@jd.com)