by Rachel Liu

International child safety seat brands and high-end products are getting more popular on JD, said a sales manager from JD today.

In China, concern for children’s safety on the roads is rising. JD Super, JD’s online supermarket will work with brand partners to increase the market penetration of child safety seats especially in lower tier cities in China, providing more diversified products to better protect children’s safety.

The China Child Safety Seats Industry White Paper released by JD Super, China Certification Center for Automotive Products, and Hubei Daily Media Group on Apr. 16 shows that the market size of Child Safety Seats will reach hundreds of billions of RMB. The current penetration rate of child safety seats in China is far below that of developed countries. According to the white paper, the child safety seats industry in China will increase 10-20 times in the next five to 10 years.

Sales of the safety seats category on JD grew 86.6% YOY during 2019 and 91.6% during Q1 2021, with a slight dip in 2020 due to COVID-19. The most important factors that impact customers’ shopping decisions when buying safety seats are safety, price and easy installation, according to the white paper. Most of the customers prefer to choose well-known brands.

“British brand Britax is the best-selling brand among child safety seat brands on JD. Cybes and osann from Germany, and Maxi Cosi from Holland are also among Top 10 brands,” said the JD sales manager. “Another interesting trend that we saw is that demand from customers from lower-tier markets is increasing. Sales of child safety seats by customers in sixth-tier cities ranked No.3 on JD.”

JD is continuously introducing more child safety seat brands to the platform, and sales of the products have seen double digit increases every year.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Ella Kidron

Chinese consumers can expect even faster delivery speeds in the future thanks to proximity advantages. Mr. Chenkai Ling, Vice President of JD.com, and Head of Strategy, JD Retail, shared his views on this during the World Retail Congress’ WRC Connected 2021 virtual event on Apr. 26. The discussion was moderated by Benjamin Zheng, lead partner of global strategy consulting firm EY-Parthenon.

“With the booming of e-commerce, especially after JD joined this domain, I think in China delivery speed already reached a very high standard,” said Ling, referring to the fact that nationwide same-day and next day delivery has become standard in the country. “But with the expansion into more categories of e-commerce, especially FMCG and fresh products, and also during this pandemic period, consumers’ demand for quicker fulfillment has become more and more apparent.” Combining the technology and retail expertise of retailers like with the proximity advantages of brick and mortar stores can enable faster delivery speeds than before.

“To put it into perspective, previously when a new product launched, for example a cellphone, we would work together with a brand to anticipate sales and then store these products into our warehouses closest to the consumer,” said Ling.

Right now with an advanced on-demand fulfillment network, we can help equip those brick and mortar stores that are closest to the customer with some capabilities so that they can act as an extension of our fulfillment network, which means fewer miles traveled, lower costs and faster speeds than before,” he added. JD has already achieved delivery within 30 minutes in several categories and the company expanding the service to more categories.

In March, JD announced an equity investment in Dada Group, China’s leading local on-demand delivery and retail platform of US$800 million in newly issued ordinary shares of Dada, which is also JD’s long-term partner in on-demand. “With that investment, both of us will facilitate and promote an expansion of the -demand fulfillment delivery, which can better suit the needs of Chinese consumers’ higher demands on delivery speed,” shared Ling.

Watch the whole session by registering for Retail Connected 2021 here.

Chenkai Ling, JD.com speaks with Benjamin Zheng, EY at Retail Connected 2021

(ella@jd.com)

by Vivian Yang

JD Books initiated a collaboration with eight publishing houses in China to develop a special set of Newbery Medal-winning children’s books introduced online on Apr. 23.

To prepare this book set, JD Books worked with eight publishers collectively to identify selection criteria and sifted the best from the bests. Eventually, 20 classic storybooks, which have all been translated into Chinese, were selected as the first standard-setting collection. The time period in which the books won Newbery Medals spans near a century from 1922 to 2018.

“This book set covers a wide range of themes including life, growth, love, friendship, adventure and more,” said a representative of JD Books. “There is always a book that can help children handle their growing pains and support their healthy development.”

For a long time, the promotion of Newbery Medal books in China has been facing the issues of decentralized copyright holders and lack of translation standards. To break the status quo, JD Books worked to put together premier resources from multiple publishers and reached a consensus with all to introduce the new Newbery Medal book set, providing high-quality and convenient reading choices for Chinese children.

The book combo sets a new benchmark for future collaboration on book selection and promotion for award-winning children’s books via JD’s platform. Also, it is an important demonstration of JD Books’ ability to use the Customer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) model to identify market demand, create popular products and pool resources to generate incremental growth for its partners, according to the representative of JD Books.

Founded in 1922, the Newbery Medal was named for British publisher of books John Newbery (July 9, 1713 – December 22, 1767), considered “The Father of Children’s Literature”, who first made children’s literature a sustainable and profitable part of the market. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. It is also known as the Oscar of children’s literature that has been widely welcomed by kids around the world.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)