Other supplies and 200,000 RMB worth of masks in an hour

In-Depth Report: Technology Transforms Traditional Retail

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Sep 4, 2022 by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu

JD is China’s largest retailer. But now it has grown to be so much more. “JD Retail has transformed from just a retailer to a digital and intelligent company based on supply chain,” said Lei Xu, CEO of JD Retail, during the 2020 JD Discovery (JDD) conference, the annual technology summit that gathers industry experts from all areas of technology held on November 25^thin Beijing.

“In the past years the retail industry has achieved fast growth relying on the bonus of population—but as this wave of expansion recedes, the industry players need to find new paths for growth, especially when there are many uncertainties,” said Xu.

“One of the paths is to realize growth through digital and intelligent transformation in retail industry,” he added. “In the upcoming five to ten years, achieving digital transformation across the industry and leveraging technology will be the main way to achieve growth.”

As an industry leader, JD Retail has been exploring digital transformation, and how to open its technology ability to partners to help them achieve digital transformation. Digitalized retail can bring industry growth from two aspects: the first is to improve the efficiency on production, distribution and service. Take JD’s Omnichannel Fulfillment program for example: when customers place an order on JD, the smart fulfillment system can choose the most effective fulfillment channel to finish the order and deliver the products to customers’ hands in as fast as 15 minutes.

The second is to create more demand. Digitalization can certainly bring more demand from lower-tier markets, elderly consumers, social group consumption and on-demand consumption. JD will not only take the chance to improve its own technology capabilities, but also open up the capabilities to partners. Below are a few examples of JD retail’s practices on digital transformation and helping traditional retail players enjoy the fruits of digitalization.

Open capability of digital transformation

Paul Yan, chair of JD Retail Technology Committee, believes that digitalization and intelligent technology can bring major benefits to the industry, especially combined with JD’s years of experience in retail: it can accelerate the launching of projects, and it can be applied in different scenarios with a flexible fundamental system, saving companies from duplicating work. With this goal, JD Retail launched the technology service ecosystem specifically designed for the retail industry, JD Retail Cloud.

JD Retail Cloud is an ecosystem that connects JD’s strength in technology, business, data and users leveraging its experience in the retail industry, and opening these capabilities to external partners, expanding JD’s ecosystem and providing enterprises and institutions with integrated end-to-end services. Its fundamental product is the JD Polaris Operating System, a replicable system that improves the efficiency of the daily operations of the business.

“The system integrates three key capabilities of JD Retail and can be opened to our partners: the first is business operations capabilities, such as payment, supplier management, transaction and more. The second is customer management capability. We can help brands find targeted customers, introduce new customers and improve the penetration of their brand. The third is data capability, including data analysis, data asset management and more. We believe the system is highly valuable to the retail industry,” said Yan.

The system has been proven effective for empowering JD’s own business. The time needed to deliver the demands from JD Retail has shortened by 50% after using the system when compared with before.

Seeing the result, the team decided to open the ability to outside partners. A leading Chinese auto company applied the system for its own digital transformation. JD Retail identified that the priority for the company is to rebuild its relations with its customers, and decided that the first period of the transformation should be the digitalization of the customer management system, and then move to the digitalization of marketing and supply chain. JD helped the company build an ecommerce platform and generated detailed customer profiles. In the future, the platform will be able to provide digitalized services for marketing, sales and service.

“With JD Retail Cloud as the engine, we can provide technology service for companies on data, customer management, marketing and more, and continue to open JD’s own ecosystem to our partners to create more value,” said Yan.

From C2M and more

C2M is one of the most important practices of JD’s intelligent supply chain. The C2M intelligent platform that JD built can connect brands and customers on customer insights, online circulation, product design, and it has become a leading platform in the industry that can be applied to different kinds of products.

“In the first half of 2020, the demands that JD’s C2M platform received increased 10 times YOY, and the C2M products that JD cultivated also increased nearly 10 times. Before, partners from the electronics and digital products industry are the ones that mostly welcome C2M. But this year, partners from liquors, health supplements, home furnishing, and auto industry are also looking for cooperation on C2M,” said Chen Lin, head of JD’s ecosystem business.

Customer demands have become the key driving force for new product development. “C2M will largely improve the efficiency of the industry through optimizing supply chain,” Lin said. “To do this, we need to achieve digitalization in all aspects from customer analysis, designing, manufacture to product distribution.”

The OMEN series gaming laptop is an iconic C2M product that JD designed with HP. JD first worked with HP in 2015 and jointly launched HP’s first gaming laptop globally, as JD found that many customers were looking for laptops with gaming function. Since then, the OMEN series has been updated every year to meet customers’ demands. As of this year, sales of the series have surpassed RMB 20 billion yuan.

When updating the product this year, JD found that more customers want thinner laptops, as 20% of the customers are students, who not only use the laptop to play games, but also need to carry them to classrooms. What’s more, as many university dormitories in China would stop providing electricity from 11pm, many customers want the batteries to last longer. “I prefer to call C2M as CJM, because JD is playing such an important part in connecting customers with manufacturers. So often we found that even customers don’t know exactly what kinds of products they want, JD had already used their data and knowledge on the market to help us find out,” said Zijun Fan, vice president of HP China.

“For me C2M is about finding the best solution on cost, efficiency and customer experience while putting customers’ demands at the center. Through analyzing sales data, customer searches and reviews, we can lower the risk of launching new products and make the sales result more predictable,” said Tao Ren, head of JD Computer and Digital Products.

In the consumer goods category, young customers in their 20s are rising, and they have more passion on customized products that can express their personalities. COVID-19 has also made the industry more competitive, and more brands want to launch hot-selling products in shorter time. Since this year, JD and P&G has launched nearly 50 C2M products, including with Pampers, Head & Shoulders, and sales have surpassed RMB 1 billion yuan. Over 50% of consumer goods brands on JD have C2M products.

“Digitalized supply chain is very important in C2M,” said Xuejun Ouyang, vice president of omnichannel retail, P&G Greater China. “With digitalization, we can optimize not just a product, but also achieve intelligent production on the whole supply chain. Now P&G doesn’t just work with JD on new product design, but also leverages JD’s data to do procurement, production and inventory management. This is how C2M can provide more value to our business.”

Digitalization can also help brands customize their marketing campaigns. On a marketing campaign for P&G’s SK-II brand, JD’s big data and customer analysis tool found that many SK-II customer are male customers who like to buy premium fresh food and electronics. With this insight, P&G was able to promote the campaign to high potential customers and improve the ROI.

Xiande Zhao, head of CEIBS-GLP Center for Innovation in Supply Chains and Services, commented,“The key of C2M is to connect consumption Internet with industry Internet. On the one side, C2M can get to know customers’ demands and answer them quickly; on the other side, it can connect the complicated processes inside a company and digitalize them to improve efficiency.”

(liuchang61@jd.com)

JD Health’s Report: Non-Invasive HIV Test Kits Are Gaining Popularity

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Sep 28, 2021 by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

JD Health and Wondfo Health, an instant medical test kits provider in China, jointly launched a report on 2020 HIV test products’ online consumption.

The report was launched on November 30^th, one day ahead of the World AIDS Day on December 1^st.

There are three main types of HIV self-testing products on the market in China. According to the report, in 2019, 49% of users chose blood test kits, while about 40% people opted for the combined methods of a blood test and an oral swab. In 2020, however, though the traditional blood test method continues to be people’s first choice, users who chose new methods of saliva or urine-based tests increased by 6% compared with 2019, showing a rising popularity of non-invasive methods.

People’s awareness of sexually transmitted diseases(STD) keeps rising, as the report shows. In the past two years, HIV tests accounted for 75% of tests for STD, while syphilis and hepatitis accounted for about 20% and 5 % respectively. In the third quarter of 2020, joint testing of HIV + syphilis and HIV + hepatitis B and C increased by nearly 10% compared with the same period last year.

According to the report, 90% of online buyers of HIV self-testing kits in year 2018-2019 are young males. But the report also points out that females, especially those from high-stakes rural areas, are facing growing risks. UNAIDS’ data revealed that, among the 1.7 million new HIV infections and patients found worldwide in 2018, 48% were female cases.

Additionally, the report highlights that 60% online buyers of HIV test kits are from first and second-tier cities in China.

A livestream event with Chinese epidemiologists is being held concurrently on November 30^th on the topic of AIDS prevention and treatment.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

Peru Launches National Pavilion on JD

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Oct 12, 2022 by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu

JD Worldwide celebrated the launch of Peru Pavilion, introducing various iconic local products to Chinese consumers of the richly endowed country, including quinoa from Andes Mountains, alpaca gloves and hats, as well as health supplements such as Maca capsules.

The celebration event was held at JD Beijing Headquarters on November 30^th, attended by Mr. Luis Quesada, Peruvian Ambassador to China and Ms. Diana Pita Rodriguez, Economic and Commercial Counselor of the embassy.

“The launching of Peru Pavilion is a good opportunity for Peru to showcase its products to Chinese consumers,” said Ambassador Quesada. “We are proud of our high quality products and hope more and more Chinese consumers can get to know our products and enjoy them through JD.”

“Peru is a country with rich resources and a very important trade partner for China in South America,” said Frank Yu, head of Marketing and Operations of JD Worldwide. “As the leading ecommerce platform in China, JD would like to introduce more products from Latin American countries. JD’s over 441 million customers, strong supply chain and big data capabilities will help Peru Pavilion become the bridge between Chinese consumers and Peruvian products.”

Left to Right: Philip Lu, BD Manager of JD Worldwide; Frank Yu, Head of Marketing and Operations of JD Worldwide; Larry Lee, Vice President of JD.com; Mr. Luis Quesada, Peruvian Ambassador to China; Ms. Diana Pita Rodriguez, Economic and Commercial Counselor of Peru in Beijing; Jiangang Wang, General Manager of EC Storm. (Phtot by Rachel Liu)

JD Worldwide announced the plan to establish National Pavilions in October 2018, and has welcomed countries from Asia, Europe, Americas and more to join the project. Recently, more customers have become interested in products from “niche” countries such as Peru. The National Pavilion can gather high-quality brands and products from the country into one store, which is easier and more efficient for the brands comparing with launching separately. JD Worldwide is also planning on launching National Pavilions of Sri Lanka, Italy, Germany and Swiss in the near future.

Any international brand interested in building their business with JD in China can apply via https://www.jd.hk/cooperation_en or by emailing worldwide@jd.com.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

JD and Delixi Electric Unveil A Hope Primary School in Yunnan

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Oct 19, 2021 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

JD Industrial Technology and Delixi Electric, a Zhejiang-based electric company, have unveiled a Hope Primary School in Yunnan province last Friday. The school was donated and built by the two companies together, in order to provide underprivileged kids with a better education environment.

The Hope Primary School co-donated by JD and Delixi Electric

JD also donated other supplies such as computers to the school. During the opening ceremony, volunteers trained students on how to use electricity safely.

JD donates the computers to the school at the ceremony

Tong Zhu, General manager of marketing and sales at Delixi Electric said, “School is a place for nurturing talent, and kids should be studying in a comfortable environment. Delixi will devote itself in the charity programs, and work with partners to give more attention to underprivileged kids in this region.”

Zhixiang Sun, vice president of JD.com said, “JD has focused on social responsibility since its launch, with education as one of the key priorities. We hope to leverage JD’s ability to help improve the education industry.”

Last year Delixi Electric signed a cooperation agreement with JD Industrial Technology with a focus on industrial products. The new initiative will strengthen the partnership in more regions.

(ling.cao@jd.com)

JDD CEO Joins APEC Digital Economy Body

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Nov 21, 2022 by Martin Li

by Martin Li

Chen Shengqiang, CEO of JD Digits (JDD) has joined as one of the first members of the newly founded APEC China Business Council Digital Economy Committee.

The committee is aimed at encouraging digital economy enterprises in China to deeply participate in the development of APEC and construction of the global economic governance system.

JDD CEO Chen Shengqiang speaks at the founding cerremony on November 19.

At the founding ceremony on Nov. 19, Chen called on all the members to build a collaborative and connected digital economy ecosystem by attaching fundamental importance to industry, livelihood and value creation.

“Government, industry and citizens are three pillars in digital economy system. What JDD has been doing is to use digitalized tools to serve government, industry and citizens, to reduce cost of social government, industrial development and people services,” said Chen, who is also chairman of the APEC China Business Council Young Entrepreneur Committee.

Group photo of the first members of the committee.

There are about 60 members of the digital economy committee, who are from leading digital economy enterprises, real economy enterprises and fast growing small-and-medium-sized enterprises. Gree Electric Appliances chairwoman Dong Mingzhu, Xiaomi president Wang Xiang and Suning president Ren Jun are some of the other members.

The committee is chaired by Gaoning Ning, 62, chairman of APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). Mr. Ning is Chairman of CHEMCHINA, the largest manufacturer of basic chemistry in China.

The committee consists of four work teams focusing on digital technology and smart city, digital life and consumption, industry digitization, health and medical care, respectively. It will organize regular work meetings, policy dialogues and research, as well as build an international communication network.

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

JD Provides Logistics Services to Three Marathons in China

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Sep 21, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

Joined by a total of over 20,000 marathoners, the Shanghai International Marathon, Chongqing International Half Marathon and Chengdu Marathon kicked off on the same day on November 29^th. As the official logistics partners of the three events, JD leveraged its strong logistics network and supply chain ability to secure the transportation and distribution of supplies and equipment for marathoners and event organizers.

Chengdu Marathon 2020

“All the JD vehicles were disinfected to secure safety against COVID-19 and we had all of our staff nucleic acid tested,” said Lihua Zhang, a driver on JD’s truck team that supported the Shanghai International Marathon. “After all the marathoners started their races, we again disinfected any of their belongings stored temporarily in our vehicles.”

JD trucks transporting supplies

As a Platinum Label Road Race by the World Athletics, Shanghai International Marathon attracted over 9,000 participants. To secure the fulfillment of hundreds of tons of drinking water, cups, snacks and other materials for participants and organizers, 19 JD trucks began driving in the early morning at 3 am on November 29^th.

As the logistics arm of JD.com, JD Logistics has served over 50 top sports events since 2017. Its quality and efficient logistics services have been recognized by competition organizers and athletes.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

JD Pharmacy Closes the Digital Gap for Elderly People

Posted on Nov 30, 2020Nov 23, 2022 by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

At a JD pharmacy store in Jinan, Shandong province, Ms. Zhang, 78, was sitting in the lounge inside the store to get her blood pressure checked by one of the assistants. At the same time, another store assistant was helping her to verify prescriptions with the pharmacist and fetch her medicines at the counter. About 10 minutes later, with the help of the assistants, Ms. Zhang left the store with her medicines and health suggestions provided by the pharmacy’s staff.

Such scene is a common practice in JD Health’s brick-and-mortar pharmacies in Shangdong province, said Junhong Liu, a staff member in charge of the operations of JD pharmacy’s chain stores in the province where eight of JD Health’s self-operated offline pharmacy stores are in operation.

JD pharmacy store in Jinan, Shandong province

While younger Chinese people have embraced the convenience of digital technologies such as online shopping, digital payment and telemedicine, many elderly people are at risk of being left behind.

To narrow the digital gap for the aging population, the Chinese government has recently issued specified plans to help elderly people to overcome barriers to using smart technologies while maintaining traditional services for them. JD’s pharmacy assistance to elderly is a good example.

“Despite of limited space of our store, we created this special lounge area for elderly customers who have difficulties moving around,” said Liu. “No matter if they have digital or paper prescriptions, our staff will provide thoughtful services for their entire medicine buying process.”

An assistant of JD pharmacy is guiding an elderly customer to make online medicine orders

For elderly customers like Ms. Zhang, getting to grips with high-tech robots is no easy feat. Inside the pharmacy chain stores, JD’s intelligent health screening robot can detect users’ body conditions and monitor blood pressure, oxygen, sugar level and ECG. Many elderly customers are curious about the machine but are often at a loss as to how to handle it.

JD Health’s intelligent health screening robot

One of the main jobs for JD pharmacy’s assistants is to guide elderly customers to scan the robot’s QR code, follow its instructions to do the tests and print their health reports.

“By using this machine, as an elderly person, I have not only experienced advanced technology, but also gained confidence,” said one elderly woman who lives by herself. “Learning new things doesn’t seem that difficult. JD is being very helpful to us. ”

For the pharmacy staff, there’s no better reward than customers’ recognition. Liu said that they are creating more and more healthcare support for elderly customers, such as offering them health drinks in the store, and hosting free lectures to promote health knowledge.

One JD pharmacy provide assistances to convenience elderly customers’ medicine services

“These lectures are highly welcomed by our elderly customers as they have strong demand but limited channels to access them.” The latest lecture topic we organized focused on the mental health of elderly people. There will be more and more such activities in the future, said Liu.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

In-Depth Report: Embracing Changes in China’s Mother and Baby Product Market

Posted on Nov 27, 2020Nov 23, 2022 by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

Longwu Jiang is the head of the mother and baby business unit under JD Super, JD.com’s online supermarket. It’s a bit counter-intuitive to find out that this youthful man in his early 30s without children, who majored in law at college and used to manage a major phone brand’s sales on JD, knows much more than most mothers about milk powers, diapers, trolleys and more.

“Actually there’s not a big difference between selling phones and milk powers,” said Jiang. “It’s all about product circulation, and coincidently both categories have implemented registration systems with strict government supervision in China.”

Longwu Jiang, Head of JD Super’s mother and baby business unit, JD Retail

With over 10 years work experience at JD.com, Jiang has experienced China’s rapid e-commerce development firsthand, which has helped him to see the essence of the business as well as deal with policy and market changes.

Against the backdrop of China’s demographic structural changes and the impact of COVID-19, Jiang elaborated his observations on the trends of China’s mother and baby product market.

Since China introduced the two-child policy in 2016, the growth of China’s mother and baby market has been accelerating and shows no sign of stopping in the years ahead. Despite the birthrate now being on a downturn after a rapid rise immediately following the announcement of the new policy, with an annual birth peak in 2017 of 17.23 million. Whereas the rising momentum of consumption upgrade keeps the market competitive and prosperous.

Consumers for the mother and baby category are highly sensitive to products’ channels, quality and services. This gives JD an advantage to stand out in this market, as China’s largest retailer that promises authentic products and premier shopping experiences for its customers.

A trustworthy platform

For many Chinese customers, online shopping has become a part of their life—especially for standardized products like baby power and diapers that JD offers guarantees on sourcing and delivery services.

Leveraging the scale effect through its B2C model with over 441 million active users on the platform to date, JD has become the leading retailer worldwide for many global brands of mother and baby products, including Wyeth, Friso, Unicharm, Merries, Abbot, Biostem, Pigeon and more.

Industry partners virtually joined JD Super’s 2020 strategy conference on mother and baby category

International data analysis firm Nielsen’s latest report showed that over 51% of mobile consumers for mother and baby products in China shopped on JD’s app in 2019, and the ratio will be higher in 2020 as affected by the epidemic outbreak.

“The epidemic accelerated people’s shopping behaviors to shift online,’ said Jiang. From January to April, sales of milk powers and diapers on JD.com soared as people relied on JD ‘s stable supply chain to ensure timely delivery. As the virus situation has gradually calmed in China, sales have increased significantly on JD not only for these two high-frequency stable categories, but also that of baby trolleys, cribs, and outdoors products, especially during the mid-year 618 Grand Promotion and the Singles Day Grand Promotion.

Jiang recalled that in the early days of the epidemic, people were worried about a shortage of diapers which shared the same manufacturing materials with masks. During that time more suppliers chose to sell their products on JD, as buying online was the only option for consumers then and the suppliers trusted JD’s fulfilment ability. At the same time, JD worked actively with the suppliers to prepare its inventory to fully cover the demand surge.

A booming market in lower-tier cities

Jiang is not complacent about the status quo. He pointed out that although JD enjoys a high penetration rate in the first- and second-tier cities, the country’s overall mother and baby product market is highly fragmented and vertical. Brick-and-mortar stores remain the mainstream for many customers, especially in the lower-tier cities.

“There are over 20,000 mother and baby product stores across the country. If you know the owner of a store in your neighborhood very well, like how many children he has, and which school his son goes to, would you prefer to buy things at this store or from some strangers online?” said Jiang. “Trust is the key. And on this point, JD has great potential to grow the market share both online and offline driven by the company’s omnichannel development.”

JD’s mother and baby offline store in Baoji, Shaanxi province

More importantly, lower-tier cities are where the birth rate and spending power thrive in China. According to China Population Report 2020, 65% of the country’s first-tier cities and 68% of second-tier cities have had lower average birth rates in the past 10 years, indicating that cities below the third-tier play a greater role in driving the birthrate and consumption of mother and baby products.

“Chinese parents always give the best to their children,” Jiang stressed. “Consumption upgrade is definitely a trend among customers in lower-tier cities.” People from lower-tier markets have less pressure in their overall lifestyle, especially related to housing costs compared with people from the first- and second-tier cities. As a result, they are more willing to raise two children. JD provides a cost-effective and convenient channel for them to have safer and better quality products that are not often accessible in traditional offline channels.

A new generation of consumers and products

The new generation of Chinese parents born after 1985 are more economically independent than the previous generations, and are therefore more capable of spending for a higher-quality of life and often express these attitudes through consumption.

Nielsen’s research on the industry trends in 2020 showed that products that feature the concepts of organic, nutrition, safe, non-added, pure natural, high quality, environmental-friendly sell well among young parents. For example, in 2019, organic baby food and milk powder achieved 42% and 47% YoY growth respectively.

At the same time, JD is introducing more and more new products and sub-categories to Chinese consumers to meet their increasing demand for healthcare and personal care, such as skincare products for pregnant women, special diapers for sensitive skin, nutrition supplements for newborns and more. This October, JD released China’s first industry report on baby nutrition supplements, which analyzed the industry’s opportunities in the post-COVID era, and aimed to promote a healthy business ecosystem in collaboration with its brand partners such as Gerber, Little Freddie, Nature’s Way, Heinz, and Biostime.

Furthermore, by leveraging JD’s big data and consumptions insights, Jiang’s team has been collaborating closely with brand partners in the R&D and designing process to create more customized and personalized products, known as the C2M (Customer-to-Manufacturer) model.

Take the diaper packaging design of Japanese company Unicharm as an example. Through studying customers’ shopping behaviors, comments and surveys on JD’s platform, the team identified a potential need of larger package size for this product. Then JD and Unicharm worked together to upgrade the diaper package capacity from 54 pieces to 68 pieces and introduced to the market. It is estimated that sales of this type of diaper rose by 420% in 2019.

Jiang spoke at JD Super’s strategy release conference

“The only constant in the world is change,” said Jiang at the 2020 strategy release conference. To embrace the changes and future of this industry, JD will deepen its strategy implementation in introducing more new brands, differentiated products and sub-categories of mother and baby products. It will also focus on building up its omnichannel initiative through holistic logistics management and cooperation with offline partners, further expanding in lower-tier cities and offering more trendy marketing activities such as short videos and livestreaming to meet customers’ needs and improve their shopping experience.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)