Photo Gallery: This Week at JD (October 26-October 30)

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

JD has upgraded its Zhengzhou Asia No.1 fulfillment center that the sorting center in it is now highly automated.

JD has upgraded its Zhengzhou Asia No.1 fulfillment center that the sorting center in it is now highly automated. Located in the provincial capital of Henan province which has nearly 100 million populations and is the third most-populous province in China, the fulfillment center will enable more consumers in the region receive orders the same day they’ve placed them.

 

JD Health also announced a “Family Care Project” at the conference, aiming to provide a one-stop healthcare solution for family health management.

On the partner conference held on October 29th in Chengdu, Sichuan province, JD Health released its upgraded strategy that positions itself as a supply chain-centered, medical service-based and digitally-driven health management platform that covers the full life cycle and healthcare scenarios for its customers. With the vision to become the most trusted health management provider, it’s mission is to be the “chief health officer” for the Chinese people. JD Health also announced a “Family Care Project” at the conference, aiming to provide a one-stop healthcare solution for family health management.

 

Lei Xu (center), JD Retail CEO and Liang Jianzhang (left) Trip.com’s co-founder and Chairman

Lei Xu (center), JD Retail CEO and Liang Jianzhang (left) Trip.com’s co-founder and Chairman hosted a joint live-streaming event for Trip.com’s 21st anniversary on October 28th. Over 5.7 million people watched the livestream during its peak time. Data showed that the sales of hotels on JD Travel on the day increased by 776% compared with the same period last year.

 

JD opened a new SEVEN FRESH supermarket in Beijing’s CBD

On October 30th, JD opened a new SEVEN FRESH supermarket in Beijing’s CBD. Located on B1 at the Wonderful World shopping mall, the supermarket sells over 5,600 products including fruits, vegetables, seafood and beverages among many others in the more than 3,400 square meters’ area.

 

JD Logistics has been awarded by HRoot

JD Logistics has been awarded by HRoot, China’s leading human resources media company, as one of the total 14 enterprises including Manpower Group, Bayer China, SGS China and Dalian Wanda Group, the Best Social Enterprises in Greater China award.

 

JD launched a new air cargo route from Wuxi to Tianjin to Shenzhen

JD launched a new air cargo route from Wuxi to Tianjin to Shenzhen, using freight Boeing 737-300F, which is the third all-cargo aircraft rented by JD Logistics for its air transportation business. The first flight took off on October 25th at 12:00 am. The addition of the new route further accelerates JD’s delivery services to customers in China’s three key economic areas: the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Area, the Yangtze River Delta and the Great Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau.

 

JD.ID Launches AR Makeup Try-on Feature On Its app

Posted on by Martin Li

by Martin Li

JD.ID, the e-commerce joint venture of JD.com in Indonesia, has launched an AR makeup try-on feature on its e-commerce app to give consumers a contactless experience during the ongoing pandemic.

The feature utilizes augmented reality (AR) technology to enable users to virtually try various makeup products including lipstick, eyeliner, eyebrow, eyeshadow, mascara, foundation, face powder, and blushe, thus making shopping for and trying make-up safe, comfortable, and fun.

Users can also take selfies through the app and save the photos to their mobile phones.

“Shopping for make-up products is not as simple as shopping for daily necessities. In buying make-up or beauty products, there are processes that are generally followed, such as choosing, trying, and comparing various brands and colors, ” said Liana Heryono, head of Beauty Retail at JD.ID

“Through the ‘AR Make-up Try-On’ feature, we strive to simplify the shopping process for customers and offer a new experience in buying make-up products online through JD.ID. In the future, we will collaborate with more local and international beauty brands to present a more complete, quality product offering,” said Liana.

JD.ID has collaborated with well-known local and international beauty brands on the AR feature, including Wardah, Emina, Make Over, Maybelline, L’Oreal, Nacific Cosmetic, I’m Meme, Somehinc, Pixy, Safi, and Marina Glow Ready.

Learn more about the feature here.

 

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

Behind the Scenes of JD’s Asia No. 1 Fulfillment Center Network

Posted on by Ella Kidron

by Ella Kidron

Leo Xia, head of JD’s Asia No. 1 fulfillment center project, gave an in-depth overview on September 9th of the project to top consultancy Gartner. Thomas O’Connor, senior director at the supply chain center at Gartner moderated the discussion. The exclusive peek behind the scenes has now been made available to the public here.

Leo Xia, head of JD’s Asia No. 1 fulfillment center project,

Leo Xia, JD.com

JD started preparing to build its automated logistics fulfillment center in July 2009, called Asia No. 1. As the name indicates, the plan was to build the largest scale and most advanced network of e-commerce logistics centers in Asia. The ultimate goal is to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Today the network has over 30 fulfillment centers across China.

In 2012, JD took the lead in building the first e-commerce operations center, integrating temporary storage, order processing, sorting and distribution. It come into operation in 2014, around the time of JD’s IPO on the Nasdaq（May 22nd ,2014）. The following year, the first Asia No. 1 to handle small items was put into operations in Guangzhou. With the rapid growth of JD’s business, the speed of construction of Asia No. 1 projects has also sped up.

The Asia No. 1 project in Beijing is a good example. This project began operations in 2017. The automated equipment includes a 19-storey shuttle system, which greatly improves storage capacity. Picking is also much more efficient. Compared with manual picking, automated picking is 6-8 times more efficient. Storage efficiency is also 10 times that of traditional storage.

Gartner Webinar

Gartner Webinar

As far as automated sorting goes, JD’s Wuhan Asia No. 1 provides a helpful picture. The project was put into operation in 2019, and uses an industry-leading large-scale cross-belt sorting system and a high efficiency sorting system. The capacity of a single sorting facility can reach 24,000 items per hour. Twenty-four sorting gates can operate at the same time. The daily order processing capacity of the sorting facility is over 1 million orders. What’s more, the sorting efficiency is five times higher than that of the traditional operation model.

Xia also introduced JD’s state of the art bulky storage system which is in its Langfang, Hebei province fulfillment center. It has a total floor area of 87,000 square meters. It began operating in 2020.

This is the first automated pallet storage and retrieval system, or “AS/RS”, for bulky items in Asia’s e-commerce industry. With the automated AS/RS, automated storage and picking for items including furniture and home appliances is made possible at an efficiency three times that of traditional warehouses.

To help put things in perspective: During the 618 Grand Promotion, which is the anniversary of JD’s founding as well as the largest mid-year shopping festival in China, the AR/RS was able to handle 15,000 items in 24 hours, with a maximum of 2,500 items per hour at peak time, representing an efficiency increase of 16 times. After implementing the AS/RS, the storage efficiency is 15.7 items per square meter, which is 145% more efficient than traditional storage. The efficiency of a multi-layer inbound entry is 50 pallets per hour, increased 150% compared with a flat inbound entry.

In the Q&A, Xia shared a bit on future development plans for the Asia No. 1 project and JD’s smart logistics fulfillment centers. He explained that technology application in JD’s logistics centers will continue to focus on two areas: 1) increasing effective space utilization and 2) efficiency of human labor (or work efficiency). “Different flexible dense storage systems will continue to improve the efficiency of space utilization. On the other hand, we will apply cutting-edge applications of “goods to person” technology. In the operations process (inbound, shelving, picking, inventory, outbound), we will appropriately introduce automation equipment and comprehensively improve the efficiency of human labor and our overall operations.”

 

 

(ella@jd.com)

 

 

 

 

Leading Chinese Farmers to a Better Life: Richard Liu’s Road of Poverty Alleviation

Posted on by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu

Xiao Yue is a girl from a rural village called Yanchuan in Shaanxi province. Her family owns a small farm, but for a long time Xiao Yue’s parents, who are in poor health, had no knowledge or training on how to plant the fruits in an effective way. As a result, the fruits often failed to meet quality standards to be sold in a good price, and ultimately rotted.

Things changed after 2016, when JD’s agricultural technology service team went to Yanchuan to help the farmers with scientific planting and help them increase profits. The previous poverty alleviation programs in Yanchuan had often followed a “one-size-fits-all” model, which weren’t applicable for many farmers. Additionally, some of the policies were too complicated for uneducated farmers to understand.

Unlike the previous projects, JD’s poverty alleviation program aims to really help the farmers solve their problems. JD provides solutions for farmers throughout the whole product chain: planting, processing, brand-building and marketing, logistics, and finance. The program has helped the farmers improve the quality of the land, and boost nutrition for the fruit trees. JD buys the fruits at a price 20% higher than industry average. JD also developed a brand “Bu Er Guo” (unique fruit) for the fruits, and built an online store on JD as the sales channel.

Now JD has built 500 bases for high-quality fruits in Shaanxi, including apples, grapes, red dates and more. In the past five years, sales of agricultural products on JD have surpassed RMB 500 billion yuan, and as of September 30th, JD has launched over 3 million types of products for poor areas in China, which have helped over 1 million poor farmers increase their income.

When the COVID-19 outbreak caused problems for many rural areas in selling and transporting their agricultural products, JD quickly opened a “fresh food green pass” for the farmers. The project ultimately sold 300 million agricultural products and held over 100,000 livestream shows for farmers.

JD Chairman and CEO Richard Liu’s passion for poverty alleviation comes from experiencing poverty in his childhood. When he was little, he rarely had chances to eat meat or wear new clothes. When he was admitted to Renmin University, his fellow villagers, though poor, collected 76 eggs and RMB 500 yuan for him to start his life in Beijing. He still remembers and appreciates what the villagers did for him, and wants to help them and other people in similar circumstances fight poverty and illness.

In 2003, when JD had only 38 employees, he took the staff to Shanxi province to fund 38 orphans—one for each member of the company. In 2015 after JD had become more successful, he went back to his hometown in Suqian, Jiangsu province, to give RMB 10,000 yuan to each of the over 600 elderly people in his village. In 2017, when he served as honorary village director for Pingshitou village in Hebei province, he prepared gift boxes worth over RMB 1,000 yuan each for  every family ahead of Chinese New Year.

Though these experiences were fulfilling, Liu eventually realized that only giving money to the farmers was not sustainable, and would not solve the real problem. He found that the reason that many poor villages could not improve their living standard was because of the information gap between rich and poor, and the price discrimination for poor areas.

The information gap means that farmers don’t know the true market demand for their products. Price discrimination means that in poor areas, the agricultural products are usually sold at a very low price— and it’s hard to get the products to big cities to sell in a higher price range. Also, its generally more expensive for poor areas to buy daily products, because it’s more costly to transport the products to these areas. The villagers need to pay more money for the same product compared to people living in the cities. In response to observing these conditions, Liu decided that JD would help the farmers solve these two problems.

To tackle the information gap, JD leverages big data to instruct the farmers on how much they need to plant and what they need to plant. To solve the price discrimination issue, JD has improved the coverage of logistics and cold-chain warehouses in the rural areas, and has leveraged JD’s supply chain to help farmers get their products out of the village.

JD Logistics also launched an initiative to achieve 24-hour delivery in over 1,000 counties and over 10,000 towns, to provide quicker and easier delivery service for rural areas. Additionally, JD helped the rural areas to build their local brands for agricultural products to increase the added value for the products. In 2016, Liu launched the “running chicken” project, in which farmers collect the steps that each chicken walked every day. The chickens need to walk 1 million steps before they go to market. JD purchases the chickens from the farmers to sell on the JD platform.

In 2017, Liu was awarded Outstanding Contribution Award for Poverty Alleviation given by the State Council—and his road of poverty alleviation continues. He announced that in the next three years, JD aims to help farmers through its ability in supply chain, logistics, finance, technology and service, and lead rural areas to achieve over RMB 1 trillion of output. He will focus on smart agricultural projects, the establishment of new infrastructure, support industry belt, supply chain empowerment and financial support to build integrated chains for the agricultural products and lead more villagers to better lives.

 

(liuchang61@jd.com)

Five Pillars Supports the Rapid Growth of JD Health

Posted on by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

JD Health hosted its second Partners Conference in Chengdu, Sichuan province on October 29th. The event convened over 1,000 industry partners, policymakers, medical experts and media representatives to discuss new opportunities and challenges in China’s healthcare industry, and enhance understanding of JD Health’s business models and future plans.

During the conference, JD Health’s management team provided an update on the company’s progress from 2019 to 2020.

According to a report by Frost&Sullivan, a Silicon Valley-based research and consulting firm, JD Health became the largest online healthcare platform in China by 2019.As of September 30, 2020, the platform had more than 65,000 doctors, including full-time doctors, who provided an average of over 90,000 medical consultations online on daily basis. In the first half of 2020, the number of daily medical consultations on the platform was five times that of the same period in 2019.

JD Health's new logo released on 2020 Partners Conference in Chengdu 

JD Health’s new logo released on 2020 Partners Conference in Chengdu 

JD Health’s rapid development in the past 12 months has relied on following five pillars.

Policy support

Internet-based healthcare has undergone ups and downs in its over 20 years’ development in China. In recent years, the industry has maintained a complex compound growth rate of over 30%. The sign of upturn came in 2018 and is marked by China’s State Council guidance on the promotion of the “internet + healthcare” model.

In July 2020, China’s 13 ministries and commissions jointly issued a document requesting to improve telemedicine services and relax limitations on their inclusion in a national medical insurance scheme.

In September, the State Council issued another guidance to encourage the development of new business models in China in which it stressed the importance of promoting internet-based healthcare services, especially in the areas of orderly scheduling of online doctor’s appointments, telemedicine services, digital prescription circulation, medicine sales network and more.

COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 gave a strong boost to the telemedicine industry in China. Data from China’s National Health Commission showed that the number of medical consultations from internet hospitals under its supervision increased 17 times in March compared with the same period in 2019, helping reduce some of the burden faced by brick-and-mortar hospitals.

JD Health also experienced explosive growth during this period of time. The platform reacted swiftly to the pandemic situation through sourcing and delivery of medical supplies to the most needed areas, providing 24/7 online medical consultation, offering a medicine information sharing platform and psychological support hotlines, conducting livestream sessions for medical knowledge education and more. The platform offered more than 10 million medical consultations from January to April 2020.

People’s Rising Awareness of Health Management

Chinese people’s health awareness has greatly increased in recent years. As people have become more mindful about health management, they are increasingly willing to spend more money on disease prevention. Telemedicine offers a good option to gain easy access to health knowledge and consult on minor ailments and common diseases online

In spite of this, for various reasons, health problems keep rising in China’s fast-paced society. According to China’s Blue Book of Health Management released in 2018, about 300 million Chinese people suffer from chronic diseases, with high blood pressure, fatty liver, dyslipidemia, and diabetes being the most common diseases among the population.

China’s growing aging population only makes the number more astonishing. Research by the Chinese Center for Disease Control in 2019 found that two-thirds of Chinese people over 60 years old are suffering from at least one chronic disease.

Under such circumstances, JD Health introduced the “Family Doctor” program that aims to provide customized telehealth services and long term health management support for Chinese families. In parallel, the company stepped up its efforts in opening internet hospitals for specialized chronic diseases, including the centers for diabetes, liver, cardiology and more.

Technology

Technology is the game changer for the internet-based healthcare industry. Thanks to the fast development of big data, AI, robots and more, JD Health is offering “smarter” healthcare services ranging from intelligent robot systems to enhance patient consultation interaction experience and triage efficiency and accuracy, to producing knowledge graph-based solutions such as the “PharmCoo” to supervise drug prescription and dosage.

JD Health has also partnered with research institutions, universities and city-level governments to leverage technologies to develop integrated medical service platforms online and offline to improve China’s medical resource allocation and healthcare service experience, especially enabling greater access of special medicines and doctor services to people in lower-tier cities and rural areas.

Strength in Supply Chain

Leveraging JD.com’s core strength of supply chain, JD Health has become the largest online pharmaceutical retailer in China, accounting for more than 15% of the market with an extensive presence in B2C , B2B and O2O services.

By June 30th 2020, JD Health operated 11 medicine-dedicated warehouses and over 230 healthcare-related products warehouses across China. There are more than 9,000 third-party merchants doing business on JD Health’s platform now, and its medicine wholesale trading platform JD Medicine Procurement provides services to over 170,000 downstream suppliers.

Economies of scale bring strong purchasing and negotiating power for JD Health to offer a rich variety of healthcare-related products at competitive prices. At the same time, suppliers can benefit from the traffic and distribution advantages on JD Health’s platform which helps to bring down marketing expenses. Additionally, JD Health’s ominchannel network has covered over 200 cities in China, ensuring same or next-day medicine delivery, delivery within 30 minutes, and 24/7 delivery services.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.ocm)

China’s National TV Reports on JDD’s Involvement in Digital Currency

Posted on by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

China’s National TV reported that the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) is continuing its research and development of the digital RMB. The PBOC’s Digital Currency Research Institute and JD Digits have formed a partnership in this field to jointly promote the ecosystem.

Yunhan Lu, manager of the program at JDD will be responsible for applying the digital yuan in JD’s scenarios.  “On one hand, we think the digital yuan can help solve some of the pain points for ourselves. On the other hand, it can improve customer experience. Additionally, we can provide financial institutions, business partners and enterprises with digital yuan solutions.”

Tao Yang, expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, “The digital yuan is a new form of renminbi which replaces a small portion of cash with a digital form.” Yang said, “Due to the safety, convenience and storage cost challenges of cash, digital currency was launched in 1980s, but it hasn’t yet be promoted at scale because of pain points like social governance management.”

Unstable value and lack of credit support for virtual currency has raised difficulties for financial supervision. Because of these problems, stable currency replacement forms have been launched, such as libra, a crypto currency by Facebook, but these forms require more government authorization to operate.

Haifeng Wu, Researcher from Shenzhen Finance Institute said, “Our digital yuan is endorsed directly by The People’s Bank of China  and it’s a brand new digital form of renminbi, so it has strong credit characteristics.”

 

(ling.cao@jd.com)

JD Upgrades Asia No.1 Fulfillment Center in Zhengzhou

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

Just ahead of Singles Day, JD has upgraded its Zhengzhou Asia No.1 fulfillment center that the sorting center in it is now highly automated. Located in the provincial capital of Henan province which has nearly 100 million population and is the third most-populous province in China, the fulfillment center will enable more consumers in the region receive orders the same day they’ve placed them.

With an area of over 460,000 square meters, the upgraded Zhengzhou Asia No.1 fulfillment center can stock nearly 20 million small- and mid-sized and 300,000 bulky items. Its highly automated sorting center is able to handle one million orders a day – five times more efficient than a traditional sorting center.

In the automated pick-up area, more than 100 “Dilang” AGVs (automated ground vehicles) researched in-house by JD Logistics are applied to facilitate pickers.

In the automated pick-up area, more than 100 “Dilang” AGVs (automated ground vehicles) researched in-house by JD Logistics are applied to facilitate pickers. The AGVs increase the efficiency of picking by three times.

In addition to serving JD’s first-party retail business, the fulfillment center is also open to external merchants. So far, the Zhengzhou Asia No.1 fulfillment center serves tens of thousands of external merchants. JD Logistics has also signed partnerships with Yadu Group, a Henan based medical equipment manufacturer and Jinju Technology, a Geely-backed auto aftermarket company, to provide smart warehousing and omnichannel supply chain services.

Upgrading the Zhengzhou Asia No.1 is also imperative for JD Logistics’ lower-tier markets program,”

“Located in the Central China region, Zhengzhou is an important transportation hub and is of great significance for the national economy and logistics development. Upgrading the Zhengzhou Asia No.1 is also imperative for JD Logistics’ lower-tier markets program,” said Haifeng Li, head of JD Logistics branch in Henan. “It serves as the infrastructure to ensure fast delivery in lower-tier cities and rural area. More and more consumers will be able to receive their orders on the same day after ordering online.”

JD started building its first automated logistics fulfillment center in Shanghai in July 2009. By October 2020, the company operates 30 Asia No.1 projects across China. As the name indicates, the plan was to build the largest scale and most advanced network of e-commerce logistics centers in Asia.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

JD Logistics Wins National Awards for Fight Against COVID-19

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

by Robin Luo

JD Logistics has won two national awards for its contribution to the fight against COVID-19 recently.

First, 11 employees from JD Logistics won the Excellent Individual Award; second, 3 JD Logistics teams, namely the Beijing vegetable and fruit transportation team, the Wuhan Jiangjun delivery station and Hainan distribution center, won the Team Excellency Award, granted by the Ministry of Transportation of the People’s Republic of China.

Feng Xuetian, is head of the cold chain transportation team of JD Logistics’ Southern China branch.

Portrait of JD Workers, COVID-19 Fighters

Feng Xuetian, is head of the cold chain transportation team of JD Logistics’ Southern China branch. On Jan. 24th, the Traditional Chinese New Year’s Eve, when every household in China was enjoying family reunions, Feng parted from his family and rushed more than 600 miles overnight, all the way from Guangzhou to Wuhan, the epicenter of COVID-19.

At that time, Wuhan had just announced citywide lockdown. To make sure the medical supplies delivered in time, Feng raced against clock on the road. On the next day at around 2:00 p.m., Feng showed up on time at an expressway checkpoint and handed the supplies to local medics. He managed to cut the original itinerary by more than five hours.

Yao Hui, a JD truck driver in Xinjiang, threw himself into the fight against COVID-19. He was tasked with delivering medical equipment, electrical appliances and quilts to designated hospitals in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang.

Fang Yong, head of the JD’s Hubei supply transportation team, volunteered to support on the frontlines when the epidemic situation was still critical. He sent vegetables to residents isolated at home, and called on colleagues to donate food and other life necessities to areas short of supplies.

Fang Yong, head of the JD’s Hubei supply transportation team, volunteered to support on the frontlines when the epidemic situation was still critical

Fight Epidemic with the Strength of the Group

The Wuhan Jiangjun delivery station’s location proved critical during the lockdown. Three kilometers to the east, is Wuhan Jinyintan hospital, one of the major designated hospitals to receive patients infected with COVID-19, and two kilometers to the west, sits one of the largest residential communities in the city.

The delivery station was at the heart of the storm. Yet, fearlessly, the 12 members of the station stick to their post. They handled twice the amount of parcels than usual, and delivered them to hospitals and local residents.

When Beijing reported a cluster of new COVID-19 cases related to the Xinfadi wholesale market in June, JD Logistics joined hands with a few companies to safeguard supply of food and daily necessities. As of early July, JD’s Beijing vegetable and fruit supply transportation team delivered nearly 4,000 tons of vegetables and fruits, making every effort to ensure that fresh and safe agricultural products were available in Beijing even as the key wholesale markets were shut down.

Hainan distribution center, had been working relentlessly throughout the epidemic. At the time, road were closed, villages were shut down, residents were in dire needs of daily necessities. The distribution center, though understaffed, assumed the task of delivering medical equipment and daily necessities for the whole province.

In addition, JD Logistics also won the “Team Excellency Award” from the Hubei provincial government, as announced at a ceremony in Wuhan in September. At the peak of the epidemic, JD leaned on its supply chain and technology capabilities to restructure its fulfillment network in order to ensure the livelihoods of people in Wuhan. The company also deployed autonomous delivery robots to provide contact less last mile delivery services in the city.

JD Logistics also won the “Team Excellency Award” from the Hubei provincial government,

 

(press@jd.com)

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