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

JD Digits Redefines “Chief Growth Officer”

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Oct 25, 2021 by Ling Cao

by Robin Luo

You might have heard these titles before: They start with the letter C and are senior executives in a company, such as CEO, CFO and CTO.

Lately there’s a new one in the C suite: CGO, Chief Growth Officer. By definition, the CGO is responsible for the growth of a company, whether in revenue, customers, market shares or profit. At most companies, it’s a high-ranking role, just like its peers.

But at JD Digits (JDD), a digital technology company with roots in JD.com, every single employee is deemed a “CGO”.

“It represents a notion,” said JD Digits Vice President Ling Xu. “Growth is the target and we are all committed to helping clients achieve the target. Only when clients reach their goals, can we share the benefits. It’s a client-centered philosophy, to encourage the employees to put clients first.”

For instance, a blockchain team in JDD has given over 1,000 brands and merchants access to JD’s blockchain platform, helping them improve efficiency, create new business models and accomplish digital transformation.

CGO and sustainable growth

In recent years, the global economy has been mired in a downturn. Aggravated by the pandemic this year, people are looking for a new momentum that can help get the economy back on track. For many companies, digital technology represents a way forward.

As a digital solution provider, JDD has helped many businesses go digital, with the company itself playing the role of CGO to fulfill their goals of digital transformation and upgrading. In this understanding, CGO is no longer a person— it represents the entire company.

In the bigger picture, JDD is bringing digital technology closer to the real economy, with an aim to maintain sustainable growth in the long run.

Key to Growth

In China, JDD is one of the few companies that both understand the value and hold the capability of digital technology. Based on cutting-edge technologies such as AI, big data, IoT and blockchain, JDD has accumulated rich experience and expertise in digital transformation and upgrade.

Up to now, the company has worked in robotics, intelligent cities, digital marketing, financial technology and many other fields, serving hundreds of millions of individual users, more than 700 financial institutions, governments and other public institutions in more than 30 cities.

Make Growth Happen

JDD, in its role as CGO, has two patterns to help clients to grow.

For companies with strength in digital technologies and in-depth understanding towards their industry, JDD will serve as an accelerator to boost their digital transformation and help them access more valuable resources.

On the other hand, for those newcomers to the digital transformation, JDD is more of a trustworthy consultant to guide them and impart the industrial know-how.

(press@jd.com)

JD Health: New Logo, New Mission and New Era

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Sep 10, 2022 by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

2020 JD Partners Conference was held on Oct. 29^th in Chengdu, Sichuan province under the theme of “Photosynthesis and Symbiosis”. Over 1,000 industry partners, policy makers, medical experts and media gathered to discuss the new opportunities and challenges of the China’s healthcare industry in the post-COVID ear, and promote greater cooperation to drive the industry’s transformation.

At the conference, JD Health released its upgraded company 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.

Lei Xu, Chairman of JD Health and CEO of JD Retail said in his opening speech that the healthcare service industry is facing a critical period of digital transformation. “JD is ready to open up its core technology, supply chain, big data capabilities to make itself and its partners stay ahead of the curve.”

Lei Xu, Chairman of JD Health

“Exploring business model innovation for healthcare services, promoting efficiency of hospital’s management and operations, and accelerating the information construction for public health are all important values that JD Health can bring to the healthcare industry.” Xu said.

Yuhui Zhang, deputy director of the Health Development Research Center of the National Health Commission, highly recognized JD Health’s concept, He pointed out at the conference that “the policy dividend has been released, and the “big health” industry should seize the prime opportunity for development to offer more diversified and customized healthcare services to meet different levels of customers.”

Earlier this year, JD Health demonstrated its valuable strength in the fight against COVID-19. “We are not complacent about this,” said Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Health on the conference, “JD Health will keep the momentum and continue to join forces with our partners to promote the healthcare industry to be more digitalized and intelligent, improving medical service supplies and quality by focusing on the development of omnichannel and lower-tier markets.

Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Health

JD Health launched its new logo that includes two leaves during the conference. The leaves are called arisaema heterophyllum(天南星), an ingredient used in traditional Chinese medicine and are associated with an anecdote concerning the father of Traditional Chinese Medicine Li Shizhen(1518-1593). It is said that Dr. Li once found that there was a recording error in the herbal book about the leaves’ use that almost cost the life of his patient. The incident prompted him to re-edit the Compendium of Matera and correct all possible misinformation.

JD Health released its new logo

With the new logo, JD Health wishes to carry on Dr. Li’s spirit in promoting medical progress. It also marks a new era for JD Health’s development in which it will embrace greater cooperation with its partners to build a win-win ecosystem, promote the growth of internet hospitals and facilitate more people to get access to high-quality medical resources and trusted healthcare services.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

JD Health Launches “Family Care Project”

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Sep 6, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang

JD Health announced a “Family Care Project” at the JD Health Partners’ Conference in Chengdu on Oct. 29^th, aiming to provide a one-stop healthcare solution for family health management.

JD Health’s “Healthcare + Medicine” business model has been widely recognized by consumers and has played an important role in meeting their healthcare demands since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has also changed people’s attitudes towards telemedicine.

According to official statistics, the number of telemedicine consumers in China has reached 620 million.

For the upcoming grand promotion of November 11^th, JD Health introduced a “Family Care Package”, which is part of the project, focusing on providing coupons and discounts for products and services related to healthcare management and medicine purchase.

The Family Care Package includes online consultation services. It also includes a family health check-up service, which frees consumers from the hassle of choosing a health check-up package, as well as offers them the opportunity to consult with a doctor about health check-ups and have the report interpreted. The package also provides common household remedies and health related products, such as cold medicine, masks and disinfectant, which are also highly practical and necessary to safeguard the health of the family.

“The launch of the ‘Family Care Project’ is aimed at responding to consumers’ online health management needs, expanding the reach of the service from individuals to families, and giving back to consumers through preferential policies”, said Fan Hui, general manager of JDH’s marketing department.

Fan Hui, general manager of JDH’s marketing department, introducing “Family Care Project”

JD previously launched a “Family Doctor” telemedicine service in August to provide timely, consistent and comprehensive primary healthcare support for families.

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

JD Applies New Services to Provide Better Shopping Experience during Singles Day

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Sep 23, 2021 by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu

Shopping festivals are no longer only about promotions. According to the 618 Ecommerce Platforms Service Satisfaction Report released by Retail Lab under Southern Metropolis Daily, price only ranks No.3 among the key concerns for customers in shopping, and service has surpassed price to become a top focus for customers. JD has launched a series of innovative services covering different businesses in this Singles Day to provide customers with a better shopping experience.

Mobile Phone

During this Singles Day, JD is providing 43 services for mobile phone consumers, including the highly popular trade-in, one-hour delivery, 30-day no reason return, and two other new services. JD’s Singles Day pre-sales period is being held October 21^st -31^st, and the official sales period is from November1^st -11^th. Customers can pay a deposit during the pre-sale period and then pay the rest when the official sale begins, and enjoy a cheaper price.

Typically, this would be that customers wouldn’t receive their products right away, but JD has arranged for some of the mobile phones to be pre-ordered and paid for earlier, and then JD will deliver the products same- or next-day. If the price happens to drop further after November 1^st, the price difference will be deposited in customers’ accounts automatically. As the first e-commerce platform to launch this service, JD has witnessed its growing popularity among customers – data shows that over 50% of the customers chose to enjoy the products ahead of time instead of waiting for official sales.

Another service is the 1.2 times refund. If customers find that the prices of mobile phones bought on JD are lower during the Singles Day period, JD will provide a refund that equals 1.2 times the price difference. JD also continued its 30-day return service and expanded it to most of the mobile phone products on the platform, while the industry standard is usually 7-day return window.

Consumer Goods

This Singles Day, pet owners don’t need to worry about buying the wrong pet food on JD. During big promotions, pet owners tend to stock up on pet food, but they can’t guarantee that their pets will enjoy the taste. JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, has launched a new service which allows customers to return already-opened pet food that their pets don’t like. During Singles Day period, the service is expanded from seven days after customers receive the orders to 30 days. JD Super also extended its refund policy to 30 days – from November1^st to November 30^th, customers who find that prices of items they previously bought are even lower can apply for a refund of the price difference.

Fresh Food

JD Fresh launched nine after-sales services to ensure customers enjoy high-quality, fresh and healthy food. If customers having problems with their orders, such as damaged packages or food quality issues, they can apply for after-sales service within 48 hours. Customers can enjoy a refund directly without the need to send the old products back. For example, October and November are hairy crab season in China and many consumers visit JD to buy hairy crabs. Any customer who finds a dead crab in their order can immediately receive two live hairy crabs.

Health Consultancy

COVID-19 has made customers get familiar with online health consultancy. To enable more customers to enjoy premium health care resources, JD Health invited over 100 doctors from AAA hospitals (the highest tier of hospitals in China) in different areas to provide free consultancy services for JD customers during this Singles Day.

Additionally, as many customers began to decorate their new homes with the improvement in the COVID-19 situation, JD has been providing comprehensive home furnishing services including measurement service at customers’ doorsteps, free delivery and installment of furniture, and 30-day no reason return.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

Richard Liu on Poverty Alleviation: Better to Teach People Fishing than to Give them Fish

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Sep 28, 2021 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

JD has cared about social responsibility since day one. When JD’s online business launched in early 2004, Richard Liu, Chairman and CEO of JD.com, implemented a program in which every member of the staff sponsored the tuition fees for a total of 38 low-income students in Jingle county, Shanxi province.

Liu has always been particularly focused on poverty-stricken areas. He realized that there were two challenges for selling local specialties in these areas. One was that the poorer the place was, the more difficult it would be to sell products at good prices. The second was that the poorer the place was, the less developed the logistics infrastructure would be. Liu was determined to help address these issues.

Since then, JD.com has supported smaller local specialty brands in building their businesses in a variety of ways. For example, JD has leveraged nationwide logistics to help these local specialty businesses with last mile delivery, now providing same or next day delivery service for 90% of the administrative counties in China.

Additionally, JD has leveraged its e-commerce and experience and technology capabilities to help local specialty businesses increase their brand awareness. For example, JD launched a running chicken program in 2016 to help local farmers raise and sell chickens. The company uses blockchain technology for maximum quality assurance and full traceability.

JD helps support businesses at every step of such programs, from farming, production, marketing, logistics and more. Other JD-supported programs include ducks and fish, providing high quality and green products to customers, as well as helping local farmers rise out of poverty.

As of September 30th, JD has put 3 million kinds of products on its platform from poor areas in China. Sales have surpassed over RMB 100 billion yuan, benefiting over 1 million needy families.

JD’s poverty alleviation efforts across China range from industrial support, employment, start-ups, finance, healthcare and more.

Qingchuan county in Sichuan province is another example. Local fungus sales were impacted by a strong earthquake. In response, JD began helping local famers sell fungus online in 2012, and expanding to other product categories As a result, the farmers’ sales increased by around 50 times.

In terms of employment, JD has helped many poor farmers accelerate their careers.

“We want to provide a sustainable way to help people in poor areas,” Liu said. “We’d rather teach them fishing than give them fish.”

Following Liu’s idea, JD has already helped 50,000 low-income people start new jobs. In addition, JD has launched several thousand training courses related to e-commerce, farming and other experience, and established 103 e-commerce incubators of e-commerce.

Earlier this month, JD announced supportive measures for the agricultural industry in poor rural areas, with an aim to help the industry achieve an output of RMB 1 trillion yuan in the next three years. The company will use its strengths in supply chain, logistics, finance, technology and service to boost performance for the industry.

Liu added, “I hope more and more companies and institutions can join the effort in poverty alleviation, making more people enjoy a happy lifestyle.”

(ling.cao@jd.com)

Trip.com and JD.com Join Hands in Promoting Domestic Travel

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Oct 30, 2022 by Vivian Yang

by Kelly Dawson and Vivian Yang

Despite a significant impact to domestic tourism under COVID-19 in the first half of 2020, travel in China has steadily gained momentum in recent months.

To capitalize on that momentum and improve the user experience for consumers who are increasingly turning to online channels to book flights, hotels and vacation activities, JD.com announced in August that it has partnered with leading travel services provider Trip.com to integrate the two platforms.

In a continuation of that partnership, JD Retail CEO Lei Xu and Trip.com’s co-founder and Chairman Liang Jianzhang hosted a joint live-streaming event for Trip.com’s 21^st anniversary on October 28^th. It was the first time the two companies co-hosted a livestream, and also the first time Xu joined a livestreamed event for travel products.

Over 5.7 million people wathced 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.

To entertain the audience during the livestream, Liang cosplayed the Monk Tang (唐僧), a leading character in China’s classic novel “Journey to the West”, who Liang referred to as a symbol of the most experienced traveler. In response, Xu chose another famous character in the same novel, High Lord (太上老君), who always held a fan in his hand.

“As we all know, the tourism industry was one of the most hard-hit businesses in the first half of the year,” Xu said. “I’m here today to fan the flames for the sales of Ctrip’s travel products.”

Liang replied with compliments for the e-commerce platform. “JD provides the most trusted products and supreme delivery services,” he said. “Our company and I always buy things on JD, especially expensive products.”

During the livestreaming event, Xu and Liang shared personal anecdotes about their own travels and shopping experiences on each other’s platforms over the years, lending a touch of intimacy to the festivities.

Spontaneous “red envelope” gifts were also announced, pocketed by a few lucky viewers.

Through the Singles Day promotion period, JD will continue to offer huge discounts with a one-stop preferential chain covering the front and back ends of airfare, hotel accommodations, tickets for parks and other entertainment events, and more.

Announced in August, the partnership between JD and Trip.com aims to help the two companies leverage each other’s resources in five areas, namely user flow, channel resources, cross-border marketing, business travel development and e-commerce cooperation.

More specifically, Trip.com has integrated its core product supply chain into JD.com, providing the company with real-time product inventory and highly competitive prices. In return, JD.com has opened its platform’s user traffic to Trip.com, providing all-around support in terms of daily operation and more precise-marketing based on user profiles.

For consumers, the benefits are obvious: a more fully integrated ecosystem of duty free, hotel and service industries and impressive deals. For example, when China relaxed travel restrictions to Macau earlier this autumn, JD and Trip.com launched a promotion that saw prices slashed at top hotels including the Marriott, MGM and more.

Consumers can expect the cooperation between JD and Trip.com to yield more deals in the coming months.

(kellydawson@jd.com, vivian.yang@jd.com)

C2M: JD’s Data to Change China’s Manufacturing Industry

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Sep 30, 2021 by Kelly Dawson

C2M: JD’s Data to Change China’s Manufacturing Industry

by Kelly Dawson

“Only by creating value can we be rewarded.” Richard Liu, Chairman and CEO at JD.com, has cited this adage as a guiding philosophy for JD.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in JD’s consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) initiative, which leverages JD’s big data insights to jointly develop tailored products with brand partners based on exactly what customers want, as revealed through their shopping behaviors and preferences.

Ahead of this year’s Singles Day promotion period, in which JD will launch 300 million items of new products including a wide range of C2M items, JD’s Big Data Research Institute released a report on overall consumption trends related to new and C2M products.

A driving force

According to the report, new products (including C2M) have become a major force in assisting China’s post-pandemic economic recovery—much of it driven by people younger than 40 years old with strong spending power, who are increasingly interested in products that demonstrate their individuality. This is where C2M products can shine, by catering to the changing desires of younger consumers.

The number of new products released on JD in a single month in 2020 exceeded that of the whole year in 2018, the report noted. The number of new products released on JD since 2020 has been close to 200% of the total in 2019.

As we dive into this year’s Singles Day promotion period, the transaction volume of new products on JD has reached more than 40% of the total range of products—confirming that the category will continue to drive the whole consumer market upward.

“Concrete results”

JD’s C2M initiative aims to address many of the challenges associated with the traditional product development model, offering what JD believes to be an “intelligent revolution” for the consumer market.

In the old model, the average product launch cycle was 18 months, with ten months spent on market and product research alone. Many brands found that by the time the products hit the market, consumer tastes had already moved on. The path from the upstream production to the downstream sales was simply too long—and worse, was often been ineffective at providing an accurate picture of what customers really want.

Further, the chances of a successful launch for a new product in the traditional model are very low—only 5%, according to a study published by Harvard Business Review.

In contrast, brands that worked with JD to co-develop C2M products saw product research time cut by 75%, shortened the product launch cycle by 67% and increased sales, according to JD Retail CEO Lei Xu.

For example, Lenovo launched a C2M version of a high-performance thin and light notebook customized to address customer feedback. Coinciding with the outbreak of COVID-19 and a boom in home office-related purchases, the product saw huge sales. Since then, different models of the notebook have occupied the top three positions of Lenovo notebook sales.

Li Weichang, general manager of Lenovo China’s consumer PC division, said that the cooperation with JD has yielded concrete results. “The data analysis provided by JD has brought significant improvements to Lenovo’s product design, which has helped us more precisely target customer needs and provide products people want,” he said. JD and Lenovo announced in 2019 that the partnership aims to generate RMB 10 billion yuan in sales of enterprise products by the end of 2022.

Another successful case is Sony’s full-screen AI eye protection TV, which was developed in response to customer feedback that expressed concern for children’s eyesight while watching TV. Sales of the TV increased six times during the National Day holiday, compared with the average daily sales in September.

Valuable data

JD’s ability to provide truly valuable data insights to brands lies in its successful expansion across many categories—now ranking first in China’s household appliance retail omnichannel category, with market share of 28.9%; and also leading the mobile phone category online and through omnichannel. JD Super is currently the largest online and offline supermarket in China; and so on.

Relying on a strong intelligent supply chain, JD is able to collect information from the whole process—before, during and after sale of goods. This approach places consumers at the center, with an aim to create products and services that truly address common pain points. Additionally, JD provides manufacturers with full-scale assistance in terms of channels, supply chains, users and logistics.

Through the C2M initiative, JD has created a closed loop ecosystem that is better positioned to serve consumers.

As China transitions to an economic strategy of “dual circulation” that will rely more heavily on domestic consumption, the digital upgrading and transformation of China’s manufacturing industry will certainly play an important role.

(kellydawson@jd.com)

JD Health: China’s Chief Health Officer for a Healthy China

Posted on Oct 29, 2020Oct 11, 2022 by Ella Kidron

by Ella Kidron

JD Health held its partners conference on October 29^th in Chengdu, Sichuan province under the theme “Photosynthesis and Symbiosis”. At the event, which convened over 1,000 industry partners, policy makers, medical experts and members of the media, JD Health CEO Lijun Xin announced the upgrade of JD Health to become the nation’s “Chief Health Officer”. With supply chain as the core, and medical services as the starting point, JD Health will provide a digitization-driven full-user lifecycle and scenario health management platform.

JD Health CEO Lijun Xin

COVID-19 has accelerated the digitization of the global economy. Ever more diverse healthcare needs, especially in terms of internet healthcare, have created immense opportunity for the digitization of the health industry.

According to Statista, in 2020 China’s online healthcare market was estimated to reach around RMB 94 billion yuan, 26 billion yuan more than the previous year. Even with such rapid growth, the Internet medical services industry in China is considered a “blue ocean” – the companies involved have just scratched the surface in terms of penetration. JD Health’s strong supply chain abilities as well as the legacy of trust of the JD platform among users, are a few of the reasons why it is among the key players in the industry. In the last year, JD Health has not only grown rapidly, but also made significant moves in providing Internet medical infrastructure to support society’s healthcare needs.

A look at JD Health’s past year

Last year, JD introduced several initiatives to help people of needy groups access and afford quality medicine, improve the capacity of primary health care services and promote the realization of a chronic disease management ecosystem. Over the past year, relying on JD Health’s advantages in supply chain and technology, the company has worked with partners to implement these plans one by one.

In May, JD Health launched the “Healthy China Medical Subsidy Project”. The project provides RMB 1,000 yuan per person per year for drug purchase subsidies for needy households across the country which can be used to make purchases from a catalog of eligible drugs. With the support of partners, by the end of September, the program’s subsidized drug list had more than 600 drugs covering hundreds of common diseases.

In August 2020, JD Health released its “Family Doctor” services based on an “internet +healthcare” model. This new type of telehealth service is tailored to the needs of an increasing number of Chinese families seeking more timely, consistent and comprehensive healthcare support. At the time of the announcement, Xin said, “The core value of the ‘family doctor’ product exists in that it can offer different medical service formats based on patients’ need and match medical resources more accurately. Gathering more quality medical resources around users is what is really needed now. This new experience and business model will set a new benchmark in this industry.”

From the end of 2019 through September of this year, JD Health has established 17 Internet medical centers for a wide range of specialties, including cardiology, diabetes, ENT, respiratory, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and more. JD Health’s specialized centers provide a model for the integration of online and offline prevention, treatment and rehabilitation for chronic diseases.

What’s next?

Xin said, “Under the ‘new normal’, the medicine and health industry is accelerating digital transformation and upgrading. The popularization of emerging technologies is gradually changing medical and health services scenarios.” He explained JD’s desire to connect with more partners across fields to flourish, accelerate the improvement of medical and health supply and service quality and contribute to the “Healthy China” strategy.

(ella@jd.com)