by Ella Kidron

JD opened two home appliance flagship stores this weekend, one in Nanjing, Jiangsu province (a second tier city) and the other in Jiaozuo, Henan province (a fourth tier city).

Nanjing is quickly becoming a popular destination for luxury shopping and the spending power of consumers in the area is very strong – something that was made apparent as customers seen carrying or wearing Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Hermes was a common sight on opening day.

The average price of refrigerators and washing machines at the JD Electronics store in Nanjing is over RMB 10,000 yuan. Haixia Mei, general manager of JD Home Appliances in Nanjing said that the display area in the store takes into account both high quality and high performance-to-price ratio. High quality products with cool technology elements are the first choice for high end consumers such as Internet of Things-enabled refrigerators from Casarte.

JD Electronics Flagship Store, Nanjing, Jiangsu province

For consumers in Jiaozuo, high quality mobile phones from brands such as Huawei have become popular choices for residents. The JD Home Appliance flagship store not only stocks all of the hot items consumers are clamoring to get their hands on, but also provides highly competitive prices. In 2013, Henan province and specifically cities including Zhengzhou, Jiaozuo and Xinxiang were identified as early movers in the consumption upgrade pursuit in China. JD, which has been committed to quality above all else, has been investing in the providing high quality products and logistics services in the lower tier markets for several years now.

JD Home Appliance stores are based on the idea that there are some products consumers prefer to look at, touch and test before purchasing. Consumers are able to try nearly everything in store and can either take purchases home or have them delivered to their address of choice, thanks to JD’s strong supply chain and logistics network.

Earlier this year, JD announced a plan to open 20 JD E-Space Experience Stores in first tier cities (large scale), as well as 300 home appliance flagship stores in prefectural cities on a one-city-one-store basis, and 5,000 stores in towns and villages by 2025. At the time the plan was announced, JD had 15,000 home appliance stores of various sizes covering 25,000 townships and 600,000 villages.

(ella@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

JD has launched a new host service platform called Hong Xiao Meng（红小盟） that will aim to assist live-streamers and drive sales via closed or private channels.

The platform, which is free for entry-to-medium level internet celebrities and livestream hosts, is a tool that can be used in conjunction with hosting platforms Kuaishou, Douyin, Tencent’s Weishi and more. It aims to fill the gap for hosts who lack brand resources, supply chain management capabilities, high-commission products, and are unable to shoulder heavy operation costs in the way more successful hosts are able to do.

As an e-commerce platform, JD can leverage its supply chain capability to create an ecosystem that will connect brands, internet celebrities and customers together—optimizing value for both live stream hosts and consumers.

Hosts who use Hong Xiao Meng can select products and design their own content based on templates, and can also link products to JD’s platform for special coupons or promotion links. When they host a successful promotion, they’ll also be eligible for further awards. JD will provide support in e-commerce sales promotions, daily programs, or function optimization.

Additionally, the platform will enable live streamers to more easily track product management, product promotion, performance statistics, channel management, tools and account management.

JD is also launching a livestream campaign to help hosts on various platforms drive sales for their selected products from September 21st to 30th, with products ranging from home appliances, cell phones, computer and office products, digital products, and more.

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Martin Li

Sales of customized consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) mooncakes co-developed by JD and renowned brands including Daoxiangcun, Maxim and Guangzhou Restaurant jumped more than five times from August 19 to September 17, compared with the same period last year, according to statistics released by JD Super.

JD’s C2M mooncake in partnership with the Forbidden City

C2M is a new, flexible manufacturing model that helps optimize product design and circulation to meet specific demands, by analyzing massive amounts of data and generating insights regarding demand.

This model is being applied to a range of industries, now including the Chinese tradition of eating mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Day, which is due to fall on October 1 this year. In addition to established mooncake brands, JD has also cooperated with partners like the Palace Museum (Forbidden City) to develop customized mooncake packaging.

The growth in C2M mooncake sales proves that the new model can better meet increasingly diversified customer needs. Currently, college-educated white collar workers born after the 1990s are increasingly desiring customized mooncakes with special packaging and more unique tastes, according to JD data. C2M allows brands to serve these customers directly, based on their preferences.

To help traditional mooncake brands better understand these customer needs, JD makes use of its advantages in channel, technology, marketing, big data and a strong supply chain. Additionally, JD is using its resources and technology to help mooncake brands explore lower-tier markets.

According to JD’s research, only 10% of consumers surveyed are aware of the concept of C2M. But 92% of consumers surveyed are satisfied with C2M products, whether or not they know how the product is designed.

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, saw a 128% YOY increase in during the 9.9 Shopping Festival held on September 9^th, a special sales event for the supermarket category. Sales of food, maternal & baby products, liquors, fresh food pet products and more all saw strong increases.

JD Super sold over 300 million pieces of diapers, over 30,000 tons of milk, over 5.85 million hairy crabs during the festival. Among all of the FMCG brands, Chinese dairy giant Yili became the best-selling brand, following by popular liquor brand Moutai and dairy giant Mengniu. The top three most popular products are Wuliangye baijiu(52% alcohol), Mengniu Deluxe Milk and hairy crab from the brand Gu Su Yu Ge (姑苏渔歌).

During the promotion, popular Chinese singer and celebrity Da Zhang Wei (大张伟) joined a livestream show on JD Super and attracted over 1.94 million viewers. Kwai, a popular Chinese short video platform, also joined the 9.9 Shopping Festival and launched special livestreams for the event. Followers of JD Super’s Kwai account increased 2800% and the account received over 506,000 orders.

JD Super also leveraged its omnichannel marketing ability to improve the recognition of the 9.9 Shopping Festival among customers. Over 3,000 offline stores from 16 brands joined the marketing promotion, including JD’s 7FRESH stores, JD New Markets stores, and JD GO convenient stores.

On September 17^th, JD Super also announced its plans to support the development of time-honored brands on JD through marketing, logistics and big data. “We hope to help time-honored brands to achieve sustainable growth through JD’s comprehensive support. We believe the brands will become more high quality and more popular among the rising young generation,” said Xiaojun Wang, general manager of packaged food, JD Super.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Ella Kidron

JD MRO, the maintenance, repair and operations business under JD.com and Kimberly-Clark Professional, the workplace solutions provider under Kimberly-Clark, announced plans to deepen their partnership. The new partnership will find the parties taking a long term approach to providing cleaning products and protective supplies solutions for enterprises across multiple scenarios. It was announced at the ongoing 22^nd China International Industry Fair (CIIF) in Shanghai.

At the beginning of 2020, facing a shortage of protective supplies and supply chain disruptions, leading American personal care corporation, Kimberly-Clark played an important role in realizing the “Safe Return to Work Guarantee Plan” launched by JD MRO and partners. The plan served over a total of 1.31 million customers from a range of industries, helping them to get back to work and implement the necessary measures to protect workers from COVID-19. Leveraging its supply chain advantages JD was able to provide a total of 9.8 million items of supplies such as medical masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), safety goggles and more.

Kimberly-Clark Professional leveraged its global supply chain to provide more than 8 million items of products such as hand sanitizer, PPE, cleaning towels, gloves and  safety goggles to JD MRO, to support large enterprises like the China Academy of Engineering Physics  and SANLI (东方电气) get back to work safely. Kimberly-Clark professional also supported JD donate to 100,000 items of cleaning supplies to the Wuhan railway bureau, Wuhan airport and other public transportation and service units.

Wu Bei, general manager of Kimberly-Clark Professional China, said “In the stage of normalized epidemic prevention and control, doing a good job in enterprises cleaning and prevention and control not only helps fight the epidemic but also protects the economy. He added that Kimberly-Clark will continue to deepen its cooperation with JD MRO and take an integrated approach covering production to consumption to provide cleaning and protective services for more enterprises.

JD and Kimberly-Clark plan to develop or upgrade enterprise epidemic prevention and control solutions based on data and openness. Leveraging both parties’ accumulated experience in this space, the two companies plan to implement their solutions in more enterprise cleaning scenarios, such as a contactless bathroom, one stop laboratory for cleaning and protective supplies and more.

Even as epidemic prevention and control reaches a stage of normalization in China, COVID-19 has drastically changed people’s hygiene habits. For example, people have gone from washing their hands just three times per day to more than 10 times per day. As such, the demand for cleaning and protective supplies, particularly in the workplace remains high.

(ella@jd.com)