by Vivian Yang

JD’s social e-commerce platform Jingxi announced cooperation with six industrial belts in China. They include Nan’an, a home decoration product manufacturing cluster in Fujian province; Qing’an, a rice production area in Heilongjiang province; Shantou, both a beauty products manufacturing cluster and an underwear products manufacturing cluster in Guangdong province; Dongyang, a general merchandise and apparel manufacturing cluster in Zhejiang province; and Cixi, a footwear manufacturing cluster in Zhejiang province.

Nan’an’s home decoration products manufacturing cluster was the first among this wave of JD’s partnerships with industrial belts to ink an agreement with Jingxi on September 11^th. Under the agreement, the two parties will not only collaborate on the promotion of local home decoration products, but also eye a full supply chain cooperation and digital upgrading of the home decoration sector by connecting with other industrial belts in Quanzhou city, the upper administrative city of Nan’an county, including the industrial belts for cloth art, iron art and furniture, machinery and equipment, building materials and more.

Jingxi launched an initiative this June to support China’s industrial belts whose exports are impacted by the novel coronavirus and promote their sales in the domestic market. It is estimated that JD has invested over RMB 2 billion yuan in this initiative. Jingxi has provided supportive measures for merchants covering sales channels, marketing, financing, logistics and more.

Since its launch on September 19^th last year, Jingxi has covered over 180 industrial belts across China. This year it has reached its “two 100s goal”, which focuses on the creation of 100 industrial belts and 100 original production areas.

Looking ahead, Jingxi aims to provide support to over one million selected factories and farms from 1,000 industrial belts and original production zones in China, helping them to conduct 10,000 livestreaming sessions on site at the production areas and supporting them to produce more Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) products.

JD Retail CEO Lei Xu mentioned during JD’s Q2 earnings call that the company will step up efforts in the second half of the year to expand in the lower-tier markets and to cooperate with more industrial belts in terms of providing them with digital capabilities and supporting the R&D of direct-from-factory products.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

Twenty-two million people watched a special livestream event about household necessities hosted by JD.com and Chinese video-sharing platform Kuaishou from September 9^th to 10^th. Among the high-selling products during the event were 30,000 orders of napkins from the popular brand Breeze; 20,000 orders of Liby’s tea seed detergent; and 20,000 orders of Gongguan-based brand Huamei’s mooncake sets.

Joined by over 10 celebrities and Kuaishou anchors including Yaoqing Wang, Lusi Zhao, and livestream anchors such as Xuanzhuo Li, the event was the sequel to an earlier livestream partnership event hosted by JD and Kuaishou in June. In the earlier event, both parties focused on providing discounts for middle- and high-end products such as cellphones, computers, digital products and cosmetics.

This time, the two parties focused on daily products including wine and beverages, oil, rice and snacks—offering deep discounts and surprise “red packets”. One lucky shopper received a red packet of RMB 19,999 yuan, and 199 others received cash packets worth RMB 899 yuan each.

The livestream was hosted on Kuaishou Xiaodian’s official account, which has 70 million fans dubbed “little shops”, as well as JD Super’s Kuaishou official account. The timing of the event lined up with JD’s super flash day sales promotion on September 9^th.

(ling.cao@kd.com)

by Kelly Dawson

JD.com’s more than 280,000 employees range from warehouse workers to world-renowned doctors, with a wide range of backgrounds and areas of expertise. In the next installment of our JDer Lab series, we speak to another JDer about what it’s really like to work for China’s largest retailer.

One might expect that he would spend most of his time behind a desk—but as Kremer told us, he first got a taste of the company’s hands-on work culture when he was sent to Suqian, a Chinese city in northern Jiangsu province, to man a customer call center, an experience that really drove home how much the company values customers and high-quality service, he said. Unlike other companies, JD does not outsource customer service.

In his two years with the company Kremer has also served on some of JD’s other frontlines, as part of the company’s tradition of inviting “white collar” workers to support logistics and “last mile” delivery services during the annual 618 Grand Promotion and Singles Day (November 11^th) periods. “That’s exciting, because it’s a really important part of our business,” Kremer said. “I think it’s something that could only happen here [at JD].”

That tradition is just one of the many ways in which the team comes together to pull off the 618 (June 18) mid-year shopping festival, which this year grossed 269.2 billion yuan for the company. Kremer’s team put in extensive preparation and thought into making the promotion enjoyable and exciting for consumers, working closely with sales partners and celebrating with them as the promotion proved successful, he said.

These days Kremer is most excited about tackling omnichannel integration in JD’s supermarket division. As the company has expanded into different formats, including offline, multi-channel and online, customers can now expect even faster delivery—even within half an hour of purchase in some cases. As always, the goal is to ensure the customer receives their order as quickly as possible at reasonable cost, he said.

(kellydawson@jd.com)

by Yuchuan Wang

Recent data from JD.com reveals that smart dish washers, washer/dryer combo machines and sweeping robots are becoming the three new wish list appliances for Chinese families, replacing the television, fridge and washing machine of 40 years ago.

As China’s rising middle class consumers seek a quality lifestyle, consumption of smart home appliances is becoming a trend. According to JD’s data, smart home products is the top sub-category in terms of sales in the home appliances division. The data also finds that even though just two in every 1,000 customers buy sweeping robots, each of those consumers buys an average of 1.7 sweeping robots.

Health-centric home appliances are also seen as a priority, according to the data. Consumers born after 1985 have become the main group buying massage apparatuses: every seven out of 10 massage apparatuses are purchased by consumers under the age of 35. Smart toothbrushes are most frequently purchased by parents of young children, indicating that they are increasingly paying attention to their kids’ oral health.

Home appliances that are light weight, slim and small in size account for 72% of all the home appliances sold in first- and second-tier cities, reflecting these consumers’ comparatively limited home space due to high housing prices and high density populations. People from lower-tier cities prefer to buy large items such as fridges, air conditioners and washing machines – the growth rate of such consumption from this group is 2.5 times higher than the average on JD.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

JD saw sales of home and life products surge on the company’s “super flash sales” day, held on September 9^th. “Super flash sales” is one example of a JD promotion offering deep discounts for a limited period of time.

Home furnishing products performed particularly well. Sales of electronic locks increased 159% YOY. Sales of hanging lamps for computer monitors increased over 10 times YOY, while of BenQ, the leading brand in this category, saw sales increase15 times YOY.

More and more customers pursue interior design services. On September 9^th, sales of home interior decor services increased over nine times YOY.

JD data indicates that the pandemic has made consumers more interested in DIY (do-it-yourself) projects, leading to the growth of toolkits for home use. On the flash sales day, sales of toolkits from JIMI Home has increased 288% in first hour. Overall sales increased 179% compared with the daily average over the last 30 days.

Chairs designated for e-gaming, ergonomic chairs from leading global brands and computer chairs sold through JD’s first party retail model (where JD buys, holds and sells the inventory), increased 240%, 120% and 127% YOY, respectively.

On the same day, mattresses from international brands increased 200% YOY in the first hour of sales. Down and feather quilts, as well as blanket sales increased 12 times and four times, respectively.

In kitchenware, knives, glass cups, ceramic mugs, woks, and coffee sets saw strong sales results.

To make home furnishing consumption more convenient, JD provides special services such as AR-powered product exhibitions, free doorstep delivery and installation, price protection and special refunds.

(ling.cao@jd.com)