by Rachel Liu

JD Super, JD.com’s online supermarket, announced that it expects to achieve annual sales of over RMB 800 billion yuan in 2023 during a virtual press conference for 9.9（September 9^th ） JD Super Festival, which marks the founding of JD Super. During the virtual event, JD Super also launched its “TOUCH +” strategy that focuses on omnichannel expansion, which involves integrating the different ways people enjoy shopping—online or offline

“This year COVID-19 has brought many challenges for the offline economy, but it has also brought opportunities for omnichannel development,” said Carol Fung, president of JD FMCG Omnichannel. “We hope to take this opportunity and focus on the essence of retail, which is about cost, efficiency and customer experience. We’d like to help customers buy any products they want in all kinds of scenarios, and continue to work with our partners to achieve growth.”

Last year, JD Super launched an earlier version of the strategy called “TOUCH,” focusing on targeted customer operations, omnichannel solutions, unique products, competitive prices and holistic marketing. During COVID-19, JD Super’s reliable service and ability to deliver high-quality products were recognized by consumers and brand partners.

This year, JD Super has upgraded the strategy to “TOUCH +”, which aims to integrate offline and online products and services to serve customers’ needs better, optimize the supply chain capability, reach customers through omnichannel marketing with more targeted customer operations.

JD.com began to develop the omnichannel fulfillment program in 2019, which is a supply chain innovation program that leverages offline retail outlets located near customers to directly deliver orders made on the e-commerce site—an innovation which in many cities has resulted in 29-minute delivery.

The program now covers 216 cities in cooperation with over 300 retailers, 1 million offline stores including chain supermarkets, pet stores, liquors stores, grocery stores and more.

Now, the data from that program is being used to develop a digital product that can help brand partners understand customer profiles and sales performance in different areas, which can help brands provide more targeted marketing campaigns and customer operations.

Additionally, with years of experience in building supply chains, JD Super has been able to build a smart, integrated supply chain middle platform, ensuring that it can source the most suitable products for customers. What’s more, JD Super can work more closely with the brands, industrial belts and factories to design more products based on customers’ different preferences.

When it comes to marketing, the omnichannel approach enables JD Super to break the barriers of channels and categories, to leverage all kinds of online and offline scenarios and reach customers repeatedly, to improve the effect of marketing campaigns.

“Omnichannel has become a trend for the whole retail industry,” Ping Zhao, vice president of Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade said. “The efforts that JD Super is making on ominchannel enables customers to enjoy the same level of products and services whether they’re shopping online or offline.”

Brands will enjoy a more holistic picture with detailed customer profiles and shopping preferences, which can boost their ability to serve customers well. Additionally, JD Super can leverage big data to achieve targeted marketing both online and offline, and use C2M to discover customers’ needs and develop new products.

“Omnichannel will not only provide customers with a better shopping experience, but also help brands embrace the trend of digital transformation,” Zhao said.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

Yongjun Tian, a local fisherman in Hainan, and other local fisherman, sold nearly 10 tons of products in just two days through JD Fresh during fishing season, which began early this month.

After Tian found about JD Fresh’s plan to help sell local fishermen’s products, he organized surrounding fishermen to speak with JD. Through a partnership with Xiangtai, one of Hainan’s leading aquatic products enterprises, JD Fresh purchased the local fishermen’s products and supported the sales with marketing resources. The fishermen sales have increased 180% y-o-y.

“I faced major financial problems. My fish were stuck in the pond, but it was hard to sell them on our own or to merchants,” Tian said, highlighting the challenges he and other local fishermen faced under COVID-19.

Tian, who is from Zhejiang province, came to Hainan to pursue his aquatic business since 2006. Hainan is a major province for tilapia aquaculture in China. There are around 140,000 personnel working in related industries. Over 90% of tilapia and related products are exported. Prior to the epidemic, Tian’s annual revenue could reach RMB 200,000 yuan. Due to COVID-19, however, Tian’s export orders from Europe, North America and Middle East went down sharply.

With JD’s help, more merchants have purchased fish from Tian and other farmers. “JD will also help do nucleic acid testing, ensuring the safety of the products,” Tian emphasized.

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Hui Zhang

JD.com and COFCO’s (China Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation) cooking oil sub-brand Fulinmen reached agreement to upgrade their cooperation to facilitate product innovation, marketing promotion and logistics services on September 7^th, 2020.

JD.com will share market insights with Fulinmen to co-develop new products or customize products especially for consumers on JD.com. Both sides will take advantage of JD’s big data, focusing on consumer operation, sharing promotion resources and expanding sales channels, to further enhance the brand’s influence and sales performance. To reduce the cost of supply chain and improve distribution efficiency, JD.com will make full use of its logistics network throughout the country to provide an integrated logistics solution covering warehousing, distribution, consumer services and after-sales services to Fulinmen.

JD.com has established cooperation with Fulinmen in 2016 and both sides have jointly developed many Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) products including nutritious vegetable blend oil, homemade flavor rapeseed oil, Shandong local style peanut oil and flaxseed blend oil since then. JD’s C2M initiative involves leveraging the platforms big data insights to help brands better understand how to create or tailor products to suit the preferences of JD’s consumers. Fulinmen debuted two customized oil products on JD.com during the e-commerce giant’s annual Grand Promotion from June 1^st to 18^th, and sales of the above mentioned products on June 18^th is 50 times that of May 18^th. In addition, the two sides customized flaxseed blend oil and walnut blend oil based on JD’s big data and market insights, and sales of the flaxseed blend oil increased by 1,500% on June 1^st comparing with May 1^st.

“JD Super is not only an important partner of Fulinmen, but also an external pushing hand of Fulinmen’s digitalization upgrade,” said Hongchao Yu, general manager of COFCO Fulinmen. “Fulinmen will further upgrade its cooperation with JD.com, establishing long-term cooperation in building the new ecosystem of oil and food consumption.”

From January to June this year, sales of more than 10,000 FMCG brands on JD Super, JD.com’s online supermarket, increased by 100% compared with the same period last year. Sales of 200 FMCG brands exceeded RMB 100 million yuan, with sales of more than 20 brands exceeding RMB 1 billion yuan.

Cooking oil has always played an important role in people’s diet. Fulinmen, as one of the major brands of cooking oil in China, has been leading the industry in terms of sales since its first bottle of cooking oil was sold in 1993. The brand also manufactures other food, such as condiments, rice, sugar and miscellaneous grains.

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

by Ella Kidron

JD Super, JD.com’s online supermarket, has seen significant progress since launching its Omnichannel Fulfillment program last year. Changming Li, head of Omnichannel Fulfillment Program, FMCG Omnichannel, told a virtual audience during JD Super’s press conference on September 8^th as part of the 9.9 JD Super Festival  to celebrate JD Super’s founding, that the platform went from having one water provider partner to many partners, and from being in one city – Beijing, to now being available nationwide.

Omnichannel takes many forms on JD Super, all aimed at making the shopping process and the back end, more seamless. JD Super has already helped many offline merchants with online sales, not only diversifying the products available to customers, but also helping partners to increase their online sales channels. According to JD Big Data, during the first half of 2020, over 10,000 brands saw sales increase 100%, 7,000 brands saw sales increase 200%, 5,000 brands saw an increase of 300%, 200 brands saw sales of over RMB100 million yuan and over 20 brands saw sales of cover RMB 10 billion yuan.

As the key representative project of JD FMCG’s omnichannel efforts, through the Omnichannel Fulfillment program, JD Super works with partner offline stores to source inventory for orders made online, providing customers with a more convenient shopping experience, and brands with more precise access to performance data. Coca-Cola, Nongfu Spring, WalMart, Yonghui, Bubugao, and other brands have already joined Omnichannel Fulfillment.

Using big data and location based services (LBS), JD has been able to capture and meet consumers’ multi-scenario needs, helping to drive more traffic for brands and open up more growth avenues through an improved omnichannel model. Li explained that JD has strengthened its LBS capabilities, which originally were based on recipient’s address, to become more precise, enabling more useful insights. Furthermore, if a consumer orders Coca-Cola on JD Super, the system determines where the product is located closest to them, enabling delivery in an hour from partner stores such as Walmart, Yonghui Supermarket and many others.

Li said, “In the past, how to digitize offline data, in terms of consumer characteristics and attributes, was very difficult. With Omnichannel Fulfillment, JD as the common touch point, we can connect online and offline information.” This helps both JD and brands better target consumers and ensure the relevance of PUSH notifications, for example. It also improves customer flow, basket price, repeat purchase rate and consumers’ overall stickiness.

JD Super saw a high frequency of visits during the epidemic, as meeting basic needs moved from offline to online or from offline to omnichannel. Liu Hui, Chief Data Officer at the JD Big Data Research Institute,  said, “In the first half of this year, rice, grains, oil, fresh food and other categories saw massive growth as compared with prior years. Fruit and vegetables became important categories for online consumption. Growth in these categories exceeded three times.

(ella@jd.com)

by Ella Kidron

As further indication of an entrance into the new normal, consumers heading back to school here in China are stocking up on masks, with mask sales seeing an 18 time increase as compared with the same period last year. Many schools require students to take a nucleic acid test prior to the start of school. Transaction volume of JD Health’s nucleic acid test booking service has seen an obvious increase in the last week. Affected by the coronavirus outbreak, students are also opting for more personal care items, such as lunch boxes / food storage containers, electric toothbrushes and even electric lunch boxes increasing by 141%, 114% and 86% YOY respectively.

After a bout of home schooling or online lectures under the pandemic, students and parents alike are looking forward to the return to school in the new normal. JD Big Data from the middle of August shows that this anticipation is being reflected in recent purchases.

As students prepare to meet each other in person for the first time in half a year, consumer data reveals an increased attention on personal appearance related products. Cosmetics and skincare saw a 120% YOY transaction volume increase. Designer and streetwear apparel sales growth reached 183%. From a back-to-school fashion perspective – perhaps a symptom of half a year living in sweatpants – consumers are preferring convenience and comfort. Sales of casual pants were 2.9 times that of jeans, while sales of dresses were 3.8 times that of skirts. At the same time, students are getting a jumpstart on prepping for winter, with scarves, gloves and other winter gear seeing a year on year sales growth of over 50%.

Students living in dormitories are opting to spruce up their bedding with sales of fiber quilts, fiber pillows, mattresses, bedding sets and fragrant pillows ranking among the top five products in the category. Sales of latex pillows increased by more than 50% YOY.

Students are adopting a work-hard play hard attitude with actual school supplies as well as entertainment-related products seeing significant increases. The volume of stationery supplies purchased by students increased 79% year-on-year, among which pens, as well as gaming consoles and related equipment up more than 60% YOY. Mobile phone cases and protective equipment were up 73%. Looking at the purchases of books by colleague students, sales of English course books are 10 times higher than the previous year.

Beijing ranks first in terms of computer and digital products, stationery, mobile phones, makeup and skin care sales, all of which have increased 60% YOY. With significant improvements in the COVID-19 situation, students in Hubei province (capital is Wuhan), pay specific attention to health protection. Mask sales were up 40 times as compared with last year. Lunch containers and electric lunch boxes increased by 226% and nearly 120% YOY respectively. After eight months away, students and Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology returned to blankets moldy from disuse. Since then, Zhangfeng Wu, a JD courier, has delievered an average of 300 new blankets a day to a single dormitory at the university.

(ella@jd.com)