by Vivian Yang

Before Chinese schools reopen for the fall semester in September, JD Books launched its Supper Day on August 31^st, offering timely shopping benefits for the students. They showed no less enthusiasm for book buying than they did during JD’s 618 Grand Promotion in June. On this Super Book Day, books sold on JD increased by 192% and sales were up by 147% year on year.

JD Books also released Top 10 lists in twelve categories based on the company’s big data regarding paperback books, e-books, audio content, authors, publishing houses, book merchants, self-operated book stores, and more.

“New Concept English” (新概念英语) topped the list of paperback books, heralding another wave of passion for English learning among young people in China. Chinese author Lu Yao’s masterpiece “Ordinary World” (three volumes) (平凡的世界) ranked 2^nd, followed by the “Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China” (中华人民共和国民法典) which was passed by the National People’s Congress this May. As China’s first-ever Civil Code that will come into effect on January 1, 2021, it is a must-read for many people.

On the list of e-books, readers showed more interest in the investment and management books category. The top three most popular e-books were Xiaomi‘s first official company biography “From 10 to Infinity” (一往无前) which was newly released in August, famous science fiction “The Three-Body Problem” (三体), and “Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger”.

JD is taking a leading position in integrating online and offline services in the book industry. The outbreak of coronavirus is accelerating this process, as has been confirmed in a reading report JD released this April. In early June, JD was also chosen to be the exclusive livestream sales channel for Maye Musk’s new book in Chinese.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

The famous mattress brand Sealy launched its crossover mattress “BlueStar” at JD on September 1^st. The product is designed in cooperation with Shuhei Aoyama, the Japanese arch-designer and founder of B.L.U.E. Architecture.

Shuhei said, “The bed is the heart of the house…An ideal home is a place that you feel a sense of belongings.” Shuhei’s idea is highly consistent with Sealy’s philosophy to create high quality products, as well as JD’s philosophy of providing customers with a high quality home furnishing experience, as well as leading industry trends.

As a leading platform for buying home furnishing, JD’s big data and active customer base has helped imported mattress brands expand in China’s market. Since Sealy joined JD in 2017, it has maintained a fast growth rate. Sales increased over 60% y-o-y in the first half of the year despite the epidemic.

Xinyun Zhou, e-commerce head at Sealy said, “As a leading mattress brand, we will continue to work with JD and more top designers to provide customers a consistent quality lifestyle.”

Jing Zhao, general manager of furniture at JD said, “We want to meet customers’ demand for a healthy sleep experience by partnering with top brands like Sealy and famous designers like Shuhei.”

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Ella Kidron

Mooncakes started as a treat traditionally eaten during the mid-autumn festival, but have since in their own right become a phenomenon. They can be found in sweet and savory varieties, and boxed in all different types of ornate packaging. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find mooncakes in Chinatowns in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London, all year round. In China, both retailers and brands go through immense lengths to prepare for the frenzy of mooncake buying ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival (August 15^th on the lunar calendar), JD included.

In advance of the holiday, which coincides with National Day in China (October 1^st ) this year, JD Super, JD’s online supermarket brand, hosted a press conference and unveiled its upgraded strategy for mooncake sales on August 31^st. The company also took the opportunity to share its big data-based findings on mooncake consumption.

During the press conference, Liu Hui, Chief Data Officer of the JD Big Data Research Institute introduced key findings from the “Mooncake Consumption 2020 Report”. Among the findings of the report, core consumers of mooncakes appear to be highly-educated and high spending customers, yet there is a gradual increased consumption from younger consumers and those from lower tier cities, where growth rates of mooncake consumption by Generation Z, youth from small towns and middle aged consumers from small towns are as high as 56%, 56% and 41% respectively.

JD’s Chief Data Officer Liu Hui shares insights on mooncake trends from recent report

Xiaojun Wang, general manager of Packaged Foods, JD FMCG Omnichannel, said, “In the past, with the help of our partners and consumers, we had the best growth rate in mooncake sales in the industry.” He added that in the future, JD plans to focus on improving results from eight dimensions: brand upgrade, strategy upgrade, resource upgrade, consumption upgrade, data sharing, data co-creation, brand co-creation and mutual benefit. “We will make full use of JD’s core platform advantages to promotion brand growth and provide consumers with higher quality products and more personal services.”

JD and brand partners launch alliance for mooncake sales

As shared during the event, 2020 has brought new challenges to mooncake brands and increased requirements concerning product quality, marketing ability, service level and more. JD Super has formed an alliance with famous Beijing snack brand, Daoxiangcun (稻香村), Guangzhou Restaurant (广州酒家), traditional Peking duck chain Quanjude (全聚德) and other brands. Under the alliance, members will have access to five major types of resources provided by JD, such as customization through the C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) initiative.

C2M is a key initiative to boost performance of mooncake products this year. As such, JD has launched hundreds of customized gift boxes with mooncake brands, providing a wide range of choices in terms of packaging, flavor, gifting needs vs. personal consumption, and more, to fully meet diversified consumer demand.

(ella@jd.com)