by Martin Li

JD is planning to open three home appliance flagship stores in three cities in China this September. The three stores will be located in Bengbu in Anhui province, Jiaozuo in Henan province and Deyang in Sichuan province.

Each new store will have an area of 10,000 square meters, and customers will be able to buy over 10,000 varieties of products in-store. They will also be able to place online orders for more than 200,000 products.

The stores will include experience zones for large brands such as Apple, Huawei and Xiaomi. In addition, consumers will be able to experience innovative tech products like drones, cleaning robots, and VR devices.

“I want to buy a DJI drone, but I need to try it out first. It would be nice to experience it in a store in my city,” said a man surnamed Liu in Bengshan district of Bengbu.

Liu made a reservation to visit the flagship store right after he learnt it was opening.

The three stores will bring the total number up to four—the first one opened in Ma’anshan, Anhui province on June 18^th this year. It’s opening day saw a sales volume of RMB 50 million yuan. More than 46,000 people watched the livestream of the store that same day.

“When consumers scan a price tag with their mobile phones, they will see a detailed product page including buyer comments and discount information. They can expect the same price as online buyers, as well as free delivery,” said Wang Zhaojun, the store’s manager.

JD eventually plans to open such a home appliance flagship store in each tier-1 to tier-3 city in an effort to bring offline experiences directly to consumers.

“Traditional home appliance chain stores are all the same. It’s a waste to open an excessive amount of stores. JD’s home appliance business will be able to connect cities across China using its one-city-one-store strategy,” said Wu Xianjian, deputy secretary general of China’s Home Appliance Business Association.

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

JD announced today to launch JD E-Sports Plan with partners including Tencent, Black Shark, Red Magic, ROG, Lenovo, telecoms, and several mobile phone supply chain manufacturers. The announcement was made at ChinaJoy, the largest gaming convention in China.

The initiative aims to accelerate the development of the gaming phone industry. This will be achieved by focusing on gaming devices and e-sports competitions and providing a better gaming experience to players. JD was the first company to create the concept of a “gaming phone” back in 2017, and quickly started to work with mobile phone brands to develop gaming phone products using the C2M model.

The mobile gaming industry is growing rapidly. According to industry data, there were 630 million mobile phone gamers in China in 2019. Demand for gaming products is increasing. During JD’s 618 sale this year, the transaction volume of gaming phones increased 150% year-on-year.

“With the launch of JD E-Sports Plan, we hope to leverage JD’s advantages in user traffic, technology, supply chain, and payments to help industry partners amplify the value of their businesses. This could happen through holding gaming competitions, building marketing platforms, empowering supply chain manufacturers, or exploring innovative technologies.” said Daniel Tan, president of JD Mobile Devices.

For marketing programs, JD will hold themed marketing campaigns based on big data and customer behaviors to precisely target at game lovers.

For hardware and device development, JD will co-develop standards for gaming phones with Tencent, as well as gaming phone brands and manufacturers, ultimately providing better C2M gaming phone products. JD has also launched a series of services including trade-ins and 30-day trials, both targeting gaming phone customers.

JD will work with its partners to hold exciting e-sports competitions, the organization of which has been recognized by the industry. JD Cup, an e-sports competition sponsored by JD, has been the organizer Honor of Kings (one of the top mobile games in China) tournaments for two consecutive years. JD was also the exclusive e-commerce partner for KPL Spring, KPL Fall, and the Honor of Kings Anniversary in 2019. Moving forward, JD plans to work in close conjunction with Tencent Games on e-sports clubs and competitions.

JD will also promote mobile gaming in universities and build a player ecosystem among college students. In an upcoming JD livestreaming project held for them, over 10,000 teams are expected to join over 50,000 live broadcasts.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Yuchuan Wang

JD Business, JD.com’s enterprise procurement division, has teamed up with 10 Chinese enterprise solution brands including Inspur, Lenovo, Sugon, H3C, PANTUM, and Tsinghua Tongfang to form the “Domestic Brands Alliance”. In addition, JD will invest RMB 60 million yuan including financial supports and resources to provide customized supportive measures to domestic enterprise solution providers.

The alliance is committed to lowering barriers to enterprise procurement by connecting products, services, and professional knowhow from various brands to offer one-stop category-tailored enterprise solutions. The categories in the first phase will be smart offices, smart meetings, staff canteens, and staff dormitories.

Meanwhile, JD will open its 8 million enterprise client base to large enterprise solution brands, and accurately match demand with supply using big data technology. For SME brands, JD will leverage its marketing resources to help them gain more exposure and increase brand awareness.

Kailei Li, general manager of JD Enterprise Solutions at JD Business says, “As the largest digital enterprise procurement platform in China, we will leverage our technology and resources to help more domestic brands succeed in the market.”

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

Mead Johnson, the world’s leading international pediatric nutrition company, launched a new milk powder product globally and exclusively on JD this week. The milk powder, created by JD and the Mead Johnson together using the “Customer to Manufacturer”(C2M) model, belongs to the BoruiQuanyue (铂睿全跃) series.

According to data from JD, Chinese mothers primarily choose milk powder based on the quality of the source, absorption, whether it can boost brain function or vision, and safety. “We did a lot of thorough preparation including R&D, before finally launching today. We kept mothers’ key concerns in mind when designing the product, and tried our best to provide something innovative to match their preferences,” Lizhen Liu, president of JD FMCG said during the launch event.

The product marketing head of the new milk powder at Mead Johnson praised JD for creating such a popular new product for customers. “JD Super has been our long-term strategic partner for China’s baby and maternal market since 2016, helping us accelerate social e-commerce, providing us a lot of support during promotions and sales, and facilitating high quality sales growth.” During the first hour on June 18, sales of Mead Johnson’s top-end series reached 25 times that of the same period last year.

The success of the C2M initiative between the two companies has set an example for the market as a whole.

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Martin Li

JD’s social group e-commerce program had brought incomes to almost two million people by July 20, including fresh college graduates, mothers, the unemployed, retirees, migrant workers, farmers, and disabled people.

Named Super New Star, the program encourages people to share links to product promotions and discounts on JD’s e-commerce platforms via Wechat groups and mini programs. Promoters earn affiliate marketing commissions from each transaction while JD provides the inventory, logistics, and after-sales services.

Participants in the program has exceeded 1.7 million, the majority of which are females between 30 and 50 from lower-tier cities. Around 69% of the products sold via the program in the first quarter of this year were valued below RMB100 yuan.

A woman working in a primary school in Hengshui City, Hebei province and mother of a two-and-half-year boy joined the program six months ago with the goal of earning additional income. “I hope to make a better life for my children,” said the woman, who is going to have another baby soon. “I don’t need to worry about product quality, diversity, or product services because JD handles them all,” she said. The woman made around RMB 200 yuan each month when she started, but that has since grown to 20,000 yuan.

There were over 48 million people engaged in social e-commerce in 2019 and the market size exceeded RMB two trillion yuan, according to statistics from the Internet Society of China.

It is predicted that such a self-employment economy could see robust growth in 2020. Large e-commerce players like JD are expected to play a bigger role in building the infrastructure of the new economy.

(bjlihao3@jd.com)