by Tracy Yang

JD’s social group e-commerce initiative has made good achievements during 618 Grand Promotion. From June 1^st to 18^th, sales of JD’s social group e-commerce and cloud store solution exceeded RMB 1 billion, an increase of more than 10 times compared with the same period last year. There were more than 1.5 million social groups. JD’s cloud store solution has helped more than 370 brands and empowered more than 100,000 shopping guides.

According to Q1 2020 data, the main drivers of JD’s social group e-commerce initiative are mainly post-70s and 80s married female users in first-, second- and third-tier cities, and most of them are senior white-collar workers with college degrees. These people have a certain degree of spending power and mature social circles.

JD’s social group e-commerce initiative is based on the relationship between people and achieves more connectivity through the social group. Based on this close connection, consumer demand can be more accurately captured and the recommendation of acquaintances also reduces the cost of selection.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, as part of JD’s social e-commerce initiative, JD’s cloud store solution help brands expand their market penetration and find business breakthroughs, and also provides a guarantee for their employees in the offline retail industry.

Liping Ma is a shopping guide at one of Bailisi’s stores, China’s leading home textile brand in Xixiangtang District, Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. At the beginning of the year, the shopping mall where the offline store is located closed. As a salesperson who depends on performance commission, the closure of the mall means a reduction in income. To alleviate the pressure on employees, the shopping mall began to actively look for innovative solutions and ultimately chose to work with JD’s cloud store solution and help their employees to transform into “online shopping guides.”

Liping Ma said: “At the end of February and the beginning of March, the company trained us on JD’s cloud store solution. Through the cloud store Mini Program, we can not only do live streaming, but also share links to products in WeChat Moments, allowing customers to place orders online. Our income has gradually increased.” From offline shopping guide to online shopping guide, Liping Ma found a new career path as an omnichannel shopping guide, and she will continue to use JD’s cloud store to work as an online shopping guide in the future.

 

(tracy.yang@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

The past JD’s 17^th June 18 Grand Promotion has seen sales increases across all categories on JD, and beauty products are no exception. Though not daily necessities like rice or cooking oil, beauty products are becoming essential for many customers in their daily lives. On June 1^st, sales of beauty products were 2.5 times the same day last year. High-end beauty products performed exceptionally well, with a 5 times y-o-y increase in the first hour of June 1^st.. On June 18^th, which is the peak day of 618, sales of high-end beauty brands such as SK-II, Lancôme, Elizabeth Arden and whoo increased 2.6 times, 5.8 times, 2.9 times and 2.2 times respectively.

“Many brands used to think offline channels are most important, but now they are attaching more importance to online,” said Terry Wang, general manager of JD Beauty. “They are working closely with JD and have seen great success during this 618.”

 

Premiumization of beauty products

Like in many other categories, there has been premuimization in the beauty category – customers’ skin care and makeup routines are more complex, and they are using more high-end products. Sales of facial essence and eye cream increased on the first day of June, and so did foundation and perfume.

Male customers also care about their appearance. On June 1^st, sales of male facial cleansing products increased 282% y-o-y, and male skincare sets increased 260%.

 

Professional livestreams to save customers’ time

Livestream has become a phenomenon since the outbreak of COVID-19, and during this 618, JD held over 300,000 livestreams and saw 31 brands achieve sales of over RMB 100 million yuan from their live shows. JD Beauty held 10,662 live shows during this 618, with over 1,200 merchants and brands starting livestreaming. Total livestreaming time exceeded 32,000 hours.

“Our livestreaming has two unique points: one is that we use professionally-generated content (PGC) to help our customers to select most suitable products in the shortest amount of time. Also, we encourage our brand partners and merchants to join livestreaming because it is a good way to get direct contact with customers and improve customer loyalty.” said Terry Wang: “Our livestream goes beyond entertainment. We want customers to save time by watching our livestreams.”

To provide more professional livestream experience for customers, JD Beauty set up its official livestream program to only promote products selected by its beauty purchasers. After being established for one year, the program has become one of the top programs on JD Live. During this 618, JD’s beauty purchasers also started to do livestreams twice a day to recommend the best products to customers based on their professional knowledge. What’s more, during this 618, almost all brands and merchants hosted over three-hour live shows every day, including OLAY which hosted 7-hour show every day and Carslan which hosted a 14-hour show. Many brands saw sales generated from livestreaming exceed 20%.

 

AR and AI boost customer experience

Recently JD Beauty launched an AI skin evaluation service in JD app – with one simple scan of the skin, customers can see the analysis of their skin condition based on different metrics, such as skin tone, brightness, eye circles, etc. Since the launching, hundreds of thousands of customers have tried AI skin evaluation, and over 50% of customers who try it add products into their shopping carts. JD’s AR makeup testing is also being constantly upgraded, and can now accurately match what a customer might see if they actually tried the makeup on their own faces.

“The ultimate aim of leveraging of AR and AI technology in JD Beauty is also to save customers’ time. With detailed analysis of customers’ skin condition and their shopping preferences, we can recommend suitable products to them, providing the most professional shopping experience.” said Wang: “With big data on customer feedback, we also hope to provide brands more insights on Chinese customers, and help brands develop C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) products. “

For Wang, 618 is just a short-term activity, and what he values most is the sustainable and quality development of JD’s beauty business. It cannot be achieved without deep cooperation with brands, and he thinks JD Beauty is more than a sales channel for brands, it’s also a marketing and data partner for brands to jointly build brand reputation, and a customer management platform to help brands improve customer loyalty and gain deeper insights on Chinese market. He believes that good strategy needs to be practiced continuously, and the sustainable development of JD Beauty will attract more partners and customers.

 

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Yuchuan Wang

JD.com is currently working with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation to develop a function to use Augmented Reality (AR) technology measure foot size.

The function to be released soon will leverage Sony’s ToF (Time-of-Flight) distance measurement technology so that customers can simply use their mobile phones (need to be equipped with a ToF camera) to measure their foot size by scanning the front and side angles of their feet.

In addition, earlier this year, JD has launched a new Augmented Reality (AR) feature on JD’s app for online customers to virtually try-on shoes. AR Shoes Try-on is now available for over 1,000 sneaker SKUs on JD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like many other AR applications offered by JD such as AR Fitting Room, AR Styling Station, and AR Shopping, the new feature is also open to external partners through a PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solution that allows companies to develop, run and manage applications without the complexity of building the associated infrastructure.

 

Consumers have long been troubled by shopping online for fashion products for reasons like uncertain shoe size or unsuitable style. AR technology will help customers simplify the shopping process. JD will further develop its AR offerings in more scenarios such as AR skin evaluation and AR livestreaming.

Mingqiang Ye, head of AR/VR at JD.com said, “We hope use innovations in technology to give all consumers equal access to efficient and convenient purchase and service. JD will continue to promote innovations in the area of AR and benefit both our customers and industry partners.”

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)