Other supplies and 200,000 RMB worth of masks in an hour

JD Worldwide Supports Overseas Merchants Affected by COVID-19

Posted on Mar 11, 2020Nov 11, 2021 by Rachel Liu

by Rachel Liu and Tracy Yang

On March 10^th, JD Worldwide, JD.com’s platform for imported products, announced supportive measures for overseas merchants as they weather COVID-19 from their markets.

Support includes marketing operations, new store launches, warehouse and logistics services and merchant management, especially for the merchants in countries and regions that are severely impacted by the epidemic.

The spread of COVID-19 outside of China has caused challenges for cross-border businesses and merchants in manufacturing, logistics, and after-sales service. To help merchants overcome these difficulties and better develop in the China market, JD Worldwide will provide support in marketing solutions and traffic to increase sales and improve inventory turn-over. During the upcoming sales promotion to be held from March to April, JD Worldwide will also provide special marketing support for merchants from affected countries, especially Japan, South Korea and Italy. The support also includes fresh food, which has a shorter life span and faces greater risk of expiry if overstocking occurs.

For overseas merchants who want to launch on JD Worldwide, JD Worldwide will provide a special channel to help them speed up the launching process. These merchants can launch a store in as fast as five days with the requisite qualifications. JD Worldwide also prioritizes bringing the most-needed products during the epidemic, such as medical and health products, maternal and baby products, food and beverage, and electronics products to meet customers’ increasing demand.

In terms of logistics, JD Worldwide will provide special support to virus-affected countries and regions, such as opening a green channel for new merchants to enter the warehouse for the first time, giving priority to the delivery of overseas products. In order to have enough inventory for Japanese and Korean merchants ahead of the upcoming promotions, JD’s Qingdao bonded warehouse will also provide two months rent-free service and fee reduction for transportation between bonded warehouses for newly signed Japanese and South Korean merchants.

On February 11^th, JD Worldwide has announced that from February 11^thto March 31^st, it will provide support for merchants who uses JD’s international warehouse and logistics services, including logistics subsidies, advertising subsidies, traffic and accurate recommendation support and priority during sales promotions. JD Worldwide will also leverage its advantages in global supply chain to help merchants through the epidemic and has actively worked with overseas suppliers to ensure the supply of masks and disinfectants.

The demand for high-quality imported products has been increasing during the epidemic. From February 1^st to March 9^th, the sales volume of milk powder increased by 230% on JD Worldwide. The sales volume of the products aiding immunity, like probiotics, Vitamin C, and others increased by 166%.

(liuchang61@jd.com; tracy.yang@jd.com)

JD Digits Named to Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2020

Posted on Mar 11, 2020Nov 15, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

by Jing Dong

JD Digits had been named to Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2020 as the only Chinese company under the Data Science category.

The award honors businesses making the most profound impact on both industry and culture. JD Digits’ effort in using data technology, AI and IoT as a competitive tool to energize Chinese agricultural industry was recognized by the magazine.

The company’s digital solutions also have been deployed across multiple sectors, including financial services, agriculture, intelligent cities, and digital marketing. For instance, JD Digits is helping financial institutions to achieve digital transformations through its one-stop financial digital solution T1 and credit card digital operation solution and intelligent asset management technology platform JT².

In addition, JD Digits has launched new digital breeding projects for the agricultural sector, such as AI-powered solutions for cattle raising and intelligent container fish farming to improve the efficiency of production and quality of agricultural and animal husbandry products while also helping to facilitate the sector’s sustainable development. In marketing, the company has succeeded in making digital advertising and outdoor media much more accurate and effective in reaching their audiences.

Leveraging AI as core technology capability and other pillars including data, IoT, and blockchain, JD Digits is fully committed to driving forward the digitalization of industries.

In 2014, JD Digits first started using AI in financial risk management. Today, the company is moving rapidly towards the broad-based deployment of AI across many different areas. Examples of recent R&D breakthroughs include: 1) JD Digits’ pioneering development of asynchronous federated learning, which does not require the use of synchronized data among different servers, thereby enabling much higher levels of efficiency in large-scale data processing; 2) JD Digits’ ground-breaking feature replay in deep learning which significantly boosts the speed and efficiency of computing by over 33%.

Over the years, JD Digits has continuously expanded its R&D investments. More than 60% of the company’s global employees are technical personnel while over 95% of its projects are focused on achieving smart and highly automated operations. JD Digits’ Silicon Valley-based AI lab has a team of 40 scientists, who are working closely with the corporate headquarters in Beijing to integrate the lab’s cutting-edge solutions – across 3D machine vision, text synthesis, man-machine conversation and deep learning – with the best industry practices.

JD Digits is a leading Chinese digital technology company that connects the real economy through world-class digital solutions. First established under JD.com, China’s largest retailer, it later began operating as an independent business group in October 2013.

(press@jd.com)

JD Provided Over 100,000 Bedding Sets for Wuhan

Posted on Mar 11, 2020Sep 25, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

JD.com’s “Emergency Resources Information Platform” received an urgent request from the municipal government of Dongxihu District in Wuhan in February to procure daily necessities for the opening of a temporary hospital. JD’s FacStore business quickly matched the request with supplies and delivered all materials within 18 hours. At present, JD FacStore has provided over 100,000 sets of bedding supplies to Wuhan’s temporary hospitals and hotels.

As JD’s enterprise membership procurement platform for the hospitality industry, FacStore is connected to JD’s over 270,000 merchants and nearly 1,000 industry manufacturers and suppliers. This access and resourcing enabled FacStore to secure over 60,000 sets of bedding supplies and electric kettles among others in within as little as two hours and deliver to the hospital in time leveraging JD’s in-house logistics capability.

In addition to securing supply for the hospitals, FacStore also provided materials for local hotels in Wuhan that are temporarily being used as accommodation for patients and medical staff. Wuhan’s SSAW Boutique hotel is one of them, where Wuhan Puai Hospital’s frontline medical staff have been staying during the epidemic since January. Given the shortage of bedding supplies, JD FacStore helped source 2,400 sets donated by Renmin University alumni and delivered via JD Logistics.

“We did not expect JD to be able to deliver such a large volume of materials in such a short time during the epidemic,” said Hairong Wang, general manager of Wuhan SSAW Boutique hotel, “We are grateful for JD’s support to the frontline and for the donation from Renmin University’s alumni.”

“During the epidemic, FacStore cooperates with our upstream and downstream partners to provide efficient sourcing and procurement services for the frontline. We will continue to fully leverage our technology and supply chain advantages to ensure operations resume for the hotel sector.” Said Zihao Tang, General Manager of Business Innovation at JD Business.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

JD Helps Pharmaceutical Merchants Resume Business

Posted on Mar 10, 2020Sep 22, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang

JD Medicine Procurement (Yao Jingcai), a medicine procurement platform of JD Health’s B2B business, has leveraged JD’s supply chain and logistics capabilities to ensure medial supply to pharmacies and clinics in a timely manner, and helped its pharmaceutical merchants resume business during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Ninety percent of the merchants on the platform have resumed normal operations, and the number of consumers placing orders on the platform increased by 150% from Feb.1^st to March 5^th y-o-y.

JD’s data revealed that on February 1^st, less than 15% of the merchants on the platform could accept orders normally, and that the majority of them couldn’t guarantee timely delivery due to lack of supply. Puren Pharmaceutical company in Guangshui, a city in Hubei province, is the main medication supplier to pharmacies and clinics in the cities of Suizhou and Xiaogan in Hubei province, and faced challenges handling orders due to COVID-19.

JD Medicine Procurement platform helped Puren resume business by coordinating several pharmaceutical companies to supply medicine to the company and delivering medicine to its targeted pharmacies and clinics via JD Logistics. Puren also donated medical supplies, valued at 100,000 RMB, to the Guangshui Coronavirus Prevention and Control department with the help of JD Logistics.

For pharmaceutical companies whose employees cannot return to work duirng the epidemic, JD Medicine Procurement offers support for their online operations by arranging JD staff to handle their online orders 24/7.

In addition, JD Medicine Procurement platform also expanded its business to include non-medical epidemic prevention supplies, such as masks, disinfectant, alcohol, and goggles, to manage the increasing demand for medical supplies from across the country. In February, a total of eight million items were successfully delivered via the platform.

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

In-Depth Report: What does 362m JD Customers mean?

Posted on Mar 10, 2020Sep 7, 2022 by Tracy Yang

by Tracy Yang

On March 2, JD.com released its Q4 and FY2019 earnings results. The core indicators all exceeded expectations. The number of annual active customers reached 362 million in 2019, increasing 27.6 million as compared with Q3 – the highest growth rate in the past 12 quarters.

Compared with the previous three quarters, the growth rate showed a significant accelerated growth trend. The accelerated growth of JD.com’s annual active users results from JD.com’s continued emphasis on customer experience.

The Winning Strategy

JD.com always puts customer experience first. In 2007, after obtaining the first round of financing, Richard Liu, Chairman and CEO of JD.com, argued strongly that JD.com should build its own logistics network, because at that time, 70% of JD.com’s customer complaints were related to logistics.

A large number of customers either complained about slow delivery, or that they found their packages were seriously damaged. Considering JD.com’s demand could not be met by China’s logistics companies at that time, Richard Liu believed that only a self-built logistics network could solve this problem. When talking with the investors, Richard Liu highlighted that building up a large number of logistics centers and information systems would really transform the company’s future core competitiveness and continuously improve the user experience. Many people may think that it is a money-burning action, but he believed it is worth it for the user experience.

Richard Liu and his forward-thinking paid off, and today JD Logistics has been successfully transformed from a cost center to a profit center. JD.com relies on its nationwide logistics network to provide same-day and next-day delivery service to Chinese consumers, a level of service no other e-commerce company at JD’s scale in the world can match. Fast delivery has become one of JD.com’s key differentiators and has helped the company win the favor of Chinese consumers. Even competitors who were not optimistic about JD.com’s heavy asset model have followed suit and begun to focus on the logistics network.

In the past 10-plus years, JD.com has built a professional and high-quality logistics service team with more than 180,000 employees, among whom all the couriers are full-time employees, trained and managed by JD Logistics. They enjoy top-notch welfare benefits in the logistics industry, including insurance policies and a housing fund. Over 800 couriers bought their own homes in 2019, and the number of employees earning over RMB 20,000 per month increased by 225% YOY.

“Value-added” Delivery

JD.com’s couriers cover designated housing communities, office blocks and other areas each day. Unlike the couriers from other logistics companies, JD.com’s couriers are obviously more likely to gain the trust of consumers, and they will even become friends with them. In the community, they will say hello to the customers as if they were familiar friends. Chinese consumers sometimes put garbage bags outside of their doors and then throw them away when they go downstairs. JD.com’s couriers will take the initiative to help their customers throw away the garbage when they make deliveries. This obviously goes beyond the typical relationship between service personnel and users.

In addition, JD Logistics released the industry’s first five-star delivery service standard, which is based on previous customer feedback and JD’s understanding of premium delivery service. JD.com hopes in addition to fast delivery, JD couriers can also make Chinese consumers feel warmth and care in their daily interactions.

With the outbreak of COVID-19, JD’s couriers are going above and beyond the call of duty to be there for customers. They do everything they can to help people in China, from helping customers buying emergency medical supplies, to buying medicine for chronic diseases, to taking care of consumers’ pets. Although they are just ordinary people, in this critical period, they have become the heroes in every city.

Customer First

Customer service and after sales service are important steps to guarantee the customer experience and JD.com has always paid great attention to this. Richard Liu has adhered to the value of “customer first” from the very beginning and set a good example for all JD employees.

In the early days when JD.com was established, to save money, Richard Liu was reluctant to rent a house. He slept in the office for four years and worked until midnight every day, sleeping on the floor of the office. He put an old-fashioned alarm clock next to him and would set it in two-hour increments, so that he could keep his promise of 24-hour service and check if there are any customer complaints. At that time, Richard Liu was JD.com’s very first customer service personnel.

Over the past decade, JD.com has invested more than RMB 15 billion in building up its customer service team. Currently there are more than 10,000 employees on the team and three major customer service centers have been built up in two cities in Jiangsu province, Suqian and Yangzhou, and in Chengdu, Sichuan province.JD.com’s customer service team has also become the largest one in China’s e-commerce industry with leading service and technical capabilities.

JD.com’s customer service team has also leveraged the company’s strong technology capabilities to further improve service quality and efficiency. Apart from human customer service, smart service robots are also used in daily service to Chinese consumers, including a smart sentiment-sensing customer service robot, an AI shopping guide, and more. Based on big data analysis of customer behavior, AI technology is widely used to deal with customer demands related to refund, return and repair, so that Chinese consumers can enjoy fast and personalized service.

In addition, favorable refund and return policies are also important for the overall customer experience. JD Fangxin Shopping is a great example. It includes instant refund, door-to-door replacement, fresh food compensation, damaged package return, price insurance, 30-day quality problem return, delivery delay subsidy, freight insurance service, etc.

During the Spring Festival this year, JD Super, JD’s supermarket, launched a price insurance service for its goods. If consumers buy goods from JD Super and find that the prices of goods are lower in the following period of time, they can get compensation in the form of money, Jingdou (an e-voucher which can be used as cash on JD.com) and so on. In fact, the price insurance service had already covered various categories, like home appliances, food and beverages, automotive supplies, fresh food, furniture, and clocks. This is part of JD’s relentless pursuit of improving the user experience.

Word-of-mouth

JD.com has always focused on the ultimate demand in the retail industry. JD Retail continues to care about the improvement of word-of-mouth, which is impacted by product quality, shopping experience and customer service.

JD.com’s efforts have born fruits, which can be reflected in the company’s Q4 and FY2019 earnings results. JD’s impressive increase of 27.6 million new users is higher than its key competitor in China’s e-commerce industry. It is also worth noting that over 70% of new users in Q4 were from tier 3 to tier 6 markets. This aligns closely with JD’s strategy on low tier market penetration.

As one of the key initiatives for deeper penetration in lower tier markets, JD.com launched Jingxi (“xi” in Chinese means happiness), an app specially targeted at consumers with relatively lower incomes in lower tier markets.

JD’s survey found that unlike consumers in tier 1 and 2 cities, who stick to one app for the majority of their purchases, consumers in lower tier markets use multiple apps or platforms, and they will pick the platform based on the categories they are buying. In recent years, more and more consumers in those markets have begun to try online shopping and demand has shifted towards quality products.

User Lifecycle

During the Q4 and FY2019 earnings call on March 2, Xu Lei, CEO of JD Retail said, “The consumers in low tier markets like interactive and entertaining methods in online shopping rather than simply buying products. The purchases of those consumers are driven by impulsive buying and the conversion rate is also high. Based on insights on these consumers, JD.com will further develop interactive marketing initiatives to engage more with them and leverage its partnership with Tencent to obtain new users.”

In terms of user growth, JD.com points to both new user growth and current user maintenance. The company launched a series of innovative initiatives to achieve quality user growth.

The performance of current users is also very impressive, since JD.com began to focus on lean operation of current users. By analyzing the shopping behavior of current users, JD.com introduced the concept of user lifecycle, and divided current users into introduction period/growth period, maturity period and decline/loss period. For users in different periods, through machine learning and quantitative analysis, JD.com has formulated the optimal matching of appropriate marketing channels and user benefits and interests to promote user growth and drive conversion rates.

During the epidemic period, more and more Chinese consumers and enterprises rely on JD.com for daily work and life, which is a reflection of the trust JD.com has gained. From Jan 20 to Feb 28, JD.com had already provided a total of 220 million individual food items, covering rice, flour, noodles, cooking oil, meat, eggs, vegetables, milk and other daily necessities, weighing over 290,000 tons, to consumers across the country. The number is still climbing. Bearing trust in mind, JD.com will continue to carry out its “customer first” value proposition and shoulder its responsibility as a responsible retailer in China.

(tracy.yang@jd.com)

Mulan of JD Logistics: Remarkable Women

Posted on Mar 9, 2020Dec 1, 2022 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao and Ella Kidron

With the 110^th International Women’s Day taking place this past March 8^th, JD Logistics has shared several stories from courageous women on its staff. Whether on the roads or in the delivery station, these women have taken the extra mile to support colleagues and customers.

Si Si, Marketing Head of JD’s Central China region

On March 8, the Wuhan Women’s Federation named its inaugural group of female heroes in fighting COVID-19 in Wuhan. Si Si, Marketing Head of JD’s Central China region was among the 177 heroes named. During the epidemic, she has been a key member of JD’s prevention and control center in Central China region. Since January 21, she has been working to ensure that supplies can reach people in need. She has gone back and forth repeatedly to Huoshenshan hospital to coordinate a plan to make sure the support from JD reaches the hospital in a timely manner. In addition, she accompanied a JD driver on Chinese New Year’s Eve to deliver masks to hospitals in Wuhan.

Guangle Ren, General Manager of JD’s Central region

Guangle Ren, General Manager of JD’s Central region, played an important role in guaranteeing JD’s support during the epidemic period. The Central region office will be responsible for business in Hubei, Henan, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. On January 19, she realized the severity of the epidemic and asked her team to prepare accordingly. “I asked our employee services team to check temperatures every day and to buy protective supplies, Vitamin C, and report to this information to headquarters each day. I decided with my core team that we need to keep working during Chinese New Year, and we quickly agreed and have been working at JD’s Asia No.1 logistics park in Wuhan.” Ren added.

Ren quickly arranged to get protective supplies including masks, disinfectant, thermometer to every delivery station so that couriers can safely working on the frontlines. “Most of the management team is volunteering to support at delivery stations, helping to distribute protective materials.” During Chinese New Year she would make surprise visits to the deliver station.

As a female leader and working in the logistics industry for nearly 20 years, Ren has learned to remain calm in emergencies. “We don’t have other choices, we need to be brave and fight together.” She has been working for over 50 days straight and benefits from the support of her family. “I have been with JD for four years and my husband is supportive of my choice. He is in Henan province and will video call me every day and remind me to wear a mask.”

Hongjuan Liang, Truck driver

34-year old Hongjuan Liang is the only female truck driver in JD Logistics’ Northwest region Xi’an transfer station fleet. She joined JD in January 2019, and has excelled, becoming a team leader.

Her team of 22 drivers is responsible from transferring goods from JD’s Asia No.1 logistics park in Xi’an to the 60 delivery stations in the South Xi’an area. With COVID-19, e-commerce orders have significantly increased her and her team’s workload. From January 27 until today, Liang hasn’t taken a single day off. She arrives at work at 9 a.m. each morning to start coordinating the team and addressing any issues before setting off at noon in her own truck. When it’s not convenient for her colleagues to get food on the road, she will prepare it at home in advance and bring it to work to share.

Liang majored in nursing and has great admiration for the medical workers on the frontlines during the epidemic. Although she is not in the hospital fighting on the frontline, some of the goods she needs to transfer are medical supplies destined for Hubei province. She expressed that she hopes that during this special period, she and her team can help those who can’t easily get around by bringing convenience to them.

Hong Zeng, Operations manager

29-year old Hong Zeng is operations manager at JD Logistics Qingshan delivery station in Wuhan. From the Spring Festival until today, she hasn’t take a single day off, and is helping to ensure JD’s promise to continue to deliver through the epidemic no matter what.

With the pressure of double the amount of orders combined with road closures, the station is extremely busy. Before the couriers set off, she helps them find and sort packages and put them on their tricycle. When capacity is stretched, she will even make deliveries herself to reduce their burden. “If our couriers are pressed for time, I will deliver to customers via electric bicycle and then rush back to the station as fast as possible,” Zeng said.

The health of the team is top priority, and she makes sure to stress the importance of masks and disinfectant and other anti-epidemic precautions. Recently, she was unable to go back to Jingzhou to celebrate her dad’s birthday. “I just called and wished him a happy birthday,” she explained. “He was understanding. Everyone wants to have a warm family and I’m no exception. But compared with other people, I have two additional families – my station is my small family and JD is my big family,” she added.

(ling.cao@jd.com; ella@jd.com)

JD’s Warehouse and Logistics Services Boost Sales of Health Merchants

Posted on Mar 9, 2020Sep 20, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang and Tracy Yang

Hao Shi Li (Good Vision), a Chinese company dedicated to eye protection, has seen a nearly ten-fold sales increase year-on-year in February at its flagship store on JD.com due to employing the warehouse and logistics services provided by JD Logistics during the sales period.

According to Pu Zhang, general manager responsible for Hao Shi Li’s online business, the delivery efficiency of their products has improved significantly since the company decided to use JD’s warehouse and logistics services last year, and consumer complaints have been greatly reduced.

“In addition to the continued sales growth, our brand’s influence and overall consumer experience have also improved significantly since we started to use JD’s warehouse and logistics services in May 2019,” said Zhang.

Eye masks, a product that can relieve eye fatigue, have been very popular with students who have to spend most of their time studying online at home during the epidemic period. Hao Shi Li’s JD flagship store – which mainly sells eye masks for students, the elderly, and business people – was able to reach consumers in time with the help of JD Logistics. Leveraging JD’s warehouses in Wuhan, Hao Shi Li also donated a batch of eye masks, delivered by JD Logistics, to medical staff there.

JD has observed much better performance from merchants who used JD’s warehouse and logistics services than those who don’t during COVID-19, with those in the health products category performing extremely well.

(zhanghui36@jd.com; tracy.yang@jd.com)

JD: A Powerful Sales Platform for Mobile Phones

Posted on Mar 9, 2020Nov 23, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Rachel Liu

There has been a peak in mobile phone launches recently and many brands have chosen JD as platform of choice. Phones including the HUAWEI Mate Xs, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, Samsung S20, Xiaomi 10, OPPO Find X2, BLACK SHARK 3, vivo’s IQOO3, have all launched on JD in the last few weeks.

The brands achieved great sales performance: sales of Xiaomi 10 quickly surpassed RMB 100 million after its launching on February 10^th. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip went out of stock just one minute after the sale began. Pre-orders of HUAWEI Mate Xs surpassed 470,000 on JD since pre-orders began on February 26^th.

JD has also pridoved various measures to facilitate the launches, including special support to tackle COVID-19. For example, it has provided contactless delivery service during the epidemic to give consumers peace of mind. For high-end products such as the HUAWEI Mate Xs and Galaxy Z Flip (both over RMB 10,000), JD provides its JD Luxury Express delivery service for free during certain sales period. JD couriers dressed in suit and white gloves will deliver the products in an electric car, giving customers a premium shopping experience. For both products, JD customers became the first users of the product in China, and received their items via JD Luxury Express.

With the epidemic outbreak, many brands are unable to hold offline press conferences. JD Live provides brands with technologies and marketing tools to hold successful press conferences via live broadcast, including 5G live, VR live, real-time customer interactions and professional product analysis. On February 13^th, Xiaomi held its press conference for the launch of its Xiaomi 10 via JD Live and saw pre-order volume surpass 500,000. Samsung, Oppo, iQOO and BLACK SHARK have also used JD Live to hold online press conference to promote their new products.

JD’s deep understanding of its customers is another reason brands choose JD. On March 3^rd, BLACK SHARK leveraged JD Live to launch BLACK SHARK 3, the first 5G gaming phone in the world. BLACK SHARK has been working closely with JD C2M (consumer-to-manufacturer) projects, using big data analysis to understand customers’ key demands and improve product design. BLACK SHARK also signed an exclusive partnership with JD in 2018, making JD the only platform to sell BLACK SHARK products other than its own channels.

(liuchang61@jd.com )