by Ella Kidron and Ling Cao

On Feb. 24, JD completed the delivery of 11,250 hazmat suits donated by former NBA and current Guangdong Southern Tigers player, Yi Jianlian from the U.S. to five hospitals in Wuhan. This follows a series of other efforts by JD Logistics to deliver emergency medical supplies from around the world to hospitals in Wuhan.

Following the completion of the delivery, Shenzhen Jade Children’s Public Welfare Foundation, who was handling of this donation, announced it on Weibo （in Chinese）. Yi Jianlian forwarded this post on his own Weibo account, with the message (in Chinese), “We have confidence! #FightEpidemicTogether”.

JD Logistics leveraged its supply chain strength to arrange a special team to support transportation of the donation, including determining whether the products meet hospital standards. The team helped transport the donation from New Jersey to a warehouse in New York, and then to Shanghai. To make sure the products arrived as quickly as possible, once they were cleared through customs in Shanghai, JD Logistics used a combination of rail-land transport to get the products to Wuchang station, where they were quickly sorted by JD personnel and sent off for delivery to five hospitals in Wuhan.

In addition to the 11,250 hazmat suits, JD has helped institutions from the UK, US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia transport donations to hospitals in Wuhan. JD has also helped companies such as Unilever, Sam’s Club supermarket, China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (SINOPHARM), and China Resources Pharmaceutical Group Limited to coordinate international transportation resources, help with customs clearance and materials supply.

JD has also leveraged its logistics strength to help its cross border merchants with operations and logistics. To help them address problems such as resuming operations, inventory and logistics, JD has announced a number of support measures. Recently, JD helped an overseas merchant to fulfill 50,000 orders from Chinese consumers. JD also helped deliver hundreds of thousands of cans of imported milk powder from a brand in just two weeks, despite the lack of available transportation in the market.

To date, JD has already helped transport over 30 million emergency medical supplies, weighing nearly 10,000 tons during the coronavirus (COVID-19) period.

 

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

by Ella Kidron and Rachel Liu

Book sellers are getting a boost amid the coronavirus in China, thanks to JD.com. As announced on Feb. 24, the company has leveraged its e-commerce and logistics strengths to help not only publishers, but also authors and offline bookstores get back on their feet. Importantly, the moves JD has made are not exclusive to the coronavirus period, and are positioned to drive overall change in the industry once the epidemic passes.

 

Livestreaming Becomes the New Book Signing

If 2019 can be thought of as the testing phase for using livestreaming to market books, then 2020 is considered the year where this technology has started to make a big impact. That said, there are some challenges with it.

To help partners quickly make the most of livestreaming, on Feb. 24^th, JD Books released its “Live Stream Star Plan 2.0 – Merchant Star Anchor Creation Plan” which is focused on providing different advantages and incentive measures for merchants getting up and running with livestreaming, such as traffic advantages. JD also provides courses for merchants to get acquainted with livestream software, and will continue to add more advanced courses in the future.

Beginning in March, JD Books will provide first-party merchants several subsidies and coupons for their livestream studios. In accordance with JD Live’s special policy, for any sale that occurs during the livestream by third party merchants, JD will take just a 1% commission.

In addition, this year, JD Books will work to launch an audio and video program called “The Scholar Says”, and partner with different platforms to increase exposure and promote new books. During the coronavirus, the program will guide authors to film their own videos, and become an important new book release and sales channel.

 

Support for Offline Bookstore Industry

JD’s supply chain and logistics advantages have provided several options to brick and mortar bookstores who struggle to maintain consumer traffic given that people are hesitant to go outside unnecessarily. For one, through JD’s supply chain innovation program, offline bookstores can open a store on JD’s first party platform. When a customer places an order, the system will determine the closest offline bookstore to the customer’s location, and JD Logistics will support last mile delivery from the offline store to the customer.

Bookstores can also opt to register with Dada-JD Daojia. When a customer places an order, the bookstore can select a logistics company to complete the delivery. This gives the brand more exposure.

JD Books has also worked with education and tutoring book sellers whose offline businesses are suffering as a result of the coronavirus. Offline book sellers may work with agents and come onto the JD platform, where JD can divert online traffic to those agents, and orders are distributed to the agents based on geographic proximity and then handled accordingly. Offline bookstores can operate their own online store through JD’s third party platform. So far several dozens bookstores have reached out to JD with their intention to join the platform. JD will provide a fast-track for them to start business online in a timely manner.

 

TC Solves Distribution Woes for Publishers

Due to the impact of the epidemic, many publishers have found that their existing logistics partners have been unable to transport books to JD’s warehouses, not only impacting publishers’ businesses but also readers’ access to books.

JD Logistics Transfer Center (TC) service resolves this supply chain predicament, helping partners get books out of their warehouses. With TC, JD can pick up the goods from the partner’s warehouse, and bring it to JD’s transfer center, where books enjoy top-priority to be unloaded immediately and are distributed to many warehouses across the country at once, saving hassle for partners and ensuring books arrive on time.

 

(ellla@jd.com; liuchang61@jd.com)

by Ling Cao and Tracy Yang

On February 22^nd, a press conference held by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of China’s State Council disclosed that the railway and civil aviation transport networks are operating normally, and the express industry has recovered steadily. Express delivery enterprises have almost resumed full operations or reached normal work capacity.

JD Logistics has been operating daily, providing consistent delivery during the Chinese New Year period for eight years in a row with its over 180,000 responsible and diligent employees. While maintaining regular delivery nationwide, even during the anti-coronavirus period, to help provide daily necessities to customers, JD is also leveraging its logistics and technology capability and sparing no resource to provide needed aid. At present, JD Logistics has helped transport over 3,000 tons of anti-epidemic and daily emergency necessities to Wuhan and the surrounding areas.

JD Logistics also provides several different measures of contactless delivery during this anti-epidemic period. These include expanding existing services JD used prior to the outbreak, such as lockers where customers only need to enter a code to receive their package and fixed-point pick up, robot delivery and drone delivery, as well as newer measures such as setting up mini delivery stations outside of compounds making it easier for customers to pick up and send packages.

According to the conference, in the second week of February – regarding passenger transport and logistics – the number of railway loads continued to grow for four consecutive days, the number of ships entering and leaving ports also increased, and the volume of express delivery business increased 1.1 times compared to last week. Since the end of the Chinese New Year holiday on February 18^th, the traffic flow on highways across the country have also increased, maintaining a growth rate of around 10% over the past few days.

 

(ling.cao@jd.com; tracy.yang@jd.com)

By Tracy Yang

Roborock, a robotic home cleaning devices company, was officially listed for trading (688169) on China’s Science and Technology Innovation Board on Feb. 21^st. The company’s share price soared after the opening, from RMB271.12 to 495.00 per share as of 12:30pm, becoming Science and Technology Innovation Board’s highest valued company (RMB 33 billion) to date. The rise of Roborock in the past three years has benefited from its rapid growth on JD.com.

Founded in July 2014, Roborock focused on intelligent sweeping robots and started to launch its private label products in 2017 by expanding its sales channels beyond Xiaomi, which is the ecosystem Roborock previously relied on. The strong sales channels and marketing promotion support from JD’s household appliances has played an important role in helping Roborock build up its own brands and boost its growth.

On Singles Day（November 11^th） in 2017, all products from Roborock were sold out within an hour, reinforcing the success of launching its private label brand on JD.com. Sales in 2018 increased 18 times year on year, making Roborock, the most popular brand in the sweeping robot market in China. In 2019, products from Roborock ranked in top positions on the dust removal appliances list during both the June 18 anniversary of JD and Singles Day sales festivals. In addition, JD and Roborock parties have been working closely to launch gift boxes with additional accessories for consumers based on in-depth analysis of consumer needs regarding floor-sweeping robots.

JD has also helped Bear, the leading brand in China’s innovative household market and another successful start-up enterprise, in the areas of supply chain, marketing and lower-tier market penetration.

 

 

(tracy.yang@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

JD has brought its brick and mortar JD Computer and Digital Products franchise stores online, helping them boost sales growth.

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused many malls and stores to remain closed, including approximately 200 JD Computer and Digital Products stores around China.

With the help of JD, the franchisers have successfully moved their business online. With the trust gained from customers by providing authentic products and good service, instead of experiencing sales decrease, the stores have seen sales boosted significantly. For example, during the Spring Festival holiday period (from January 23^rd to January 30^th), sales of each store have increased by over 300% on average year-on-year, and some stores have seen sales reach 40,000 RMB per day

JD Computer and Digital Products stores encourage franchisers keep in close touch with their customers, such as through building online customer groups. JD’s AI powered system can help store owners automatically generate posters to be used in promotions. By scanning the QR code on the posters, customers can directly shop for the products.

Many store owners have joined the program, including those in Guangdong, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, etc. Some stores haven seen over 70 orders made every day. The store owners also leveraged JD Live, JD’s livestreaming service, to promote their products online. A store owner in Dongguan, Guangdong province saw his store’s sales surpass 10,000 RMB each day during the Spring Festival holiday. The online sales model has been very well-received by customers.

A customer said, “I used to go to the store to buy digital products. But now, I select products while sitting at home, and enjoy JD Logistics’ fast delivery service. The store owner will help me pick out the most suitable product. I can also share my thoughts with other customers in the group.”

 

(liuchang61@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

On Feb 20^th, JD delivered and installed 75 massage chairs to 10 hospitals in Hubei province. The chairs were donated by the OGAWA, the Malaysian health and wellness retail company, to help front-line medical staff relax and recharge.

JD received OGAWA’s request for help the night of Valentine’s Day. OGAWA needed a partner who could deliver these bulky items arrived at Hubei hospitals in a timely manner. Leveraging its bulk supply chain capability, JD Logistics created a tailor-made solution and arranged trucks to pick up the chairs from the city of Xiamen in Fujian province in the morning of February 16^th.

When arriving in Wuhan, JD Logistics arranged a team of pre-trained couriers to deliver and install the chairs.

Staff at each hospital commented that these chairs arrived at just the right time and can help release the stress and fatigue from long hours working at a high intensity.

Xiaomei Zhuang, manager for the logistics department at OGAWA in China, said, “We donated massage chairs equipped with oxygen-making function, which is especially suitable for medical staff. Under the present circumstances, JD Logistics not only helped us rapidly deliver these high quality massage chairs to these hospitals, but also installed them for us. We greatly appreciate it.”

Wenbo Wang, Head of Bulk Supply Chain at JD Logistics said, “The anti-epidemic effort has entered a critical period, and we hope JD’s bulk supply chain capability can help merchants improve fulfillment efficiency as well as reduce cost.”

Unlike small-sized category products such as mobile phones, apparel and snacks, bulk-sized products such as massage chairs are large and heavy, and easy to cause damages during transportation. The atypical shape of packages would cause challenges including difficulties in warehousing and shipping.  The rapid delivery of these massage chairs relies on the advantages of the supply chain infrastructure and solutions acquired by JD Logistics over the years. JD Logistics has continuously upgraded its supply chain solutions for bulk product categories such as bathroom products, mattresses and television sets.

 

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Martin Li

JD.com has partnered with the market supervisory body in Beijing and four e-commerce players to launch an information sharing platform targeting illegal merchant behavior online during the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The other four partners are Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Suning and Weidian. The violations include price hikes, false advertising and sales of counterfeit goods.

The partners will jointly share a list of the violating merchants and take them down together.

So far, the five e-commerce platforms have shared information about 70 violators, of which 15 are from Alibaba, 40 are from Pinduoduo and seven are from JD.com, according to the market supervisor.

The illegal merchants will be also forbidden by the remaining platforms on which they don’t already have a presence.

 

(bjlihao3@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

Due to the coronavirus, many retailers in China face various challenges from supply and delivery to after sales service. JD has leveraged its capabilities to help its brand partners tackle some of these problems.

 

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

Located in Heilongjiang province, Qianjin Farm has 42,000 employees, half of whom are migrant workers. When the coronavirus broke out, its employees were panicking given that there were already several coronavirus patients in the local hospital. To make matters worse, the farm lacked enough masks to cover their staff so that they could check on the thousands of families around the farm. They tried to reach out to people and groups in the surrounding area but failed to get any help.

Upon learning about JD’s Cloud and AI smart calling system that uses AI calls to help efficiently check residents’ health condition and remind them of epidemic-related information, the farm was able to check on the health of people in the surrounding areas while avoiding the risk of disease transmission.  The Farm also posted their request for masks and protection supplies (worth a total of 200,000 RMB) on JD’s “Emergency Resources Information Platform”, and was connected with a suitable supplier within just one hour.

The parent company of Qianjin Farm, Beidahuang Group, has a flagship store on JD that sells rice, flour and cooking oil. During the epidemic the store has been working with JD to ensure the enough supply for customers and that the prices of goods will not rise. Thanks to JD’s subsidy policies for merchants, the store also received sales and logistics support. During the epidemic, visitors to the store have increased four times year-on-year, and sales have tripled in the same period.

 

400% year-on-year sales increase

Shiyuedaotian is a Chinese brand that mainly sells rice and grains, and has been working with JD for 10 years. When the coronavirus first broke out, the inventory that the brand had in JD’s warehouses was only enough to last one month. Thinking that customers’ needs from online for daily necessities could rise significantly because of the epidemic, JD’s sales team immediately worked with the brand to ensure enough supply. The brand’s factories were also back to work before the end of Chinese New Year holiday to ensure adequate production. Thanks to JD Logistics’ continuous operation during the holiday period, the brand was able to deliver the products to customers in time. During the epidemic, sales of Shiyuedaotian on JD increased 400% year-on-year.

AI powered customer service solution

Australia’s Own flagship store is a third-party store on JD that mainly sells dairy products from Australia. During the epidemic, the store’s sales increased 50% year-on-year, thanks to having adequate inventory and stable prices, and to JD Logistics’ continuous delivery service.

However, with the increase of orders, inquiries from customers has also increased significantly and the store only had one-third of its customer service staff back at work.

The store owner turned to JD’s AI powered customer service solution for help. JD is offering its AI powered customer service solution to merchants for free until March 31^st. Merchants can also receive free training on how to use the service. AI customer service has solved half of the queries the store has received during the epidemic, and the customer satisfaction rate is as high as human services.

 

(liuchang61@jd.com)