by Yuchuan Wang

JD has continued its commitment to deliver products to Chinese consumers during the Chinese New Year, for eight years now. This year has been unique as hundreds of millions of Chinese choose to stay indoors because of the outbreak of the highly contagious novel coronavirus.

According to JD’s big data analysis, from this past Chinese New Year’s eve on January 24^th to February 2^nd, JD has delivered 19,000 tons of rice and flour, 5.9 million liters of cooking oil, 15,000 tons of fresh food, 15 million packages of instant noodles and hundreds of millions of medical supplies to consumers nationwide.

Sales of food products such as rice and dairy during this period increased 154% year-on-year (on the lunar calendar), with rice and wheat products increasing at 5.4 and 4.7 times, respectively. Compared with a year before, the consumption of cereals surged on January 25^th, and on January 26^th, sales was as much as 15 times compared with the same day on the lunar calendar last year.

Sales of instant food products increased 3.5 times year-on-year. Bottled water and cooking oil increased 1.54 and 1.43 times while dairy and seafood products doubled.

Fresh food on JD saw an increase of 215% compared with the same period last year. After the outbreak of the epidemic, JD immediately launched the “fresh produce emergency team”. Procurement and sales personnel pay close attention to sales trends and established a daily mechanism to update inventory levels and production information, preparing countermeasures in advance. Sales of pork increased the fastest by more than 10 times y-o-y while sales of beef, mutton, poultry and eggs also increased 400%. Vegetable sales increased by nearly 450% compared with the same period last year.

JD has also implemented rigorous health and safety measures, including providing protective equipment such as masks and disinfection products to consumers. From January 20^th to 27^th, the sales of a series of cold and antipyretic drugs, such as Banlangen(a popular Chinese herbal medicine), vitamin C effervescent tablets, acetaminophen and others increased by 5.5 times over the same period in the previous month; sales of oximeters increased 18 times and sales of thermometers increased 11 times. At the same time, sales of sterilized alcohol increased 20 times compared with the same period a month prior. JD also supplied 3 million bottles of hand sanitizer, over 1.8 million bottles of disinfectant, over 700,000 bottles of germicidal detergent, nearly 400,000 bottles of clothing antiseptic, 290,000 bags of disinfectant wipes and 180,000 bottles of toilet cleanser to Chinese consumers.

Immediately following the outbreak of the epidemic, JD urgently contacted key brand partners in various categories to integrate inventory to secure supply to consumers as well as frontline workers in Wuhan. As early as January 17^th, JD transported 5 million masks to Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic (Read more about JD’s support in Wuhan: https://jdcorporateblog.com/jd-com-on-the-frontlines-to-support-wuhan-and-provide-coronavirus-aid/ ).

JD’s nationwide brick-and-mortar 7FRESH supermarkets also perform strict disinfection measures including implementing staff morning health condition examinations, random body temperature checks during work, strict implementation of a seven-step hand washing standard, providing masks to employees and launching clear procedures and standards for disinfection of public facilities, tools and tableware, amongst other actions.

JD.com has been doing its utmost to ensure not only adequate supply and timely distribution of anti-epidemic goods with the help of its leading supply chain system and efficient logistics network, but also has a mission to provide stable prices and quality service in extraordinary times, playing an important role guaranteeing people’s daily needs of life.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

From January 24^th to February 2^nd, JD.com has sold 18,900 tons of rice, flour & grain; 15,000 tons of fresh food; 5.9 million liters of cooking oil; 1.8 million bottles of disinfectant solution; and 3 million bottles of liquid soap. During the same period, sales of rice on JD.com increased 5.4 times year-on-year, and sales of flour increased 4.7 times year-on-year. The supply of daily staple food necessities cannot be achieved without the joint efforts of JD’s sales and supply chain team.

Like previous years, JD.com has applied its technology and insights to beef up stock inventory prior to the festive celebrations this year. What was unexpected was how very quickly things would change for people in both the epidemic epicenter of Wuhan and around China.

The outbreak has changed the shopping habits of Chinese consumers during the holiday as more and more customers are shopping for daily products online instead of offline. As China’s largest retailer, JD.com is sparing no efforts to ensure supply of Chinese consumers’ daily necessities at this time.

JD’s sales team has worked actively with brand partners to ensure there is enough inventory for much needed daily products in JD warehouses. From January 1^st to January 24^th, there has been 1.9 million bags of rice and grain (around 10,000 tons in total) from Chinese rice brand Shiyuedaotian delivered to JD warehouses. From January 26^th, Shiyuedaotian has delivered 500,000 bags of products to JD in just 4 days. From January 25^th to February 1^st, Chinese brand Yihaijiali has sent 1 million bottles of Jinlongyu cooking oil to JD. JD also actively worked with Safeguard on the supply of anti-bacterial liquid soap, and from January 20^th to February 1^st, there were over 270,000 bottles of Safeguard liquid soap in delivery to customers.

Since the coronavirus outbreak occurred during the Chinese New Year period, some brands and suppliers were not able to send their products to JD warehouses. To address this efficiently, JD leveraged JD Logistics to pick up the products directly from brand warehouses to ensure inventory. For example, as of January 31^st JD has picked up 350,000 Welch products in two batches from its warehouses in Guangzhou, Kunshan, Tianjin and Chengdu. JD is also using this model to cooperate with brands including Safeguard, SC Johnson Wax, LION, and others.

To protect consumer rights, JD also ensured that the product prices remain stable. Products from JD’s first party business will not experience price increases and JD is also rigorously regulating its third party platform to forbid unfair price hikes, with penalties to third party sellers if unfair price hikes are discovered.

Additionally, to help merchants with the operational challenges caused by the coronavirus, JD Retail announced 11 subsidy support measures to merchants, including expense reduction, finance and logistics support, traffic support, technical support and more, especially to merchants in Hubei province.

(Liuchang61@jd.com)