JD Worldwide Expands Partnership with Leading ANZ region milk brand, a2

Posted on by Rachel Liu

JD Worldwide has recently expanded its strategic partnership with The a2 Milk Company, the renowned ANZ region dairy brand. The strengthened partnership will see JD help a2 Milk bring more high-quality dairy products to the Chinese market through tailored marketing campaigns in both online and offline channels, and the exploration of more innovative marketing strategies.

In 2015, a2 Milk chose JD Worldwide as the first online platform to launch its first party store in China and introduce its world-famous milk powder products to the Chinese market. China is the top priority market for a2 Milk, and many Chinese parents have become customers of the company’s milk formula, which is designed to be easier for children to digest.

Over the past 4 years, JD has leveraged its unique insights into the Chinese market and consumer preferences to provide a2 Milk with customized marketing solutions, increasing the brand’s recognition among Chinese consumers. On June 18 this year, the peak day of JD.com’s annual 18-day “6.18” anniversary sales festival, a2 Milk was the top-selling brand on JD Worldwide, and the brand’s platinum baby milk powder was the best-selling product. Sales of a2 products on the day increased 210% compared to the previous year.

Earlier this year, a2 Milk was a participant in JD.com’s “Brand Competitiveness Plan,” a one-month program which is an extension of JD’s previous Super Brand Day program, and provides brands with comprehensive marketing solutions to increase sales performance and build up brand recognition. Marketing solutions offered through this initiative include guidance on marketing campaign timing, choice of promotional channels, and help in identifying the target audience for a campaign. On every day of the one-month long campaign for a2 Milk, JD helped the company identify a group of customers who had indicated interest in a2 products within a specific period of time but had not yet made an order. Coupons were then sent to these high potential customers. The ROI of coupons during the month of the campaign was 3.6 times higher than the typical average, and fans of the a2 Milk online store on JD Worldwide surpassed 1 million users.

 “China is the top growth market for The a2 Milk Company, and JD.com’s expertise in innovative marketing has consistently allowed us to make the most of this exciting opportunity,” said Xiao Li, CEO of a2 Greater China. “Last year, we launched blockchain partnership with JD, using a QR code on a2 Milk products to show logistics information at every stage of delivery. This is just one of the ways we are working together to give customers more peace of mind and confidence in their purchases.”

“The a2 Milk Company’s premium dairy products are an increasingly popular choice for Chinese parents across the country,” said Chris Cui, Head of JD Worldwide. “As China’s largest retailer, JD has unique capabilities to offer a2 Milk assistance in terms of marketing solutions, logistics and technology, helping a2 continue to grow their market share.”

With a reputation for safety and quality, products from Australia and New Zealand have consistently sold well on JD.com, with health supplements, maternal and baby products, wine, milk and cosmetics among the best-selling categories. In addition to a2 Milk, popular brands including Swisse, Blackmores, Devondale, Penfolds and Jacob’s Creek have also seen impressive growth in sales on the JD platform, with sales of Penfolds products increasing by more than 200% yoy during the first 30 minutes on June 18th.

Cats and Campers: how JD and Nestlé better slake the appetites of both through insight

Posted on by Rachel Liu

China’s largest retailer, JD.com is helping Nestlé win in the Chinese market through careful analysis of consumer insights and thoughtful product design, as demonstrated by a couple of recent cases.

JD recently took up the challenge of making Nestlé’s already high selling Nestlé Purina FancyFeast cat wet food packages even more popular. Analyzing the buying habits of FancyFeast consumers, JD found that some of the flavors in the variety pack were more popular than others. The joint team used these insights to create a new 8-can variety pack comprised of two cans of each of the four most popular flavors. When the product first launched, JD worked with the brand to identify a group of consumers on JD who would be likely to welcome the product based on a range of factors, and to prepare 10,000 trial boxes (2 cans per box) to include in their existing orders. The results were clear: during the 6.18 shopping holiday, sales of the new sets of cans were twice that of the old variety.

JD also leveraged information gathered from consumers’ demographic profiles to create the new FancyFeast product. By analyzing the profile of Nestlé Purina consumers, JD found that most consumers are highly educated, higher spending, and more likely to be members of JD’s loyalty program, JD Plus. JD also noticed a general trend of pet owners interested in acquiring higher quality products for their pets – for example, recent searches for “smart pet water fountain” have surged. JD concluded that Nestlé Purina consumers would be willing to spend more on premium pet food and recommended an upgrade of the old flavors. For example, the “tuna” flavor has been ungraded to a more premium “tuna with bonito flakes and chicken.”

JD concluded that Nestlé Purina consumers would be willing to spend more on premium pet food and recommended an upgrade of the old flavors

Consumer insights weren’t just limited to the animal world, as JD also helped Nestlé better tailor their wafer bar products to the Chinese market. Nestlé’s crispy wafer bars are one the brand’s signature items, and are a snack JD consumers often go online to buy in bulk. When analyzing consumer feedback, JD found that consumers preferred large packages of wafer bars for trips and family outings — but at the time, Nestlé’s wafer bar product portfolio didn’t offer an optimal solution to suit these types of occasions. At the same time, consumers indicated that they preferred smaller wafer bars in a variety of flavors to be able to share more easily. Based on this information, JD helped Nestlé designed new, larger packs containing more mini-sized wafer bars in a variety of flavors. To position the product to consumers as an ideal choice for outings, the package was designed in the shape of a backpack. JD and Nestlé’s thoughtful design paid off – from June 1-June 18, sales of the new product were 70% higher than the same period of the previous month.

The new initiatives are the latest in a long history of partnership between JD and Nestlé. Nestlé products have consistently performed well on JD.com, and JD is the biggest online seller of Nestlé products in China. Nescafé is the brand’s best-selling product on JD, and KitKat bars have also been a consistently popular choice of snack among JD’s affluent users.

“This is a clear demonstration of our Consumer-to-Manufacturer model’s power to help brands connect more deeply with Chinese consumers,” said Carol Fung, President of JD FMCG. “Nestlé is a long-time partner of ours, and together we keep innovating to meet and exceed consumer expectations.”

“The depth of insights JD provides to Nestlé in China is invaluable in helping us provide consumers exactly what they want,” said Rebecca Wang, Head of E-commerce, Nestlé GCR. “E-commerce in China provides a unique view into consumer desires, and JD is leading the way in converting these insights into tangible recommendations on product design, positioning and marketing.”

JD has increasingly looked to apply its consumer insights for the benefit of brands on its platform, as part of the company’s “C2M” (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) initiative. Other successful products to benefit from JD’s C2M model include diapers, alcohol and even sticky rice dumplings.

How JD.com uses Vitess to manage scaling databases for hyperscale

Posted on by Rachel Liu

The following case study by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation originally appeared here: https://www.cncf.io/jdcom-case-study/

Challenge

China’s largest retailer, JD.com serves more than 300 million active customers with its e-commerce business. “A few years ago, it became apparent that as our data became more extensive, our MySQL databases became larger, resulting in declining performance and higher operations and maintenance costs,” says JD Retail Chief Architect Haifeng Liu. “We needed a solution that would enable us to easily and quickly scale MySQL, facilitate operation and maintenance, and reduce hardware and labor costs.”

Solution

JD chose Vitess for scalable management of large-scale database services and the support of online expansion of complex transactional data in MySQL. “We now run MySQL databases in containerized environments with Kubernetes and use Vitess for scalable cluster management and handling large volumes of complex transactional data,” says Liu.

Impact

With Vitess, JD has seen improvements in the scalability and elasticity of the database clusters. Increased resource utilization and efficiency and the automation of operation and maintenance functions have also led to reductions in labor and resource costs.

China’s largest retailer and the world’s third-largest Internet company by revenue, JD.com serves more than 300 million active customers with its e-commerce business.

The company also owns China’s largest e-commerce logistics infrastructure, which covers an incredible 99% of the country’s population and has achieved delivery rates of more than 90% of orders delivered same- or next-day.

“A few years ago, it became apparent that as our data became more extensive, our MySQL databases became larger, resulting in declining performance and higher operations and maintenance costs,” says JD Retail Chief Architect Haifeng Liu, who leads the Technological Infrastructure Department responsible for driving innovation in containerized infrastructure and developing the hyperscale, containerized, Kubernetes-based platform that powers all facets of JD’s business. “We needed a solution that would enable us to easily and quickly scale MySQL, facilitate operation and maintenance, and reduce hardware and labor costs.”

The company previously used JProxy, a cobar-based database middleware system for MySQL database management. After a thorough evaluation process, Liu says, “we eventually chose Vitess since it was the most suitable solution to address the biggest challenge we were facing: scalable management of large-scale database services and the support of online expansion of complex transactional data in MySQL. We now run MySQL databases in containerized environments with Kubernetes and use Vitess for scalable cluster management and handling large volumes of complex transactional data.”

Being a very early adopter of Vitess—and with one of the largest and most complex deployments of the technology, to boot—came with some challenges. “The re-sharding process was initially manual, the performance was poor, and the orchestrator could fail in large clusters with more than 5,000 instances,” says Liu.

To make sure that Vitess would work at JD’s scale, Liu’s team made numerous improvements and changes, including bug fixes and new functionalities and features. They have also developed performance optimization and automated management tools for the company’s JDOS Kubernetes platform. Among them:

  • JTransfer, an online data synchronization and transmission tool that migrates data from JD’s traditional MySQL databases to the Vitess cluster in real time. All topology information in Vitess is stored in etcd.
  • BinLake, a MySQL collection tool for real-time collection of Binlog in Vitess and traditional MySQL database services, and publication of the collected Binlog to the Message Queue (JMQ) service. Integrated with Vitess, “BinLake provides intelligent and highly available binlog collection services in clusters,” says Liu. “If there is resharding or failover in Vitess, Binlake will automatically adjust the database instance of the binlog.”
  • Mole, a Vitess management system with a GUI console, which improves Vitess service management. “With Mole, we can easily create, reshard, monitor, and back up Vitess’s key spaces,” says Liu.

“Most of our improvements have been contributed back to the Vitess code base for other developers in the community to benefit from,” says Liu.

“We eventually chose Vitess since it was the most suitable solution to address the biggest challenge we were facing: scalable management of large-scale database services.” — Haifeng Liu, Chief Architect at JD Retail

With Vitess, JD has seen improvements in the scalability and elasticity of the database clusters. Increased resource utilization and efficiency and the automation of operation and maintenance functions have also led to reductions in labor and resource costs.

Additionally, “Vitess helped the team grow their technical knowledge and strength in the areas of scalable management and elastic database,” says Liu. “The fact that Vitess is a CNCF project means we can significantly benefit from working with a large number of developers and end users in the most active and fast-growing open source community. With CNCF’s endorsement, Vitess can gain increasing awareness, attract more end users and bring together developers to the project. This is very beneficial for Vitess and its end users, which is important to us.”

Liu and his team are excited about the future of Vitess. In addition to migrating its systems to the newly-released Vitess 3.0 (which Liu calls “a significant improvement”), they’re working on developing some common functions for the latest version and developing a more complete operations and maintenance monitoring system.

“The fact that Vitess is a CNCF project means we can significantly benefit from working with a large number of developers and end users in the most active and fast-growing open source community.”

— Haifeng Liu, Chief Architect at JD Retail

For other organizations considering Vitess, Liu offers this advice: “The most value can be derived from Vitess when it is used in concert with Kubernetes. Before using Vitess, it is imperative to perform more testing and research to determine if Vitess is the right solution for your business, and to better understand what adjustments you might have to make to integrate it with your existing systems.”

For JD, Kubernetes, Vitess, and other cloud native technologies have been a game-changer. “Modern service platforms need to be scalable and extremely efficient and agile,” says Liu. “Cloud native technology is well-suited to handle these ever-changing environments. It offers flexibility, efficiency, scalability, independence, continuous integration and delivery for software services, all of which further enhance the quality of software services and resource efficiency. Kubernetes has become the de facto standard and cloud native is a sure thing to bet on for the future.”

JD Rescues Chinese Millennials from Rejection when Gifting

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

Gift giving has been an important part of traditional Chinese culture for thousands of years. The act is believed to shorten the emotional distance between people, facilitate communication and consensus, and even create good business opportunities. The general expectation is that gifts should be given in-person on the spot, but as people are becoming more technologically-savvy, this process has become a bit awkward for some. China’s largest retailer, JD.com, is addressing this head-on with “JD Gift”(京东有礼), a mini-program embedded in Tencent’s WeChat app that makes gift giving easy and approachable.

Ordering a gift online to be sent to a recipient the traditional way is extremely convenient. However there is an often-overlooked, and likely unintended awkwardness attached to it. If you don’t know someone’s address in order to send the gift, you’ll have to ask for it. At that point, it is highly possible that the intended recipient will try to talk you out of sending the gift out of politeness. This is completely avoided with JD Gift.

All the gift-giver needs to do is select a gift from the vast selection available on the gift marketplace, and make the purchase, at which point the recipient will receive a message indicating them to input their shipping information. The gift is already paid for, so there is no need to worry about the recipient politely declining the gift.

JD Gift is particularly appealing to China’s younger generations.

JD Gift is particularly appealing to China’s younger generations. According to Statista, in 2018, there were around 673.5 million social media users in China. Around 30% of mobile internet time is spent on WeChat, and peak WeChat usage is by the 26-35 age group. As the vast majority of Chinese youth now socialize a great deal online, some often find it awkward to give gifts in person and enjoy the comfort of being able to do so virtually rather than face-to-face. According to a JD survey, 34% of users cited avoiding the awkwardness of either giving the gift in person and 28% of users cited the risk of the receiver rejecting the gift as reasons to send e-gift cards instead of physical gifts. Furthermore, they also appreciate the ability to immediately send a gift should a special occasion, such as a friend’s birthday, inadvertently slip their mind.

JD has been selling gift cards through its mini-program for several years, but only started quietly testing the option to purchase physical gifts in the last year.JD has been selling gift cards through its mini-program for several years, but only started quietly testing the option to purchase physical gifts in the last year. This is particularly timely given that Qixi Festival (also known as Double Seventh Festival), which is considered China’s “Valentine’s Day” falls on August 7th. Qixi festival celebrates the Chinese folk tale, “The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl”. As the story goes (and there are many versions of it), a cowherd and a weaver girl fell in love, but because their love was not allowed, they were banished to opposite sides of the heavenly river. Once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, a flock of magpies would form a bridge to reunite the lovers for one day. This is what is celebrated during Qixi, and today there is a gift giving expectation for young couples around the celebration each year.

“In today’s fast-paced world, it’s important to take the time to show our loved ones that we’re always thinking about them,” said Xiaohua Luo, Head of JD Gift Card. “We understand that our customers are busy, and want to make it as easy as possible to send gifts to their loved ones. JD Gift shows how technology innovation can help make the long important tradition of gift-giving convenient and hassle-free.”

JD AI Makes Customer Service Simple

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

For China Unicom customers in Sichuan, a large province in Southwest China, customer service will become much smarter and more efficient. Through a partnership with JD.com, China’s largest retailer, China Unicom Sichuan will integrate artificial intelligence into its customer service apparatus.

The two parties will collaborate in implementing AI in China Unicom’s voice-based customer service. Customers who call the customer service hotline can be greeted by a natural-sounding voice who will direct them where to go, and seamlessly transfer them to human customer service as necessary. The two parties will also integrate AI into China Unicom’s public WeChat account to handle any inquiries that come through from customers via text. In addition, JD will help China Unicom Sichuan build an AI-based precision marketing solution to ensure that marketing activities reach the right audiences. Importantly, the partnership between JD and China Unicom Sichuan will help to significantly reduce bottlenecks in customer service, while further enhancing the overall service level provided by China Unicom Sichuan to customers.

In addition to telecoms, JD has extended its AI powered customer service to other industries, completely changing the way things are done. In July, JD and West China Second University Hospital, the leading hospital in Southwest China, launched AI-powered medical care customer service via the hospital’s WeChat public account. Patients can get comprehensive and accurate responses to frequent and repetitive queries, such as how to get a number to line up, which department of the hospital to go to, the doctor’s schedule, and more, as well as be referred to human customer service if their inquiry can’t be handled by AI. This helps relieve a huge burden from the hospital. Launched in 2014, the hospital’s official WeChat account receives an average of 40,000 daily visits. With AI customer service, the hospital can drastically improve its response rate, accuracy level and overall customer satisfaction level. Currently 95% of the inquiries received can be answered by AI at a 90% accuracy rate, and it continues to improve.

The technology for the customer service robot is based on JD.com’s smart customer service chatbot. JD receives millions of inquiries every day, and the chatbot was originally developed to address the high volume of inquiries without sacrificing the customer experience. Using deep learning and transfer learning technologies, JD’s customer service chatbot is able to detect even the subtlest of human emotions in real-time and provide appropriate responses, making for a natural and efficient interaction. During JD’s June 18 anniversary sales event (“6.18”), its customer service robot fielded more than 32 million inquiries, of which 90% were solved independently.

JD’s customer service chatbot is able to detect even the subtlest of human emotions in real-time and provide appropriate responses,

“AI is not just a technology. It’s a solution to some of the most pressing challenges faced by many industries,” said Bowen Zhou, President of JD AI. “If you look at the telecom,s industry as just one example, there is a shortage in customer service resources. In the medical industry, there are many talented medical professionals, but there is still a shortage of talent. Changing how we visit the hospital by applying AI throughout the medical industry, is just one way AI can transform our lives.”

“Our mission is to provide top notch customer service,” said Feng Cao, Deputy General Manager at China Unicom Sichuan. With JD AI, we are raising the bar for customer experience, and integrating technology more deeply into everything we do.”

Trash Sorting: it’s a Piece of Cake with JD AI

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

Consumers all around the world increasingly care about their carbon footprint and are looking for ways to reduce the impact their daily activities have on their environment. Most recently, China rolled out a slate of new recycling requirements to enable consumers and businesses to more accurately sort their trash and recycle properly. The new regulations require the sorting of trash into four categories – dry waste, wet waste (kitchen waste), recyclables and hazardous waste.

The issue? While highly welcomed by consumers and businesses, the regulation has also resulted in some confusion about how to classify different types of discarded items. “Is dried fruit wet or dry waste?” “How about wet napkins?” Luckily, JD AI has come to the rescue, providing not only a consumer solution to make recycling easier but also an open API enabling partners to develop trash sorting solutions outside of the JD retail ecosystem.

Consumers have a few options for how to get consultation about trash sorting. First, they can simply take a photo of the type of waste they have and will be instructed on how to dispose of it properly. This offering is based on JD’s signature SnapShop 24/7 shopping consultant, where users take photos of items they want to buy and then receive recommendations of where to buy the same product or a related product via JD’s e-commerce platform. Importantly, the SnapShop-inspired waste sorting function will be made available as an API via JD’s open AI platform, NeuHub, so that companies can easily implement the technology in their own businesses.

Alternatively, consumers can simply speak to their JD smart speaker (京鱼座) to activate a function in which they describe the waste they wish to discard, and the speaker analyzes the request and provides the appropriate recommendation. The offering leverages JD’s advanced natural language capabilities. Similar capabilities have been implemented throughout JD’s entire customer service apparatus in order to provide a natural, engaged and effective response to simple customer queries, freeing up JD’s human customer service staff to handle more complicated queries.

“This is one example of how we are using technology to make our customers’ lives easier, create business opportunities for ourselves and open our technology up to others,” said Bowen Zhou, President of JD AI. “It’s also another example of our sustainable innovation.”

JD has also responded to the new waste disposal policy by introducing a special waste sorting product for its Shanghai consumers.JD has also responded to the new waste disposal policy by introducing a special waste sorting product for its Shanghai consumers. According to JD data, Shanghai customers searched for “waste sorting bags” almost 800 times more frequently during this year’s 6.18 sales period than last year’s. In addition, sales of waste sorting bags by Shanghai-based consumers on JD from June 21-30 increased nearly 10 times compared with the same period in May, and nearly 70 times higher than June 21-30 last year. Manufactured by JD’s in-house consumer brand “J.Zao,” the package of waste sorting bags provides enough bags to last the average white-collar worker a month, and the design of the bags is customized for the type of waste they contain – for example, bags for wet waste are significantly thicker. Further, JD has optimized the number of each type of bag based on the frequency of users discarding particular categories of waste. There are 22 bags each for “wet” and “dry” waste, but only 10 for “harmful” and “recyclable” waste.

JD’s enterprise procurement channel, JD Business, is providing supplies on its platform (b.jd.com) and leveraging its logistics capabilities to help local companies comply with the new recycling policies. JD is helping to provide trash bins as well as customized labels and tags to companies of all sizes, thus streamlining the compliance process. Shanghai’s CR Land Construction Group, for example, has already enlisted JD to build a custom procurement platform for its waste management operations. So far JD’s waste sorting solutions have been applied across 66 of CR Land’s construction sites across the city.

“JD has been extremely proactive about helping companies like ours comply with the new regulations,” said Fengquan Xie, Project Manager of CR Property Technology Services, Shanghai. “From using data regarding building layout and density of residents, as well as opinions from local people and homeowners’ committees to optimize the implementation of new trash sorting solutions, we’ve been impressed by the measures JD has taken, and are proud to work with them.”

Why Logistics Scenarios Matter for the Future of Industrial IoT

Posted on by Ling Cao

By Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics

(Note: This piece originally appeared on the World Economic Forum’s Agenda blog, here https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/industrial-iot-iiot-logistics-supply-chain/)

If our water flows freely when we open the tap, most of us don’t think much about the reservoir where it originated or the plant where it was treated. We are even less likely to think about the network of pipes the water passed through to reach our sink. Similarly, when we buy a product in a shop or pick up an online purchase delivered to our doorstep, few of us consider the complex links in the supply chain that put that product in our hands. But a truly efficient supply chain that is fully optimized at every step, from manufacturing to inventory management to fulfilment, is what gets products into people’s hands as fast as possible, and with the least amount of environmental impact.

Today, with the emergence of 5G cellular networks, we are on the brink of a revolution in supply chain and logistics.

We will see faster speeds throughout the chain, which will become more efficient, convenient and sustainable by orders of magnitude. That’s because 5G will power the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), enabling large-scale, real-time connectivity all the time.

When we refer to the Internet of Things, it’s usually human-to-small device connections, such as web-connected home appliances, that first come to mind. These applications are both fun and useful – and are becoming big business as well. Importantly, however, they make up part of a broader market that includes devices like autonomous delivery robots and drones, which are being used across a wide range of industries, including logistics, farming and more. In fact, the IoT market already includes an estimated 10 billion devices as of last year, with total investments projected to approach $15 trillion by 2025, according to Business Insider Intelligence.

What if all of these devices could interact with one another without human intervention? What would this type of constant connectivity look like at scale, in complex logistics operations, for example?

This is the question propelling the emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Beyond today’s IoT, which connects robots and systems (in a warehouse, for example), implementation of Industrial IoT at scale, with less worries about connection losses, will enable reliable and dependable robot-to-robot communication, hardly requiring human intervention.

Reducing risk and optimizing efficiency

Imagine tracking a product in real-time, not just as it goes from warehouse to truck to delivery to customer, but every single moment until it reaches a customer’s hands. Imagine further that warehouse robots could communicate directly with one another, or think about autonomous trucks on the road doing that. Effective use of big data makes this possible with IIoT, and reduces costs and increase efficiency throughout the supply chain through route optimization, space optimization, more precise fuel-consumption monitoring and smart dispatching, among many other benefits.

Importantly, successful deployment of IIoT helps make traditionally risky industries safer, such as those where manual labour and robotics are intimately connected. The greatest risks of IIoT deployments are system failures or downtime. While the true impacts of a mass rollout of 5G remain to be seen, the technology’s low latency, high speed and ability to support a broad spectrum of simultaneous connections are key to ensuring safe and efficient application of IIoT.

JD Logistics, an independently run business group under JD.com, China’s largest retailer, has been an early mover on this trend. We originally built our in-house nationwide logistics network to support JD.com’s massive e-commerce infrastructure, and today we can deliver approximately 90% of orders same- or next-day. But we soon realized our network could be used to empower brands and other retailers, and even other industries. We are now taking our network to the next level. For instance, JD Logistics is partnering with top mobile providers in China to implement 5G-powered IIoT across our logistics parks.

Logistics scenarios are some of the best real-world scenarios in which to apply IIoT. At the same time, the fully connected IIoT will ultimately deliver significant benefits to the logistics industry. These benefits include real-time monitoring and scheduling of logistics vehicles, personnel, capacity optimization and monitoring of full-road rate, and more. Using IIoT, trucks can monitor their own capacity and communicate with each other to understand this information in real-time, helping to optimize overall transportation and scheduling efficiency. For example, five semi-trucks heading for the same direction can become just two or three, resulting in more efficient use of resources, and importantly, reduced carbon emissions from having fewer trucks on the road, significantly helping to reduce the overall impact of logistics on the environment. This is just one example of what IIoT holds for the future of smart supply chain.

A truly open platform

We have long believed that the full potential and widespread benefits of smart supply chain can only be realized when the whole ecosystem benefits. This will require open yet secure data-sharing among trusted collaborators. Merchants must be able to monitor in real-time and optimize the transportation of raw material and cargo, as well as storage, sorting, transfer and delivery, through full and 100%-reliable connectivity upstream and downstream. It is not limited just to basic services and software systems (such as warehouse management systems), but should also extend to predictive models and analytical tools. And such an ecosystem should not be limited to one or a few contributors. Partners should be able to contribute their own solutions, and make them available on a truly open platform. This is the only way that the industry can move forward, and is the essence of what we are trying to popularize by example.

IIoT supply chain has huge implications for improving the efficiency of companies across multiple industries beyond logistics. Over the past few years we have seen car manufacturers applying cloud-based services and IoT technology in both the procurement of overseas components and the shipping of vehicles to vendors in foreign markets. The data provided by IoT supply chain systems has also been of great use to public transport authorities, enabling them to optimize performance by monitoring their fleets, improve congestion issues and react quicker to accidents.

But the impact of IIoT goes far beyond supply chain. It will be the core of what makes smart city solutions possible, supporting sophisticated urban logistics hubs, driven by big data and cloud computing. It should also improve safety and working conditions. In China, as elsewhere, urbanization is causing intense changes to the environment, creating pollution and disruption to society. Freight vehicles produce an outsized contribution to urban traffic emission, and can take up as much as a third of road capacity. Smarter logistics operations, including underground systems that use subterranean tracks and integrated municipal pipe corridors, can help preserve open, convenient and aesthetically pleasing above-ground space that would otherwise be occupied by traditional logistics systems, ensuring smooth and efficient urban logistics with minimal disruption to daily life. With increased worker safety, more environmental protection and truly open connectivity, the application of this technology will change not only how we see logistics and supply chain, but also daily life.

This is the promise that smarter supply chains hold for our future. It’s an exciting future powered by the coming 5G wave and more open collaboration across enterprises and organizations.

Consumers “Trading up” and Seeking Quality Drives Record-breaking 6.18

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

Total sales transaction volume during JD.com’s June 18 Anniversary Sale (“6.18”) reached new heights this year of $29.2 billion. Key drivers leading to breakthrough results with China’s largest retailer were new products as well as Chinese consumers’ continued interest in and pursuit of higher quality.

New products were a laser focus of JD’s retail strategy overall this year. JD has launched an exclusive channel within its platform to socialize and promote these products as well as bring them to market, making them easy for consumers to find, and helping brands strategically reach new consumers. Consumers are also “trading up” from lower tier cities, showing greater interest in brands similar to consumers in higher tier cities.

Transaction volume growth was twice as high in lower tier cities than the overall growth on JD.com. The percentage of new users from lower tier cities was also much higher than the percentage of new users overall. Two campaigns involved participation from over 100 million users. One was an innovative “birthday red envelope” campaign, which encouraged and rewarded consumers for sharing on social platforms. Another campaign engaged users to share, vote for and win shared rewards for their cities.

JD has discovered a powerful way to market to Chinese consumers called Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M). This initiative employs big data and consumer insights, providing insights to brands to adjust their manufacturing and marketing approaches with the goal of providing consumers with products they want before they even know they want them. Transaction volume of new products and C2M products during 6.18 increased 289% compared with the same period last year. One out of every three monitors sold during this year’s 6.18 campaign were C2M products. HP saw a 100% increase in sales of its Zhan 66 laptop, a C2M product, during 6.18.

Several new brands have also launched on JD during 6.18. Most recently, beloved Italian designer brand Prada, as well as Miu Miu and Car Shoe, two sister brands under the Prada Group, launched authorized flagship stores on JD.com. Farfetch also launched a flagship store on JD during the period, enabling JD consumers to access more than 3,000 brands through Farfetch’s network of more than 1,000 brand and boutique partners. JD also worked with the world’s top hotel brands to empower subscribers of its premium membership program, JD Plus, with exclusive privileges at 15,000 high-end hotels around the world, marking the first time JD Plus benefits can be enjoyed outside of China. During this 6.18, JD sold more than 2.8 million JD Plus memberships.

Technology continues to be key to improving the consumer experience and exceeding expectations during the sales festival. 91% of orders coming from JD fulfillment centers were delivered same-or next-day. During this year’s 6.18, JD’s smart customer service robot fielded more than 32 million inquiries, of which it solved 90% of those independently, freeing up human customer service for more complicated inquiries.

For more 6.18 sales highlights, please refer to the graphic below.

During this 6.18, JD sold more than 2.8 million JD Plus memberships.

* Transaction volume is calculated to include total value of all orders for products and services placed in the company’s online platform, regardless of whether the goods are sold or delivered or whether the goods are returned and shipping charges paid by buyers to sellers, and excludes products or services with list prices above RMB100,000 as well as transactions conducted by buyers who make purchases exceeding RMB1,000,000 in the aggregate in a single day (similar to the company’s major industry peer GMV definition)