Celine Launches New Flagship Store on JD.com

Posted on by Xiaoqian Han

by Xiaoqian Han

Celine, a luxury fashion brand under the LVMH group, launched an official flagship store on JD.com on May 6, providing a full range of items of handbags, garments, accessories, perfumes, shoes, and jewelry. The Celine 520 capsule handbag series and 2022 spring and summer collections are also available on this store.

The web design of this store is simple and concise, with the functions of browsing items in 3D and synchronizing delivery and offline pickup addresses. With the approaching 618 festival and other promotion events, it will also offer special delivery services such as offline pickup at a nearby store and exclusive gift cards delivered in the package.

This store will launch new collections and items on a regular basis in order to suit the individualized and diverse needs of customers. Users can also purchase products for men on the flagship store, in addition to women’s items.

To date, JD.com has gathered more than 300 flagship stores of major fashion and lifestyle brands, covering jewelry, clothing, luggage, shoes, and home furnishing. More than 20 brands under the LVMH Group such as BERLUTI, DIOR, LOEWE, Bulgari, and Givenchy, have formed an in-depth partnership with JD.com. Celine’s flagship store on JD.com will enable consumers with more options to shop for fashion items online.

 

(hanxiaoqian3@jd.com)

JD.com Provides Supports for Shanghai’s Resumption of Work

Posted on by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

JD.com revealed an array of supportive measures for Shanghai’s safe resumption of work after the city announced on May 5th that over 70% of its 1,800 key enterprises have resumed production.

Support for JD Merchants

At present, the total order volume from over 10,000 Shanghai merchants on JD.com has reached 60 percent of the amount before the city lockdown in early April.

To support JD merchants during this period of time, the company has waived a total of over RMB 200 million yuan of operational fees in order to ease their burdens to do business on the platform, which includes 3-6 months’ fees exemption for new merchants, free advertising resources for merchants of a number of selective product categories and more.

Since this March, JD Finance issued preferential policies such as deferred repayment and reduction of interest fees to more than 700,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in COVID-affected areas, with a total amount of nearly RMB 250 million yuan, including RMB 30 million yuan for about 55,000 small and medium-sized enterprises from Shanghai.

JD Logistics’ chartered flight from Beijing to Shanghai

To counter the risk of warehouse closure in certain regions resulting in goods unable to be shipped due to prevention policies, JD Logistics further consolidated its nationwide warehouse network which consists of over 1,300 warehouses and over 1,700 cloud warehousing resources for its merchants to disperse their stocks and provided new merchants with preferential policies for storage and delivery services.

By May 5th, JD’s on-demand retail services Shop Now and JDDJ have supported 50% of their supermarket partners in Shanghai and other COVID-affected areas to resume operation. By providing fast track onboarding process, online-to-offline sales guidance and sufficient delivery manpower, they are enabling more and more brick-and-mortar stores and providing “last three kilometers” delivery service to customers.

Support for Enterprises

JD Industrial Supplies and JD Business have made joint efforts to offer tens of thousands most-needed merchandises to meet the demand of enterprises as they gear up for production resumption, including goods for disinfection, emergency use, labor protection, office supplies and so on. Customized assistance measures have been provided to enterprises for product sourcing and delivery across the country, ensuring efficient interconnections and synergy on each link of the industrial chains.

In Shanghai, from April 1st to 30th, JD Industrial Supplies sourced and delivered more than 6.5 million items for over 600 enterprise clients across over 50 industries including energy, automotive, electronic manufacturing, engineering construction and more.

JD’s autonomous driving vehicles are deployed in several industrial parks including the one in Shanghai Jinshan district to conduct contactless delivery.

JD Logistics’ maritime line from Guangzhou to Shanghai

JD Health provided enterprise-faced healthcare product solutions including packages for virus prevention, employees’ healthcare and public emergency use, as well as telemedicine services, special medicine procurement, and supplies of antigen test kits, to facilitate enterprises to meet anti-virus requirements.

In the past month, JD.com has accumulatively delivered more than 80,000 tons of supplies to Shanghai mainly including staple food, medicine, baby and maternity goods and more. The company also delivered nearly 50,000 beds to several mobile cabin hospitals, sent in over 4,000 couriers and over 100 autonomous delivery vehicles, built more than 1,600 contact-less community pick-up stations, and transformed its just-finished, unused new warehouse in Shanghai into a mobile cabin hospital with over 2,000 beds.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

 

 

Posted in ESG

JD Logistics Develops Indoor Robot for Last 100-Meter Delivery

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

JD Logistics’ indoor delivery robot was recently launched at China Overseas International Center in Beijing on April 26. Approximately 2,000 professionals working in the office building will be able to receive robot delivery of take-out orders and parcels at their desks.

JD Logistics provides six such robots and a smart service center to China Overseas International Center. The smart service center offers temporary storage space so that couriers can leave the take-out orders and parcels there. The service center’s staff will then place the packages in the compartments on the robots and users will be able to receive them in five to ten minutes.

The smooth operation is enabled by JD Logistics’ IoT solution. Robots can sense the environment and obstacles through lidar, ultrasonic probe, depth camera and other high-precision sensors while locating itself and planning its route to the destination automatically by leveraging JD’s self-developed navigation algorithm. It can communicate with elevators and access control system to navigate between different floors.

Once it has arrived near the receiver’s desk, the robot will send out a text message and make a phone call, with a password for the receiver to retrieve the package.

So far, the indoor delivery robot has been applied in office and apartment buildings, regular and mobile cabin hospitals, supermarkets, etc. It is a derivative of JD’s autonomous delivery vehicle for last-mile delivery.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

JD Partners with Schneider to Lead Standardized Product Database

Posted on by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

JD Industrial Supply and Schneider Electric (China) jointly announced on April 26th that 18,000 Schneider products’ data have been entered into JD’s “Mercator” product standardization database for industrial parts and equipment.

“Compared with the traditional sales channels that focus on matchmaking, our collaboration with JD Industrial Supply has extended to the field of co-creating product standardization that does not only support product procurement, but also takes the channel management work and customer service to the next level, giving our brands greater room of imagination for future development,” said a spokesperson of Schneider Electric.

Now Schneider’s “data dictionary” of electrical and automation products in JD’s “Mercator” database has 18,000 product data items from 150 categories and 241 product series covering low and medium-voltage distribution, power supply, refrigeration equipment and more.

Schneider Electric products listed in JD Industrial Supply

The “Mercator” product standardization database, powered by JD’s big data and AI technologies and incorporating expertise from leading brands of the industry, mapped a knowledge graph of industrial supplies through massive data cleaning and knowledge extraction. Founded in September 2020, the database aims to offer a comprehensive system where industrial products can be uniformly standardized and classified, so as to solve the bottleneck issue of lack of consistency and completeness of product information that has been dragging down the whole industry’s digitalization progress.

Enterprise procurers for Schneider’s products can easily define the product parameters in the database with a few clicks, and the system will return with precise product recommendations in no time. Take one energy project bidding event this year for example. It took merely three hours for JD Industrial Supply to finish the sourcing work of 8,000 Schneider products, which demonstrated significant efficiency improvement of resource allocation for large industrial projects.

At the same time, Schneider is benefiting from the database through being able to manage its numerous suppliers and their goods flow. Suppliers only need to tick the boxes in the system to generate pre-set product codes and specifications, and Schneider can always have a clear picture on the whole sales process from sellers to buyers and detailed sales data in multiple dimensions.

“JD Industrial Supply is committed to providing digital and intelligent service for this industry with a special focus on optimizing the composite cost of supply chain and overall service efficiency,” said Wei Wang, general manager of the product and technology department of JD Industrial Supply. “In the future, we hope to replicate this collaboration model with more brand partners, creating greater value for more enterprises by leveraging our supply chain technology and service capabilities.”

In 2021, JD helped Schneider achieve 66 percent sales growth on this platform, which has become one of the latter’s fastest-growing digital channels in the country.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

JD Super and Kimberly-Clark Rush Baby Product Supplies to Shanghai

Posted on by Mengyang He

by Mengyang He

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai, JD.com’s online supermarket business JD Super formed an emergency response team with the leading American personal care corporation Kimberly-Clark, rushing to allocate 3,000 boxes of diapers to Shanghai in a joint effort to ensure sufficient baby products on the ground. Several brands under Kimberly-Clark all took part in the team, including Kleenex, Huggies, Kotex, etc.

The JD Super and Kimberly-Clark emergency response team took immediate actions by building a makeshift warehouse in Qingpu District, Shanghai and allocating 120,000 bags of milk powder and diapers from across China into the warehouse, which therefore elevated the local delivery efficiency and reduced uncertainties during transportation.

The team also delivered milk powder to Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, which turned into a family-friendly makeshift hospital designed for COVID-19 infected baby patients with their accompanying parents.

Additionally, through this team, Huggies also donated over 53,000 baby diapers, wipes, etc. in 559 boxes to the family-friendly makeshift hospital at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

With sufficient supplies in stock, JD.com will continue to work with Kimberly-Clark and its affiliated brands to donate and deliver baby formula, diapers, and other baby products to family-friendly makeshift hospitals.

 

(hemengyang5@jd.com)

Gen Z’s Shopping Trends in China: Happiness First, Smart Products and More

Posted on by Doris Liu

by Doris Liu

Ahead of China’s Youth Day on May 4, JD has released a new report examining shopping preferences and trends related to Gen Z consumers, who now account for 19 percent of the country’s total population at 260 million , according to the National Statistics Bureau.

Often referred to as 95s (born after 1995), they are the latest to join the workforce, and will gain more purchasing power in the next decade.

Key findings from the report, released by JD Research Institute for Consumption and Industrial Development, show that this generation holds its own rational consumption ideas, looking to their peers for fashion trends while also holding clear personal preferences.

Top priority

As digital natives, Gen Z grew up with the rise of the Internet, instant messaging, smart devices and other technologies. On average they are  well-educated and have more freedom to develop their personality, hobbies and make their own choices.

Gen Z has also witnessed China’s rapid economic development, leading to a boost of national confidence. At the same time, China’s further integration into globalization enabled Gen Z to have a global perspective, and are not only more diverse but are also willing to embrace diversity.

In such a context, Gen Z has developed unique values. Based on a survey released by Snapchat, 72 percent of Gen Z respondents, when answering the question “How do you achieve your identity and realize your value?”, chose “by seeking fun”; about 60 percent chose “by achieving a goal” and “by keeping fit”; and 56 percent “by making money”.

Consumption preferences

 Good Looks Pay

The consumption upgrade of Gen Z in recent years has escalated from product quality to spiritual satisfaction, meaning that the external look of a product is a crucial part in terms of its market competitiveness.

Since 2022, sales of visually appealing products purchased by Gen Z have increased by 166 percent year-on-year (YOY). In the categories of kitchen and bathroom appliances, home renovation and soft furnishings, baby bedding, outdoor equipment and apparel, sales of products with eye-catching appearance have all increased by more than 10 times.

Smarter is Better

Gen Z shows the highest preference for smart products, with 70 percent higher in preference coefficient compared to the other age groups, which not only promotes industrial upgrading, but also adds momentum to technological innovation.

Smart products of electric vehicles, cameras, shower systems, mobile air conditioners and lighting equipment have preference coefficients close to or higher than 100 percent.

Low-sugar matters

According to the “Generation Z Beverage Consumption Survey Report” released by the Shanghai Consumer Council earlier this year, 41 percent of Gen Z in Shanghai chose beverages with “0 sugar” and 38 percent chose “70 percent off sugar”. Less than 20 percent of Gen Z chose “full sugar” or “30 percent off sugar”.

Besides beverages, the low-sugar trend has expanded to various categories. JD’s data showed that low-sugar products of tea drinks, beer, condiments, vitamin and mineral supplements went up 20 times YOY and low-sugar pharmaceuticals saw an uptake of 14 times YOY.

The Wellness Generation

Gen Z is dedicated to their health and wellness, leading to a rise in consumption in the industries of health care, beauty and anti-aging products among young people.

Wellness consumption has developed into a lifestyle for Gen Z. Sales on JD.com in 2022 showed that health management products have increased nearly 20 times YOY, and health drinks, Chinese medicine services and psychological counseling services have rose more than three times YOY. At the same time, nutritional products such as astaxanthin, seal oil and collagen chondroitin went up by more than 10 times YOY.

Trends for “Guochao”

Guochao, Mandarin for homegrown fashion, gained popularity. The number of “Chinese Style” (国风) enthusiasts exceeded 177 million in 2021, in which the group aged 18-30 accounted for about 70 percent, said a report by Chinese online video site Bilibili Inc.

Red is an auspicious color in Chinese culture. JD’s data showed that Gen Z’s purchase of products with the phrase “Chinese red” included in the product names surged 326 percent in 2022, with personal care and health, and baijiiu, China’s liquor, being the highest-selling categories.

The Lazy Economy

Gen Z is busier with increasing personal disposable income, thus becoming the main demographic of the convenience-based “lazy economy”. They frequently use delivery services and door-to-door services, according to QuestMobile.

Sales of ready meals and vacuum mop combos purchased by Gen Z on JD.com this year have increased by 200 percent and 142 percent respectively, with underwear washing machines up almost 20 times.

The shopping preferences of Gen Z, which used to be considered special and different a few years ago, have become the mainstream of the market today. These digital natives are considered the voice of the internet, and as a result, brands are adjusting product designs, functions, services and marketing methods especially for them. In other words, Gen Z is creating trends, but also guiding the whole consumer market, energizing the process of consumption and upgrading.

 

(liujun215@jd.com)

JD’s Data: Highlights of Third-Party Merchants’ Growth on JD.com

Posted on by Doris Liu

by Doris Liu

As digital and real economies are further integrated in China, JD.com has been devoted to creating more space for the growth of its third-party merchants with its new ecosystem and new business model.

Several key results of the merchants’ growth were highlighted in a recent report released by JD Research Institute for Consumption and Industrial Development:

1. In 2021, the number of product launches on JD.com increased by more than 150 percent year-on-year (YOY), and more than 25,000 brands saw the sales volume of their new products doubled YOY.

In the past five years, the number of the total product categories sold on JD have increased by 83 percent and the new brands by 40 percent. C2M (Customer-to-Manufacturer) products have been more commonly seen, allowing consumers to enjoy the customized products and services that best suit their needs.

2. In the first three months of 2022, the daily sales volume of more than 11,000 stores on JD surged over 10 times YOY.

3. Due to a healthier market environment, the number of merchants in the Fashion and Lifestyle category grew rapidly, with the number of industrial, pharmaceutical, health, agricultural, and apparel stores increasing the highest, reflecting the robust growth potential of expanding product categories.

In 2021, the number of merchants operating in the industrial and pharmaceutical categories grew by more than 170 percent YOY, while the number of merchants in personal care, nutrition and health, agriculture and gardening, and apparel and underwear grew by more than 70 percent YOY.

4. JD’s business ecosystem has attracted and retained customers with higher purchasing power. In the first three months of 2022, the average daily users of JD’s third-party stores grew 84 percent YOY among the group aged 26-45, which is normally regarded as the customers who spend the most per capita with the strongest purchasing power.

5. In the first three months of 2022, the average daily GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) for each third-party store in the categories of skiing , pharmaceuticals, and jade and jewelry went up more than 100 percent.

6. To continuously improve the consumer experience, JD has optimized its after-sales services. In January 2022, the merchants’ after-sales service length was shortened to 50 percent of that in January 2020.

Thanks to JD’s open ecology, the two different models, first-party and third-party merchants, are developing together and making contributions with their respective values.

Many small and medium-sized enterprises have been affected by the pandemic, and are confronted with challenges such as rising production costs and insufficient orders. With its experience in promoting third-party stores, JD.com has made it a top priority to further support and help relieve the pressure for third-party merchants.

Thirty measures benefiting the merchants on JD.com have been announced for the upcoming 618 Grand Promotion, which is China’s largest mid-year shopping festival. Click here to read more about the supportive measures.

 

(liujun215@jd.com)

JD.com to Support SME Merchants and Brace for Opener 618 Grand Promotion

Posted on by Vivian Yang

Vivian Yang

JD Retail pledged to reduce operating burdens for its merchants with emphasis on supportive measures for SME merchants, promising to increase their ROI by no less than 20 percent during the upcoming 618 Grand Promotion, said Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Retail, at a JD’s merchants meeting held on April 26 ahead of the mid-year shopping festival.

Thirty supportive measures for merchants were introduced during the meeting based on “Three Reductions” in terms of operating cost, performance tests, and risks, and “Three Optimizations” for operating rules, efficiency and services.

The announcement comes at a time when China’s retail activities continue to face COVID disruptions and sluggish consumption recovery. JD’s moves aim to foster resilient teamwork with its merchants and help them rebuild confidence for business growth.

“We strive to create a healthier, opener and more orderly ecosystem in which tens of thousands of JD merchants can achieve sustainable development” said Xin. “By enabling these small and medium-sized merchants, we can jointly contribute to stabilizing tens of millions of jobs across their industrial chains,” he added.

The company revealed that in the past four months, its rate reductions for merchants exceeded RMB 200 million yuan.

On top of its advantageous first-party sales model, JD has been making it a priority in recent years to integrate a significant number of third-party merchants on its marketplace. Thanks to this “open ecosystem” strategy, in the past five years, the variety of product categories on JD.com expanded by 83 percent and the amount of new brands increased by 40 percent.

The company will unveil the new version of JD App, v11.0 ahead of 618 Grand Promotion to bring simpler, more transparent and consistent operating experiences for its merchants. Traffic generating policies will be upgraded, covering the areas of searching, marketing, recommendation and advertising, in which small and medium-sized stores and products with special features have greater  exposure.

JD also developed a simplified operating system catered to SME new merchants to facilitate their on-boarding process.

Moreover, merchants will benefit from JD’s integrated supply chain capabilities covering warehousing, delivery service, customer service and after sales service to create a premier shopping experience for their customers in an efficient way. For example, in the past two years, thanks to JD’s product return services including the speedy review and flash refund functions in its APP, merchants’ average after-sales service time has been shortened by 28.25 hours and this January, the duration was further reduced by half year on year.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)