Non-traditional Flavored Dessert “Tangyuan” Rise in Popularity During JD’s Lantern Festival Sales
by Doris Liu
In preparation of the Lantern Festival, which fell on February 15 this year, customers showed a great demand for both traditional and non-traditional flavors of “tangyuan”, a traditional Chinese dessert usually served on the day, with its turnover on JD.com surging dramatically.
“Tangyuan”, glutinous rice flour balls with sweet stuffing, are regarded as a symbol of family reunions and a happy life. This year, packages offering an assortment of flavors account for 31 percent of JD’s online sales of Tangyuan, showing a trend of trying multiple flavors at one meal by customers. Sales of glutinous rice flour, black sesame filling and red bean paste, which are classic ingredients of home-made Tangyuan, went up by 91 percent YOY.
Many non-traditional flavors of tangyuan gained popularity among consumers. The sales volume of Oreo cookie flavored tangyuan increased by 12.6 times YOY, and salty yolk-stuffing tangyuan more than doubled YOY. In addition, hawthorn and orange flavors climbed by more than 75 percent YOY respectively, while sales of sugar-free tangyuan, which represent a healthy lifestyle and good for diabetics, were up by 70 percent YOY.
Lighting up lanterns and guessing riddles are traditional customs for the festival. Festive consumption related to the tradition was also surging, with the turnover of multi-color lights climbing up by almost fivefold and lanterns by 171 percent YOY respectively.
Many people turned to online shopping for family members. Among the cross-province orders placed before the festival, sales of health services and fresh food both increased by more than double YOY, and sales of jewelry increased by 68 percent YOY.
The Lantern Festival traditionally marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration.
Winter Olympics Spark Ice & Snow Sports Consumption in China
by Yiming Yan
The Beijing Winter Olympics have stimulated Chinese people’s enthusiasm for ice and snow sports, which has also triggered a surge in associated consumption.
According to JD.com, searches for Olympic mascot “Bing Dwen Dwen” on the JD App have at times accounted for 90% of site traffic, with over 10 million searches done during the Spring Festival Grand Promotion.
The mascot’s appeal is a microcosm of the recent “ice-and-snow fever.” Since January 9, Guangxi, Anhui, Yunnan, Hubei, and Hunan have been among the provinces and autonomous regions with the fastest-growing winter sports consumption, according to the JD Research Institute for Consumption and Industrial Development. To put that in context, ice and snow equipment turnover climbed by 107 percent YOY, while garment turnover increased by 99 percent, and winter sports safety gear increased by 41 percent.
Search results of Eileen Gu on JD.com
In addition, the data revealed the following regional and population features of winter sports consumption: Sports consumption has long been not limited to the north, with southern regions’ consumption such as Zhejiang and Sichuan ranking among the top five. During the Spring Festival Grand Promotion, the five provinces and autonomous region with the fastest YOY growth were all in the south: Guangxi, Anhui, Yunnan, Hubei, and Hunan all had growth rates exceeding 400 percent.
When it came to consumer categorization, the primary drivers of consumption growth were women and children. More than 70 percent of snowboarding customers are under the age of 35. In 2021, female consumers spent 248 percent more on ice and snow activities, while men spent 181 percent more compared with last year.
Eileen Gu (“Gu Ailing” in Chinese), JD.com’s retail endorser and a world-class skier, won the gold medal in the women’s big jump in the freestyle skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 8.
Following Gu’s win, the total sales of her promoted items in JD.com on the day increased by 8.4 times compared to the opening day of the Winter Olympics on February 4, and the sales of Gu Ailing’s identical Anta clothes soared by more than 20 times.
YSL Offers Limited-Edition Valentine’s Day Products on JD
by Xiaoqian Han
In celebration of Valentine’s Day and the launch of flagship store in December 2021, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) offered a variety of Valentine’s Day limited-edition products to JD’s consumers for a Super Brand Day on February 9, 2022.
Inspired by the Valentine’s Day, YSL has released a range of love-themed limited editions on that day, including perfume and lipstick gift boxes with four red velvet lipsticks gift pack on YSL’s self-operated flagship store designed exclusively for JD.com users.
With the help of JD’s e-commerce and logistics advantages, all the products on the YSL flagship store could be delivered to consumers within 24 hours by JD Logistics.
Apart from YSL, JD Beauty has already introduced a number of high-end beauty brands in the past year, including Guerlain, Givenchy, Estee Lauder, and Kiehl’s. Many worldwide businesses have regarded the JD as a new platform for product sales and brand marketing through JD.com’s Super Brand Day and 618 Grand Promotion sales.
As a French premium brand, YSL is renowned for offering a broad line of premium cosmetics, and skin care products.
When Tiger Embraces the Olympics: JD Report on Spring Festival 2022 Consumption Trends
by Yiming Yan and Xiaoqian Han
As this year’s Spring Festival ushered in both the Year of the Tiger and the Beijing Winter Olympics, JD.com’s consumption data revealed exciting growth: The platform’s turnover increased by more than 50 percent year-on-year from New Year’s Eve (which fell on January 31) to the 5th day of the first lunar month (YOY). In addition, sales increased by 87 percent, 86 percent, 64 percent, and 61 percent in 4 provinces, namely Henan, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Anhui, respectively.
In terms of New Year’s greetings, the commencement of the Year of the Tiger boosted sales of Tiger-themed merchandise. The entire value of the jewelry category climbed by more than 50 percent YOY as of February 5, compared to ox-element products in the same period last year, which is the Year of the Ox; as gold ring sales increased by 28.5 percent YOY.
Toys with tiger features are also highly popular: The sales revenue of tiger-themed designer toys and musical instruments, such as building blocks, remote control toys, and other toys and musical instruments, has increased by more than tenfold, while sales of baby carriages and cribs have increased by 35.8 percent.
Furthermore, the Beijing Winter Olympics also promotes new consumption trends, stimulating national enthusiasm in ice and snow sports. The overall turnover of ski sports products such as ski pants and snowboards climbed by 322 percent YOY.
Compared with ski sports, ice sports products such as figure ice skates and speed skates sharpeners, increased by 553 percent and 420 percent respectively. Moreover, JD.com saw a 90 percent increase in search volume for the mascot Bing Dwen Dwen; sales of ANTA down jackets increased by 203 percent; and turnover of Descente down jackets increased by 196 percent YOY.
Due to the pandemic, many people turned to online shopping for Chinese New Year goods for family members, as they were unable to travel to visit their relatives. More than 5 million SKUs were shipped off-site during the Spring Festival, with the provinces and municipalities that received the most off-site packages being Henan, Jiangsu, and Hebei, while the most were ordered from Guangdong, Shanghai, and Beijing.
JD.com launched the Spring Festival delivery service for the tenth consecutive year, allowing consumers in more than 300 cities to receive packages as usual even on New Year’s Eve. As an incentive, JD Logistics has allocated over RMB 400 million yuan as allowance on front-line courier employees who stayed on duty over the Spring Festival holidays.
JD Cloud Shows Its AI Capability During Chinese Spring Festival Gala 2022
by Yiming Yan
As the exclusive interactive partner of China’s Spring Festival Gala 2022, JD Cloud provided robust technical support for the virtual red envelopes during the gala: The cumulative amount of global participation of the interaction reached 69.1 billion times in the JD App.
It has been a busy period for JD Cloud’s intelligent customer service system, Yanxi(言犀), which provides users with 24/7 service in all scenarios. A total of 550 million services were provided for JD’s customers on behalf of the 165,000 merchants on JD.com from the start of the Spring Festival Grand Promotion (January 9) to the end of the Gala (February 1).
The rapid reaction team prepares for the Gala
The Gala has gained a lot of popularity in China, where hundreds of millions of Chinese people enjoyed the annual TV show on New Year’s Eve. As the Gala’s partner this year, JD Cloud needed to deal with the world’s greatest scale of high traffic volume, with traffic that was ten times higher than JD’s Singles Day Grand Promotion. Dan Liu, vice president of JD Technology, stated, “The computational power of human-computer interaction we reserved [for during the Gala] can support the country’s entire population in one hour.”
Unlike JD’s 618 and Singles Day Grand Promotion, requests for Yanxi not only revolve around pre-sales, in-sales, after-sales, and other conventional issues, but also complex knowledge such as the rules of virtual red envelopes during the Spring Festival Gala.
“We’ve accumulated a plethora of experience to support the Spring Festival Gala thanks to previous grand promotions. We established a rapid reaction team under the supervision of IEEE Fellow Dr. He Xiaodong, with the effective assignment of jobs for seasoned team members,” said Liu.
Alcon’s Flagship Store Ranks in JD.com’s “Top 100 Stores” of 2021
by Vivian Yang
Alcon, the world’s largest eye care devices company from the United States, was named one of JD.com’s “Top 100 Stores” of 2021 on January 11th, after gaining straight-A reporting cards in 26 consecutive rounds of JD’s bi-weekly store management examinations within a year.
Every two weeks throughout the year, JD certifies high-performing stores in its marketplace based on 28 customer-experience-oriented criteria including product/service quality, operational status and more, and designates stores that achieve these demanding standards as JD’s “Top Stores.”
Alcon’s flagship store on JD.com with its annual “Top Store” certificate
Since its launch in 2019, Alcon’s flagship store on JD.com has offered a wide array of products for vision care, as well as reliable and convenient services to customers in China. Various contact lenses and solutions are available to meet a variety of needs. The store’s most popular product is the DAILIES TOTAL1 contact lenses, which feature water gradient technology. This lens material has a gradual increase in water content approaching 100% water at the surface, so all that touches the eye is a cushion of moisture.
Alcon’s flagship store was the first to offer a free trial of contact lenses on JD, which proved to be an effective move to quickly connect with local consumers and expand the market in China. Catering to customers’ need for more personalized products, Alcon joined hands with Pop Mart, the trendy collectable art toys brand, for a marketing IP campaign on JD.com last December 15th, which drew over 4 million visitors to its store over the themed day.
Alcon and Pop Mart’s joint marketing campaign on JD.com
Aside from products, excellent services are vital for the store’s success. Alcon ensures most customers receive their orders within one day by leveraging JD’s warehousing and delivery services. At the same time, Alcon’s customer care representatives must all complete rigorous training in order to give clear and professional answers to customers’ inquires, thereby enhancing users’ trust in the online store. Thirdly, Alcon’s flagship store has integrated a number of JD’s after-sales service functions such as speedy product returns, flash refunds, shipment insurance and other services that guarantee a nice customer experience.
Certified “Top Stores” on JD will be rewarded with more traffic support and other platform resources, according to Xiangying Kong, JD Retail’s head of platform ecosystem department, with the goal of improving their operating efficiency and fostering a fair, high-quality, and effective space for premier merchants to thrive.
Alcon China’s spokesperson noted that the company plans to strengthen its partnership with JD Retail and JD Health in 2022, delivering new products and better services for vision care among a growing customer base.
JD.com Among FORTUNE 2022 World’s Most Admired Companies with Outstanding Social Responsibility Score
JD.com is ranked on the FORTUNE 2022 World’s Most Admired Companies list at No. 6 in the Internet Services and Retailing Category. Other companies listed in the Top 8 industry ranking include Amazon, Alphabet, Xiaomi and more.
This is the second time JD.com was named in this list, following last year. To compile this list, FORTUNE collaborated with partner Korn Ferry to survey more than 3,700 executives, directors, and analysts to measure corporate reputation and performance. Nine criteria are examined ranging from long-term investment value, social responsibility, quality of products/services, innovation, global competitiveness and more.
JD.com tops the “social responsibility” score among Chinese companies on the industry ranking. The company also demonstrated outstanding performances in the dimensions of “use of corporate assets”, “long-term investment value”, and “quality of products/services”.
In the continued fight against COVID-19, the company has been on the frontline to donate vital medical and food supplies and leverage its nationwide warehouse and transportation resources to support local communities. Meanwhile, JD’s commitments to green supply chain and a circular economy last year, given its large scale in operation, bore meaningful fruits by clean energy using, packages reduction, second-hand products recycling and more.
Since 2020, JD has been supporting rural China to achieve RMB 320 billion yuan($50 billion) industrial output under a rural revitalization program that aims to drive more than RMB 1 trillion yuan industrial output within three years.
By continuously improving supply chain efficiency, JD achieved an inventory turnover time of 30 days by the third quarter of 2021, a world-class level in managing a pool of over 10 million self-operated SKUs, and realized the less-than-one-hour last-mile delivery service in over 300 cities across China, providing end-to-end solutions for brands and partners, and thus offering a premium shopping experience to consumers in China.
Lately, the company is making innovative moves on its international expansion. In January 2022 alone, JD opened its first robotic retail shops in the Netherlands – an unprecedented omni-channel shopping format in the world –with an attempt to explore the future of retail. A week later on Jan 18th, the company announced a strategic cooperation with Shopify on an “accelerated channel” to help foreign brands and products sell in China and the other way around.
To date, JD’s global supply chain network has covered more than 220 countries and regions in the world, with its international logistics arm operating around 80 bonded and overseas warehouses and cargo flight routes between China and the US, UK and Thailand. Together with various shipping services by air, railway, sea and trucks as well as other cross-border services, overseas orders can be delivered from door-to-door as fast as 48 hours.
In recent years, JD.com has been transforming into a leading supply chain-based technology and service provider. The company’s cutting-edge retail infrastructure seeks to enable consumers to buy whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want it. As the company’s business has grown, it has opened up its capabilities across retail, logistics and technology, empowering partners as well as industry players beyond the JD ecosystem.
JD deems itself as “a new type of real economy enterprise” that possesses both digital and technological capabilities, and the DNA and features of a tangible business. Such a dual characteristic enables JD with the knowledge to understand the development of traditional enterprises in different industries and provide them with the technological support accordingly that best suits their need for digital transformation.