by Yuchuan Wang

JD.com announced this week that two papers on automatic and intelligent content generation for e-commerce product recommendation submitted by JD Retail were accepted by the 36th Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2022 (AAAI 2022) under the track of “Highly Innovative Applications of AI.” To be held in February in Vancouver, Canada, AAAI is one of the world’s most prestigious conferences in the field of AI. JD is the only company to enter two papers among the total of eight under this track for AAAI 2022.

Jointly researched by JD Retail and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, the two papers elaborate on innovative projects applied at JD to advance the automated recommendation and selling process, through Natural Language Processing (NLP), largely improving operations efficiency and saving labor costs.

JD’s paper “Intelligent Online Selling Point Extraction for E-Commerce Recommendation” introduces an intelligent online selling point extraction system (IOSPE), which uses NLP and in-depth generation technology to automatically generate selling points for recommended products. As of September 2021, IOSPE has become the core service used by JD.com for more than 60 key categories of products, covering more than one million products. So far, the system has generated hundreds of millions of selling points for products, helping merchants greatly improve the efficiency of promotion and reduce costs. IOSPE effectively increases the click-through rate (CTR) of products and the average stay time of customers on the product page, which is of great benefit to increasing the conversion rate of e-commerce.

The paper “Automatic Product Copywriting for E-Commerce” explains how JD’s automated product introduction copywriting generation system (APCG) works based on natural language generation (NLG) and model pretraining technologies. Since the application of the system on JD in February 2021, APCG gradually covered all product categories selling on JD, and also for merchants’ new products. By September 2021, it has generated 2.53 million pieces of product descriptions, and improved the overall average click-through rate (CTR), the conversion rate (CVR) and the accumulated gross merchandise volume(GMV) by 4.22%, 3.61% and 213.42% respectively, on a year-on-year basis. The system generates up to 209,000 pieces of descriptions of products weekly, equivalent to the workload of about 1,000 professional copywriters.

Thanks to more and more application of innovative technologies such as NLP and image processing in e-commerce search and recommendation scenarios, customers worldwide are enjoying a more and more convenient shopping experience online.

Founded in 1979, the AAAI is an international nonprofit scientific society devoted to promoting research in, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence. Last year, AAAI 2021 saw over 9,000 paper submissions, of which 1,692 were accepted.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

by Siyi Zhao and Mengyang He

JD has completed this year’s Singles Day Grand Promotion with a total transaction volume of RMB 349.1 billion yuan during the 11-day sale that started from 8 pm on Oct 31, setting a new record for the sales of its annual shopping festival. Behind this number are several distinct consumption trends.

 

New and high-quality products

During this year’s grand promotion, JD has witnessed the consumption trends of products that are new and of high-quality, along with attributes catering to consumers’ various demands.

JD continues to demonstrate its strong position in the home appliance category, with over 50 million households choosing JD to shop for their products. The number of all-category products sold regrading JD’s IoT smart ecosystem was twice that of the same period last year, with the number of thin and light high-performance notebooks sold increasing by 270% YOY, and 4K smart projectors achieving a YOY growth of 160%.

Under the trend of consumption upgrading, consumers also prefer high-end flagship phones, with the number of items regarding brands of Xiaomi, OPPO, Honor, and vivo sold over 4 times as much as that of the whole day (Nov 11) of last year.

As for agricultural products, consumers are more and more concerned about the place of origin. During JD’s promotion, the transaction volume of Wuchang rice, the most popular rice brand from Heilongjiang, increased by more than 5 times YOY, and those of Suqian hairy crabs increased by 600 times YOY.

In the past year, JD Apparel has ushered in more than 100 international and domestic key account (KA brands), while more than 6000 new fashion brands were among this year’s Singles Day Grand Promotion. The total product volume of JD.com apparel are of 15 times more than that of the same period last year.

 

Shop for service-products

These days, consumers are not satisfied with buying solely tangible products online—they have been also flocking to place orders for a slew of services.

The transaction volume of pet products and smart products during the promotion increased by 267% YOY, while the volume of online pet consultation services surged by 178% compared with the same period of last month.

Also, on Nov 11, the consultation volume of the maternal and child health department of JD Health Internet Hospital increased by 10 times YOY, the transaction volume of genetic testing increased by 16 times, the HPV vaccine appointment services by more than 7 times, and the dental health orders by nearly 5 times, all of which reflects the new trend of purchasing a new form of intangible product, namely service, online.

 

A global perspective

Through cooperation with international and local partners, JD has established a supply chain network covering more than 220 countries and regions. The volume of products sold globally during this year’s Singles Day Grand Promotion increased by 27 times YOY. JD Worldwide also imported a wide range of high-quality products from abroad. The transaction volume of JD Import Supermarket grew by 14 times YOY.

JD also took its Singles Day Grand Promotion to a larger group of international consumers. For example, JD.ID in Indonesia partnered with TikTok, and through livestreaming set a JD.ID sales record. In Thailand, JD Central reported a transaction volume from midnight to 2 am on Nov 11 with a YOY increase of 227%. Baby supplies and food and beverage are the top two categories that had the fastest growth among Thai consumers. Phones, PCs, and home appliances all sustained a 3-digit growth.

JD’s 2021 Singles Day Grand Promotion has continuously become a reflection on China’s consumption trend, a trend that is upward and dynamic, and demonstrates a great potential for China’s consumption force.

 

(zhaosiyi5@jd.com; hemengyang5@jd.com)

by Yuchuan Wang

JD.com reported a record-breaking Singles Day Grand Promotion on November 12, 2021, with transaction volume totaling RMB 349.1 billion yuan at the midnight of November 11, ending the 11-day promotion that started from 8pm on October 31. Transaction volume of 31 brands surpassed RMB 1 billion yuan with Apple surpassed RMB 10 billion yuan.

Compared with previous years when the Singles Day promotion started at midnight on November 1, this year JD kicked off the 2021 sales 4 hours ahead of time at 8 pm on October 31, allowing consumers to place orders without having to pull an all-nighter.

Despite strong sales and continued growth, JD is also prioritizing other areas of growth.

For example, on Nov. 11, Japanese retailer MUJI and JD.com’s SEVEN FRESH jointly launched a fresh food complex in Shanghai. Featuring a MUJI store and a fresh food supermarket, it spans an area of over 4,000 square meters, and will offer a wide range of meal solutions to consumers. The complex marks the first appearance of JD.com’s innovative fresh food supermarket chain SEVEN FRESH in Shanghai.

Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Retail, says that, “While the external audience may be more concerned about the sales figures, we are paying more attention to the stronger and upward force of the industry.”

SEVEN FRESH and MUJI’s fresh food complex is located in Ruihongtiandi shopping mall in Hongkou district, Shanghai

 

High-quality consumption

This Singles Day has been joined by the most merchants and brands in JD’s history, especially in the fashion category. Over 6,000 new apparel brands joined JD’s Singles Day this year, such as Victoria’s Secret, Peace Bird and Bosideng. In the first 10 minutes after the final sales spike started at 8 pm on Nov. 10, sales of 600 apparel brands increased 8 times YOY. Among the consumers of apparel products, the number of Gen-Z consumers was 3 times that of last year. Transaction volume of luxury products in the first 10 minutes increased 180% YOY. RIMOWA, the luxury luggage brand, saw a YOY increase of 3 times in terms of transaction volume in the first two hours.

Sales of beauty brands also surged on JD. In the first 4 hours, the transaction volume of over 20 brands including Helena Rubinstein and L’OCCITANE increased 100% on a year-on-year basis.

In the first 4 hours, transaction volume of 100 brands in the home appliances category, including Haier, LG and more, exceeded those of the whole day of November 11 last year. In the first 10 minutes, transaction volume of Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung and many other mobile phone brands increased 4 times YOY. Transaction volume of iPhones surpassed RMB 100 million yuan in 2 seconds.

Pet consumption continues to boom. Transaction volume of nutrition products for pets increased 12 times in the first 10 minutes. Additionally, since the launch of JD Health Pet Hospital, a total of 3,000 veterinarians have joined the service team. As of 10:00am on Nov. 11, the online consultation service for cats increased 230% on a monthly basis and consultation for dogs increased 200%.

 

Growth from lower-tier markets

Users from lower-tier markets accounts for 77% of all users for JD’s Singles Day Grand Promotion this year. The company has seen rapid growth of consumption from these markets in the categories of home appliances, medicine and home decoration. For example, transaction volume of dishwashers and sweeping robots increased 2 to 3 times, with some smart home appliances even increasing 5 to 10 times.

The 15,000 JD Home Appliance stores nationwide that mainly target lower-tier markets saw their 2-hour transaction volume across all stores surpass that of the whole day on November 10 last year.

During this Singles Day, JD also officially launched a smart supply chain center in Wugong county in Shaanxi province, covering an area of 36,000 square meters. Integrating functions of procurement, cold-chain warehousing, processing, sorting, packaging and fulfillment, it connects the agricultural industry belts in northwestern China. On the night of November 10, the center processed total 1 millionth order.

JD smart supply chain center in Wugong county

 

Technology and logistics drive efficiency

This Singles Day, JD provided e-CNY(“数字人民币” in Chinese) red envelopes for users in 11 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian, Xi’an, Chengdu and more, in collaboration with China Construction Bank (CCB). Users located in these cities who have never opened an e-CNY account, can search “e-CNY” on JD’s app to get access to the activity page. The red envelopes can be used on JD’s e-commerce app to purchase first-party products. According to JD Technology, over 100,000 customers used e-CNY on JD’s app during the promotion period.

JD Logistics ensures that remote areas can enjoy the same standard of service as in big cities. Since the beginning of 2021, JD Logistics has newly opened nine Asia No.1 logistics parks, which are among its 1,200+ warehouse network nationwide. The addition of logistics parks powered by automation technologies further expands JD’s rapid delivery service to more locations, enabling the company to deliver JD’s retail orders within 24 hours in 93% counties and 84% villages in China.

Autonomous delivery vehicles guarantee contactless delivery during COVID-19 breakouts. During this Singles Day, JD Logistics applied nearly 400 autonomous delivery vehicles in more than 25 cities in China, delivering 200% more orders comparing with the same period last year.

JD’s autonomous deliver vehicle

The 2021 Singles Day is also a green one. Through the usage of new energy vehicles, solar power system, recyclable packages and more, JD also reduced carbon emissions by 26,000 tons during this Singles Day period compared with last year. For example, recyclable packages were used 11.35 million times during the promotion this year.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)