by Yuchuan Wang

JD.com will offer over 400 million new products during this year’s Singles Day Grand Promotion. More than 1,200 new product categories are expected to see sales double. JD.com released a “New Product Consumption and Market” report on Oct. 28, showing a 50% year-on-year increase of new product launches and sales in the first three quarters of 2021.

Rigid demand

JD’s data shows that the average basket size of new products during peak promotions such as 618 and 11.11 is 30% higher than normal days (data reflects Jan.-Oct. 2021). According to customers’ feedback, 62% of customers consider “upgrade” as the driving factor for new product purchases, which mainly fall into three categories powered by “rigid demand” (for products used in daily life and work): technology or function innovation, durability and popular styles. Cell phones, computers and home appliances are the representative categories of such rigid demand, and the sales of these new products also reflects the current consumption trends, showing the core of national consumption.

Flexible demand

In contrast, consumers’ flexible demands are also increasingly driving consumption. Products that are strong in “appearance” and “experience” add extra points for consumers. For example, the upgrade of iPhone 13’s processor and camera is not as attractive as the new color Sierra Blue. “Low sugar and low calorie” products address the needs of consumer groups that pursue not only good taste but also healthiness.

Flexible demand is driven by the diversified needs of consumers, which shows the trends of satisfying consumers’ niche demands.

Consumers’ willingness to buy a familiar brand’s new products in 2021 increased 5% as compared to 2020, while for unfamiliar brands, over 25% consumers are interested in trying their new products; for example, plant-based meat.

Female and young consumers tend to be attracted by innovative appearance design of new products. The adorable all-electric microcar Wuling Hongguang MINI EV saw 45,000 units sold in 10 days after its debut. Among the sales, 68% comes from the macaron color series, and 65% of the customers are female, with 80% under the age of 35.

In addition to appearance, consumers also pay attention to the user experience. On the first day of JD’s 618 Grand Promotion, sales of skin-care shower products increased 300% on a yearly basis. Smart wet dry vacuums saw an increase of 11.4 times in terms of sales, with 55% customers being female, and 84% being between the age of 26 to 45.

All-in-one vs. only one

The flexible demand has also given rise to an interesting trend for new products: some products own more functions to satisfy customers’ comprehensive needs, while some products reduce many functions to satisfy niche market needs.

For example, integrated stove and air conditioners with air purifier function are selling well on JD, with new products sales in Q3 2021 having increased the most as compared to other categories’ average. At the same time, mothers are buying more different tooth brushes for kids with different functions to be used for the cleaning of different teeth and in different scenarios; pet owners prepare different kinds of products for the care of their pets.

The popularity of all-in-one products are designed to increase using efficiency and to satisfy people’s demands in saving labor, time and space—while the time saved will be spent on social, entertainment, healthcare, pet and more.

C2M and new product

The customized C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) products can accurately reach their target customers, creating products that customers chase to buy. The shelf sales ratio of C2M products on JD in 2021 is 48% higher than non-C2M products. The number of customers is 11 times more.

Through the end-to-end C2M solution JC2M, JD enables the procedure of creating C2M products to be low-cost and efficient. Data shows that C2M products contribute 42 times the profit when compared with a traditional new product, creating more value for manufacturers and brand owners.

And according to user research, young people under the age of 35 accept C2M products more quickly, with a “very satisfied” rate of 52%.

At present, 40% of the gaming laptops on JD.com are manufactured via C2M.  JD’s JC2M intelligent manufacturing platform has been deeply involved in the design of products from more than 1,000 brands.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

by Vivian Yang

JD.com has vowed to give a strong boost to premier agri-products sales and thereby farmer’s income growth in the upcoming Singles Day Grand Promotion. The e-commerce giant today announced the goal to sell more than 30 billion RMB-worth of agri-products, two days before the shopping festival officially kicks off on Oct. 31.

During the pre-sales period that began Oct. 20^th, the average daily transaction volume of agricultural products on JD.com has increased 5.8 times compared with October. Chinese consumers demonstrated strong interests in agri-brands from the origin production areas, and those with high quality containing rich nutrition, such as crabs from China’s famous freshwater lakes in Suqian of Jiangsu province, eggs by well-known producer DQY Ecological, Zespri Kiwifruit, fresh mutton slices from time-honored Chinese brand Dong Lai Shun and more.

JD will accelerate efforts to support rural revitalization in five main areas, which include faster delivery services in rural regions, a more efficient middle platform for agri-products’ circulation, smoother transportation of fresh produce to the markets, and rapidly building new business formats and production zones in rural areas.

The company has targeted more than 1,000 premier agri-brands across China to double their sales through JD.com during this year’s Singles Day Grand Promotion. It also deployed its intelligent city technology to source agricultural products and digitalize their supply chain process from their origins all the way to the customers.

“We aim to create a positive feedback loop in which high quality agri-products can better satisfy customers’ demand and increase farmers’ income, which farmers can then reinvest in production improvement to offer greater agri-products to the market,” said the announcement.

Under JD’s estimation, farmers who participated in this year’s Singles Day Grand Promotion on JD.com will gain an average revenue of RMB 6,000 per person, benefiting approximately 5 million rural households. Moreover, JD has carried out a series of online training programs for farmers and production zone workers to learn e-commerce skills and prepare for the shopping festival.

To support a leapfrog development process for farmers and rural areas, JD.com is going deeper into the planting, sorting and processing phases of agri-products to support local farmers to produce more standardized products and facilitate their marketing. In the background, it is also stepping up efforts on implementing its new-generation infrastructure in supply chain, logistics and technologies in rural China to make all of this possible.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Mengyang He

On October 25, thanks to the cooperation between JD Fresh and the leading exporter from Chile, Garces Fruit, China’s first imported Chilean cherries of the 2021 new season arrived in Shanghai, which hit the spot during the pre-sale of the 2021 Singles Day Grand Promotion.

China is the world’s largest market for Chilean cherries, with more than 85% of cherries available in China imported from Chile. China is expected to consume one third of the cherries worldwide. In the 2020 season, JD Fresh’s cherry sales reached nearly RMB 500 million yuan. Because of the continuous enhancement of JD’s overseas direct sourcing supply chain, JD Fresh will directly procure more than 1.8 million boxes (5 kg/box) of cherries from Chile by the end of 2022, and the overall sales are expected to exceed RMB 1 billion yuan. As of October 22, 2021, the pre-sale volume of JD Fresh cherries increased by 150% YOY.

This year, JD Fresh focuses on overseas direct sourcing and the upstream supply chain, and its partnership with Garces Fruit has ensured premium supply and high-quality products.

In order to strictly control the quality of imported cherry, JD.com established a full-process guarantee system, focusing on the three aspects of pre-sales, in-sales, and after-sales in response to multiple pain points such as cherry varieties, specifications, net weights, and quality.

The epidemic prevention standards have also been upgraded. With triple-strength quality inspection, JD checks the quality of the Chilean packaging plant, the port of arrival, and JD Fresh’s self-operated warehouse. In addition to having a QR code for tracking, each batch of cherries can only be admitted to the JD warehouse in the condition of having a COVID-19 test report, inspection & quarantine certificate for entry goods, and a sanitization report.

(hemengyang5@jd.com)

by Mengyang He

On October 20, the 2021 Singles Day Grand Promotion began with the pre-sale rolling in at 8 pm (Beijing time). The number of customers who placed orders within the first four hours increased by nearly 40% compared with the first day of the pre-sale in 2020. The first order delivered by JD’s on-demand “Shop Now” service was swiftly fulfilled within only 10 minutes.

According to the statistics, an increasing amount of young people joined the pre-sale as consumers aged 18-35 accounted for over 70% during the pre-sale period. Since many brands also opened pre-sales at 8 pm, they swiftly shattered the pre-sale record set on the first entire day of the pre-sale last year.

This shopping enthusiasm was fully ignited across China. Within the first four hours of the pre-sale, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Beijing took the top 3 in order amounts; and when it comes to the product category, large appliances took the lead, followed by phones, sport shoes and bags, and facial care products. Haier ranked the most popular brand out of all the large appliances during the pre-sale period, and Siemens came after.

On computers and digital products, hardware devices for education purposes came out strong. Xiaomi, Huawei, and OPPO were also among some of the highly popular tech products, as the pre-sale order volume for Xiaomi phones in the very first hour exceeded that of the first entire day last year. Within the first four hours of the pre-sale, order amounts of OPPO phones this year increased by 227% YoY.

Last, it is worth highlighting that JD Smart Customer Service, which operates around the clock, provided customer enquiry service 10 million times within the first four hours of the pre-sale.

(hemengyang5@jd.com)