by Doris Liu

JD Worldwide, JD’s cross-border ecommerce arm, has helped merchants and sellers remove barriers by lowering store fees by half with zero retention money and commission fee at most, with an aim to boost the trade capabilities of businesses amid pandemic-related uncertainties, according to a recent meeting between JD Worldwide and its merchants in the category of cross-border food and beverage.

A healthy ecosystem has been established by JD Worldwide, through developing advantageous categories, approaching high potential categories and jointly incubating exclusive products with merchants.

Since 2022, the number of import beverage stores covering 170 liquor brands on JD Worldwide has grown 154 percent year-on-year (YOY), while the number of food brands has doubled in the marketplace.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are confronted with challenges to acquire customers in a short time. JD Worldwide, besides fee exemptions, has also rolled out plenty of other support tools to help SMEs and brands expand in China.

“The operation team of JD Worldwide, after rounds of in-depth communication and surveys with us, tailored an operation plan based on the store’s situation,” said Hong Jin, operation manager of the Aidougou food store, which saw a growth rate of 10 times after joining the platform for only one year.

Aidougou specializes in imported milk powder, coffee and body cream, which are categories that are not easy to differentiate in the market. In the early stage, JD Worldwide suggested that the store could enrich product quantity and category to reach more customers, and then spotlight the most popular products to further stimulate sales.

During the 618 Grand Promotion this year, after noticing that Nestlé Carnation High Calcium Matrix Low Fat Milk Powder was experiencing high sales, Aidougou, with support from JD Worldwide, decided to set it as a featured product by driving more traffic resources, creating contents for various channels such as JD Livestream; Douyin and the social e-commerce app Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”) to interact with consumers with higher conversion rates. Sales for this milk powder rose by 4.3 times in June, hitting the top of the store’s products in 618 sales volume. The conversion rate rose from 3 to 14.5 percent and the transaction volume went up six times in just one year.

However, increasing product quantity and categories means high warehousing and low liquidity. JD Worldwide recommended holistic warehousing management that is part of the company’s digitally intelligent supply chain. As a result, this has enabled Aidougou to share JD’s inventory and delivery, rather than the store utilizing the traditional way of handling self-owned and suppliers’ inventories separately on its own. One important benefit of this system is that stores only need to pay for inventory when orders are made by customers.

Hong said the store will enhance collaboration with JD Worldwide in more categories and actively integrate into the merchant ecosystem to bring more international food brands to the Chinese market.

In addition to refining user operations, JD Worldwide also consolidates brands and merchants’ competitiveness by offering consumers services of authentication and traceability, as well as JD’s deeply rooted image of its commitment to authentic-only products, said Zhao Chunjian, head of 7-Plus liquor store on JD Worldwide. The store was launched in September of 2021 and saw a sales increase of 100 percent in June this year compared with that in May.

From sales to branding, JD Worldwide is always seeking opportunities to help merchants develop on a robust growth path. Imported merchandise is on the rise as consumers are also looking for more diversified consumption upgrade. By leveraging the advantages in supply chain, technology, logistics and marketing approach, JD Worldwide will better empower SMEs, while also serving customers as a bridge between global brands and the Chinese market.

(liujun215@jd.com)