Jun 24, 2020|
Terry Wang: Achieve Sustainable Development of JD Beauty
by Rachel Liu
The past JD’s 17th June 18 Grand Promotion has seen sales increases across all categories on JD, and beauty products are no exception. Though not daily necessities like rice or cooking oil, beauty products are becoming essential for many customers in their daily lives. On June 1st, sales of beauty products were 2.5 times the same day last year. High-end beauty products performed exceptionally well, with a 5 times y-o-y increase in the first hour of June 1st.. On June 18th, which is the peak day of 618, sales of high-end beauty brands such as SK-II, Lancôme, Elizabeth Arden and whoo increased 2.6 times, 5.8 times, 2.9 times and 2.2 times respectively.
“Many brands used to think offline channels are most important, but now they are attaching more importance to online,” said Terry Wang, general manager of JD Beauty. “They are working closely with JD and have seen great success during this 618.”
Premiumization of beauty products
Like in many other categories, there has been premuimization in the beauty category – customers’ skin care and makeup routines are more complex, and they are using more high-end products. Sales of facial essence and eye cream increased on the first day of June, and so did foundation and perfume.
Male customers also care about their appearance. On June 1st, sales of male facial cleansing products increased 282% y-o-y, and male skincare sets increased 260%.
Professional livestreams to save customers’ time
Livestream has become a phenomenon since the outbreak of COVID-19, and during this 618, JD held over 300,000 livestreams and saw 31 brands achieve sales of over RMB 100 million yuan from their live shows. JD Beauty held 10,662 live shows during this 618, with over 1,200 merchants and brands starting livestreaming. Total livestreaming time exceeded 32,000 hours.
“Our livestreaming has two unique points: one is that we use professionally-generated content (PGC) to help our customers to select most suitable products in the shortest amount of time. Also, we encourage our brand partners and merchants to join livestreaming because it is a good way to get direct contact with customers and improve customer loyalty.” said Terry Wang: “Our livestream goes beyond entertainment. We want customers to save time by watching our livestreams.”
To provide more professional livestream experience for customers, JD Beauty set up its official livestream program to only promote products selected by its beauty purchasers. After being established for one year, the program has become one of the top programs on JD Live. During this 618, JD’s beauty purchasers also started to do livestreams twice a day to recommend the best products to customers based on their professional knowledge. What’s more, during this 618, almost all brands and merchants hosted over three-hour live shows every day, including OLAY which hosted 7-hour show every day and Carslan which hosted a 14-hour show. Many brands saw sales generated from livestreaming exceed 20%.
AR and AI boost customer experience
Recently JD Beauty launched an AI skin evaluation service in JD app – with one simple scan of the skin, customers can see the analysis of their skin condition based on different metrics, such as skin tone, brightness, eye circles, etc. Since the launching, hundreds of thousands of customers have tried AI skin evaluation, and over 50% of customers who try it add products into their shopping carts. JD’s AR makeup testing is also being constantly upgraded, and can now accurately match what a customer might see if they actually tried the makeup on their own faces.
“The ultimate aim of leveraging of AR and AI technology in JD Beauty is also to save customers’ time. With detailed analysis of customers’ skin condition and their shopping preferences, we can recommend suitable products to them, providing the most professional shopping experience.” said Wang: “With big data on customer feedback, we also hope to provide brands more insights on Chinese customers, and help brands develop C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) products. “
For Wang, 618 is just a short-term activity, and what he values most is the sustainable and quality development of JD’s beauty business. It cannot be achieved without deep cooperation with brands, and he thinks JD Beauty is more than a sales channel for brands, it’s also a marketing and data partner for brands to jointly build brand reputation, and a customer management platform to help brands improve customer loyalty and gain deeper insights on Chinese market. He believes that good strategy needs to be practiced continuously, and the sustainable development of JD Beauty will attract more partners and customers.