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JD Partners with Xpeng Motors To Install Charging Piles

Posted on by Kelly Dawson

by Kelly Dawson

JD.com has signed an agreement with Xpeng Motors, an electric vehicle startup that recently raised $1.5 billion in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. As part of the agreement, JD Service Plus will provide Xpeng’s customers with integrated and fully managed services for their electric vehicles, including measurement, installation, maintenance and after-sales service of home charging piles, which are typically used for single-vehicle charging.

Xpeng Motors is committed to providing premium services, and its decision to partner with JD Service Plus was taken with care, an Xpeng spokesperson said.

“We were very cautious in choosing a partner for home charging services, because this is an important part of the car owner’s consumer experience,” he said.

JD.com has signed an agreement with Xpeng Motors

With a fully integrated national service network, efficient response time and standardized high-quality service capability, JD Service Plus is empowering partners by assisting emerging industries in solving common pain points—like the question of how new electric vehicle owners will charge their vehicles with limited space and knowledge about whether their parking garage has the correct conditions for installation, for example.

To address these concerns, JD Service Plus offers “one-click, worry-free services”, with the ability to provide full-scale services across China, including assessment and installation within 72 hours, and repair and maintenance. The company’s fulfillment rate is 100%, with 100% positive feedback. Customers can expect two-year warranty service, and a response from customer service within 1 hour when reporting issues.

Additionally, JD Service Plus will provide intelligent storage management solutions for Xpeng Motors’ household charging piles, relying on the powerful warehousing resources of JD Logistics. The company will be able to arrange goods in advance, and install nearby according to actual demand to ensure faster response times. As demand has increased, after-sales logistics costs have decreased, which means lower costs for consumers too.

electric vehicle owner in Beijing’s Shijingshan District experienced the company’s commitment to premium services first-hand,

 

On September 28th, one electric vehicle owner in Beijing’s Shijingshan District experienced the company’s commitment to premium services first-hand, when JD Service Plus installed a new home charging pile for his electric vehicle.

“From the preliminary survey site to the installation, the engineers were professional, meticulous and standardized,” said the customer, Mr. Liu. “They even helped me clean up the site after the installation, which made me feel very relieved.” He gave the services a five-star rating.

In recent years, the electric automobile industry has gained more and more attention in China. During this year’s National Two Sessions (National People’s Congress and National People’s Political Consultative Conference), a government work report pointed to the importance of “building charging piles and promoting electric vehicles” as an important component of strengthening the infrastructure of this emerging industry. In response, government entities across China pledged to devote resources toward supporting this goal. This year the State Grid plans to invest RMB 2.7 billion yuan and add 78,000 charging piles with 53,000 in residential areas. Additionally, Shanghai, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan and other places have introduced development plans for household charging piles, introducing supporting policies such as electricity subsidies and simplified procedures.

As a result of the new partnership, JD Service Plus and Xpeng Motors are poised to set a benchmark for high-quality service in this emerging industry.

 

(kellydawson@jd.com)

A Grandma, a JD Courier, and Handmade Mooncakes

Posted on by Ella Kidron

by Ella Kidron

Ahead of this Mid-Autumn Festival (a traditional Chinese holiday for family reunion and eating mooncakes), JD courier Qingfeng Wang received an unexpected phone call which ended in him hand-making mooncakes with a customer. “What type of mooncakes do young people like?” An 80-year old customer in the area that Wang services was on the other end of the line asking in anticipation. In the last half year, she has come to rely on Wang for help after earning his trust, and is accustomed to calling him whenever she has questions.

He couldn’t help but wonder to himself: “Why did she suddenly want to know what kind of mooncakes young people liked?” It wasn’t until Wang arrived at the elderly woman’s home that he suddenly understood that, with the festival approaching, she was determined to hand make mooncakes for her granddaughter, Zhongjie Xu (许钟杰) working in Xi’an. “She has liked sweet treats since she was little, and I want to surprise her.”

He arrived at the woman’s house, and the two spent time browsing various mooncake molds available online, carefully considering each one. They eventually settled on several molds, including ones with images of Peppa pig, a rabbit and a kitty claw, as creative mooncakes tend to appeal to young people. Wang was well-aware that in her old age, moving about would get more challenging, so much so that her children usually deliver food to her. The woman’s wish was simple, but he knew that making it a reality on her own might pose challenges. Even though he’d never tried his hand at mooncakes, determine to help her out, Wang went online to figure out how to make them. When the goods arrived, Wang didn’t waste a minute in delivering them and the two went straight to work. Wrapping the mooncakes was not an easy job, but the elderly woman remained extremely meticulous throughout, determined to get it exactly right.

JD courier Qingfeng Wang and customer making mooncakes

JD courier Qingfeng Wang and customer making mooncakes

When they were done, the woman looked at the plate of handmade mooncakes and exclaimed, “My granddaughter was always by my side when she was little. At that time my hands and feet were still deft, so every year when she told me she wanted to eat mooncakes, I would quickly be able to make them.” She added that this time by making the mooncakes, she wanted to remind her granddaughter of the taste of her childhood. Upon receiving the mooncakes, Xu felt surprised yet guilty that she hadn’t gone to accompany her grandmother on account of a work commitment.

Wang also felt the extra effort was totally worth it. “I never realized that I’d be able to take this opportunity to learn how to make mooncakes.” He recalled the first time that he made a delivery to the elderly woman. Xu had specifically given him a call to explain that her grandmother had experienced physical difficulty and ask if she could trouble him to bring the package into the house. The elderly woman and Wang have been in close contact ever since. Not only has he provided a service, but, in a true JD fashion, he frequently goes above and beyond to deliver trust with a warm heart.

 

(ella@jd.com)

In-depth Report: JD Digits: Delivering Trust through Blockchain Technology

Posted on by Ella Kidron

by Ella Kidron

JD is in the fifth year of its journey in the exploration and application of blockchain technology. The company was a pioneer in blockchain technology applications in China, with three goals in mind: transparency which would improve the consumer experience by increasing trust, as well as how to both improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of this trust. Later, JD’s blockchain business was transferred to JD Digits, the leading digital technology company which has its roots in JD.com

“The basic infrastructure for JD’s blockchain system has been formed. Now we are focused on using blockchain as a service (BaaS) to create technical value for retail internally and to empower external parties, and continue to generate revenue from technology services,” explained Larry Zhai (翟欣磊), who is responsible for blockchain at JD Digits.

JD's Larry Zhai shares some insights on development of blockchain over a coffee

JD’s Larry Zhai shares some insights on development of blockchain over a coffee

Blockchain, the “buzzword” that keeps on buzzing

In recent years, blockchain has become highly popular as a means of improving consumer trust because of the undeniable transparency it provides. A survey from ROI found that 78% of consumers trust transparent brands more than those that don’t offer visibility into their supply chains. In addition, 86% of millennial moms are more likely to pay more for a product that offers complete transparency.

Furthermore, in an article for Harvard Business Review (HBR), Alexis Bateman, director of MIT Sustainable Supply Chains, and Leonardo Bonanni, founder and CEO of Sourcemap, wrote that the concept of supply chain transparency was “virtually unknown” 15 years ago. Today, however, companies are under pressure from governments, consumers, NGOs, and other stakeholders to divulge more information about their supply chains, and the reputational cost of failing to meet these demands can be high. At the same time, researchers at MIT Sloan School of Management found that consumers may be willing to pay 2% to 10% more for products from companies that provide greater supply chain transparency. Blockchain’s inherent benefits make it particularly suitable for providing this type of transparency in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain, and JD’s supply chain advantages, mean a lot of potential applications for the technology in many different sectors.

“JD is a supply chain infrastructure-based company, so if you want to do supply chain technology, JD is the place to be,” said Zhai.

The genesis of JD Blockchain

In 2015, with the support of the Linux Foundation, IBM and other contributors, Hyperledger, an open source blockchain community focused on developing a suite of stable frameworks, tools and libraries for enterprise-grade blockchain deployments came into being. However, it wasn’t really until 2016 that the value of blockchain started being recognized globally. Thousands of blockchain enterprises started springing up, and enterprises and services started to realize scale.

This was not lost on JD founder and CEO Richard Liu, who devised a plan to get in on the action. In November 2016, the JD-Y business unit, which is devoted to supply chain innovation, particularly in the retail space, was officially created, and with it, the JD Blockchain team was also formed.

“JD Logistics’ high speed fulfillment and precision have deeply influenced JD’s technology development,” Zhai explained. “As such, JD’s technology implementation ability is very strong. In 2016, the company had been listed for not even two years, and had a lot of resources [to explore new projects.] Technology talent started recognizing the JD brand more enthusiastically, and the company as a place to do innovation,” he commented.

Starting with food safety and product supply transparency

In 2016, Walmart, IBM, an important contributor to hyperledger, and Tsinghua University had released news of a collaboration to improve the way food is tracked, transported and sold to consumers across China via blockchain. Digital currency applications of blockchain started in 2008, and up until 2016, 80-90% of the blockchain market was still digital currency. IBM had started to focus on blockchain applications for enterprise-level supply chain. As JD has a strong supply chain and is a supply-chain based company, it was decided that JD’s blockchain should revolve around supply chain. From that time, JD began looking into practical and commercial applications of blockchain in retail to link the physical and digital worlds. “JD already had the digitized scenarios, layout and logistics in the physical world to do this mapping,” said Zhai.

JD announced the establishment of JD Tracing and Counterfeit Alliance in June 2017, aimed at putting data from important steps in the production process online and tamperproof through blockchain. A host of information, including origin and the entire production process is displayed to consumers through the scanning of a QR code, enhancing the persuasive power of brands and encouraging purchase loyalty. JD’s blockchain traceability platform has already partnered with over 1,000 brands and merchants, accumulated more than one billion pieces of commodity data, and responded to more than 7.5 million consumer traceability requests. Scenarios covered include fresh good, maternal and infant, alcohol, makeup, super market and convenience store and more. “JD mainly covers food safety-related, high value and long supply chain [such as cross-border] products,” Zhai commented.

From application to infrastructure

Starting in 2018 JD began developing its own blockchain infrastructure called JD Chain. It was released as an open platform in April 2019. “If we rely solely on international open source technologies, we lose our [advantageous] position, so in addition to applications, we also have to develop our own underlying core technology.”

Blockchain is not a mysterious high barrier to entry technology, but rather a collection of pre-existing computing technologies, such as cryptography, peer-to-peer transmission, consensus, distributed storage and more. “The core [value] of blockchain is to verify the authenticity of data involving many parties, and turn that data into vouchers that can be priced so that data can flow. If blockchain wants to perform well, it needs to be combined with application scenarios, constantly expand network scale and have more people use it.”

An early example of JD’s blockchain application is the Running Chicken project. Through the project, JD helps farmers in Wuyi County in Hebei province raise free-range chickens. To ensure that the chicken takes enough steps, JD fits each chicken with a specially designed pedometer, with the aim of having each bird take one million steps during the rearing process. The company uses blockchain technology for maximum quality assurance and full traceability. Since early 2018, JD customers have been able to review details about the rearing process for every chicken they buy. A scan of the QR code on the poultry’s packaging allows buyers to view detailed information on sourcing, feeding intervals and more. The chickens are delivered via JD’s self-operated logistics network.

JD's Running Chicken project

JD’s Running Chicken project

“Technology needs to resolve issues related to user experience, cost and efficiency,” said Zhai. “When we first started the Running Chicken project, the network at the breeding farm was behind the times, so we researched an offline operating system.” He explained that, for example, when the code on the chicken’s pedometer and the source information needed to be linked, it was possible there was no internet, so they implemented a PDA system to upload the data. The project is also intended to improve the economic situations of those involved. “When we are doing anything with technology, we need to pay attention to how to help [farmers] sell at a better price, or to resolve production efficiency and cost issues. On the user side, if customers think the product is of good quality, they are willing to pay more for it.”

In another project, JD cooperated with Xinyulong, a sea cucumber enterprise in Dalian, Liaoning province. Sea cucumbers are considered to be a nutritional delicacy in China, and as such, quality control needs to be strictly managed. Xinyulong recognized the importance of ensuring QC in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain. All of its products have been added to JD’s platform, and a video system set up at different stages of the breeding and production process guarantees consistency of quality. By working with JD to implement blockchain into their own enterprise and supply chain, Xinyulong is also pushing transparency in the whole industry. Furthermore, on the consumer end, the transparency can increase their willingness to buy.

Xinyulong Sea Cucumber Factory in Dalian, Liaoning province

Xinyulong Sea Cucumber Factory in Dalian, Liaoning province

Expanding the universe of blockchain applications

JD’s blockchain technology has already been applied in many industries, such as retail, supply chain, digital finance, digital deposit, and electronic licensing. For example, the technology has been implemented in paperless signing of logistics documents, electronic VAT invoices and more. Through paperless logistics, JD is able to save nearly RMB 400 million yuan in costs and reduce paper by more than 5,000 tons.

Relying on blockchain digital certificate technology, JD Chain’s cloud contract signing platform provides a complete and secure online contract signing solution, E-Sign. Blockchain is used to record the entire process, including real name authentication, digital certificate acquisition, data generation, signature and transmission, which ensures the reliability of the contract. Furthermore, to help more small and medium-sized enterprises who may not have blockchain capabilities of their own enjoy the convenience of blockchain e-contract services during the epidemic, JD Chain also launched a support plan for them to enjoy free services until the end of 2020. The service is available at https://esign.jd.com.

Another way to expand the universe of blockchain application is though combination with other technologies. Zhai explained that there is a very natural relationship between blockchain and cloud as cloud makes it less expensive to implement blockchain. At the same time, IoT and blockchain are connectivity technologies; IoT is about collection and blockchain is about connection. Finally, AI is about data calculation and computation. If blockchain is able to link more data, then cloud and AI can be used to analyze it more accurately.

The team now spends a lot of time on business development. From 2016 to 2019, China’s blockchain market began to acknowledge the importance of enterprise blockchain services and explore a model system. Now it is time to focus on the commercialization of enterprise blockchain services.

 

(ella@jd.com)

JD to Auction Memorabilia from Anti-COVID Fight for Charity

Posted on by Vivian Yang

by Vivian Yang

JD will hold a charity auction online during the Mid-Autumn Festival to memorialize inspiring people and moments in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Since September 17th, JD Auction has collected a number of items from the public. All of the funds raised in the action will be used for the protection of children from sexual assaults.

Here are some of the items up for grabs:

Album of Photos from Fight Against COVID-19

The album contains an array of photos taken by Wujun Zhang, a photographer from People’s Daily. Zhang was among the first of journalists to arrive at the epicenter of the pandemic. In the 88 days he was in Wuhan, Zhang recorded many firsthand experiences and touching moments, which are not only precious memories for the people he photographed, but also convey confidence and love to many more people whose hearts are with them at all times. For example:

Patients and medical workers stand hand in hand to celebrate the closure of a makeshift hospital. After staying together for so many days, they became good friends and had mixed feelings about leaving the hospital.

Patients and medical workers stand hand in hand to celebrate the closure of a makeshift hospital

In 2008 when the violent earthquake happened in the Wenchuan area of  Sichuan province of China, a medical team from Wuhan’s WISCO General Hospital went to Wenchuan’s Longzhu village for rescue work and ensured zero death and infection for the local people. In return for this, twelve years later, when Wuhan was hit by the coronavirus, Longzhu villagers gathered over 100 tons of fresh vegetables, and drove six trucks all the way from Wenchuan to the hospital in Wuhan.

Longzhu villagers gathered over 100 tons of fresh vegetables, and drove six trucks all the way from Wenchuan to the hospital in Wuhan.

Two nurses, Jinghai Yu and Lingyi Zhou, supposed to have a wedding in Shanghai in  January. However, both of them were tasked to join the medical team to Wuhan. Without any preparation given their busy work schedules, the couple held a 15 minute-long mini-version wedding with a folded paper ring.

Two nurses, Jinghai Yu and Lingyi Zhou, supposed to have a wedding in Shanghai in  January

After three months of non-stop hospital work, a couple from Wuhan Central Hospital took a 30 minute-long walk in the park along the cherry blossoms. They did not even change out of their work attire. “In case something happens in the hospital that needs our support, we can get back to work as soon as possible,” they said.After three months of non-stop hospital work, a couple from Wuhan Central Hospital took a 30 minute-long walk in the park along the cherry blossoms

A landmark LED screen on a Wuhan business street in which displays, “Wuhan, We Are Back”.A landmark LED screen on a Wuhan business street in which displays, “Wuhan, We Are Back”.

 

Travel tickets

Two special travel tickets are listed on the auction page.

The RMB 42 yuan train ticket belongs to a JD courier named Huabin Li. In face of the city lockdown and worried about the soaring workload of his colleagues in Wuhan, Li immediately suspended his vacation and took on train from his hometown in Guangdong to Hubei province. On Jan 23rd , right before the lockdown in Wuhan began, he transferred to one of the last trains entering the city. Li did not leave his delivery post until mid-May, when he finally returned home.

Two special travel tickets are listed on the auction page.

Dr. Yifan Wang is an ordinary medical worker from Zhengzhou city, Henan province. Her son had just turned two years old when she left home to join the medical relief work in Wuhan in early February. She provided her air tickets for the mission to JD Auction as she strongly supports the cause that the funds will go to. “My son will be so proud of his mother when he grows up,” said Dr. WangShe provided her air tickets for the mission to JD Auction as she strongly supports the cause that the funds will go to. “My son will be so proud of his mother when he grows up,” said Dr. Wang

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

Posted in ESG

JDD IPO Prospectus: Six Years of Robust Investment in Technology

Posted on by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

As a digital technology provider, JD Digits (JDD) is determined to be the chief growth officer for industrial digitization, helping its partners and clients lower costs, increase efficiency, improve customer experience and upgrade their business models. To achieve this, JDD has continued its robust investment in technology for the past six years.

According to JDD’s IPO prospectus, the company ranks second in terms technology R&D investment as a proportion of revenue among Sci-Tech Innovation Board companies on Shanghai Stock Exchange with revenue of more than RMB 10 billion yuan.

JDD also has a young and creative talent team. As of June 2020, the company has a team of 4,172 R&D employees which accounts 41.77% of the total employees. Employees born after 1990 account for 48.70% of all employees.

The continued investment in R&D and talent recruitment has brought fruitful achievements to JDD. It now has multiple core technologies in the fields of big data, AI, cloud computing, blockchain, and more. As of August 31, 2020, JDD and its affiliates collectively held 2,230 patents.

“Facing the future, we firmly believe that digital technology will drive unprecedented changes in the industrial ecosystem, and JD Digits is destined to be a driving force in this change… We will tell history that we have not only been here, but we have changed, and our change will also change the world,” said Shengqiang Chen, CEO of JD Digits.

In the future, JDD plans to use the funds to be raised from its IPO to upgrade digital solutions for financial institutes, merchants, enterprises and emerging industries, build an open technology platform, expand a digital technology center, and supplement working capital.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

JD.com Empowers Time-Honored Brands to Flourish

Posted on by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang

JD.com leveraged its big data and shared insights of Chinese consumers with scissor– and knife-maker Zhang Xiaoquan to help the nearly 400 year-old Chinese brand to craft products that are popular with young consumers

Through an analysis of current and potential consumers of knives on JD and their shopping behaviors, the brand was able to understand that young middle-class consumers who pay more attention to both quality and appearance of the product shop on JD. Based on this finding, in 2018, JD and Zhang Xiaoquan worked together to co-develop a new set of knives with the knife base made of walnut. As the color and wood quality caters more to young middle-class consumers, at the time, the new product was a hit, becoming one of the brand’s top 3 products in terms of sales in its online flagship store. Sales of the product on Singles Day (Nov. 11th) in 2019 increased by over 300% year-on-year. The annual sales of the brand’s store on JD were also driven by the new product, which increased by more than 20% year-on-year. Sales of Zhang Xiaoquan’s store on JD during the 618 Grand Promotion (from June 1-18th) even doubled this year.

Zhang Xiaoquan is only one of the Chinese brands that has benefited from working with JD

Zhang Xiaoquan is only one of the Chinese brands that has benefited from working with JD. Huashi Hongmu (滑氏红木), a company that specialing in mahogany furniture, successfully connected with their target consumers through partnering with JD. Both sides also jointly embarked on a variety of marketing explorations such as live streaming to attract consumers to visit the brand’s offline stores.

Several other age-old Chinese brands have witnessed a sales boom on JD. According to JD’s data, sales of mahogany furniture on JD increased by 220% on June 18th.

 

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

JD and Wanda Launch Crossover Movie Card to Promote Upcoming National Day Holiday

Posted on by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

JD has partnered with Wanda Film to launch a bundled year-long membership card that will be sold during the upcoming National Day holiday, enabling customers to see movies, as well as enjoy a superior shopping experience online.

This is the first movie-related membership card launched by JD PLUS, JD.com’s premium membership program, in a move to expand its business boundaries. It’s also a new trial for Wanda Film to launch tailored benefits, as well as innovative cooperation in the e-commerce field. Customers who buy the card will have JD PLUS membership benefits including exclusive discounts when shopping on JD, as well as discounts for seeing movies at nearly 600 of Wanda’s offline cinemas.

This is the first movie-related membership card launched by JD PLUS, JD.com’s premium membership program,

The movie industry has been searching for a new marketing model in the wake of the pandemic. In this context, JD and Wanda will leverage marketing resources both online and offline to reach consumers.

JD PLUS has over 16 million members as of January this year, who are mainly from tier one and two markets, with high power of consumption.

Customers can buy the membership card through JD’s app or offline at the ticket sales machine at Wanda’s nearly 600 cinemas. The card will be sold as a limited edition from September 28th to October 8th to celebrate China’s National Day.

Previously, JD’s PLUS members already enjoyed a range of benefits covering shopping, video, music, travel, audio, reading, health and more.

 

(ling.cao@jd.com)

Five Seven Fresh Supermarkets Granted International Food Safety Certification

Posted on by Martin Li

By Martin Li

Five Seven Fresh supermarkets across China have received FSSC 22000 Food Safety Management System Certification, an internationally-recognized standard for food safety that safeguards public health. Seven Fresh is JD’s innovative omnichannel fresh food supermarket business.

“The certification is a new start for Seven Fresh,” said Duan Lixia, business director of Seven Fresh. “It marks a milestone for Seven Fresh, by improving our quality management system and meeting international standards. We will continue fulfilling our commitment to putting food safety first and keep improving to win customer trust.”

The five certified supermarkets are located in Beijing, Xian, Chengdu and Guangzhou.

Seven Fresh is JD’s innovative omnichannel fresh food supermarket business.

The FSSC 22000 food safety certification system is managed by Foundation FSSC 22000, based in The Netherlands and governed by an independent board of stakeholders, consisting of representatives from several sectors in the food industry. Applicants have to meet strict standards in raw material storage, dining infrastructure, processing and processed food storage.

Relying on JD’s strong supply chain capability, Seven Fresh has been sparing no efforts to ensure food safety in order to meet these standards, including supervision of original production areas, requirements for necessary inspection documents and random checks.

 

(bjlihao3@jd.com)