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by Vivian Yang

Over 200 million items have been sold on the legal auction section of JD Auction since October 21^st, when the pre-sales of this year’s Singles Day grand promotion kicked off. So-called “super buyers” bid huge on big-ticket auction items, refreshing the common understanding of what an online shopping festival can offer.

On Oct 22^nd, the court of Longhua district of Shenzhen city auctioned factory buildings of a local company for RMB 59 million yuan. After 195 rounds of bidding, the auction concluded at RMB 160 million yuan, which amounted to a 180% premium rate.

The next day, the Intermediate Court of Zhuhai city in Guangdong province listed 49% stock rights of a local company for auction. Because of its popularity, the bidding process was prolonged for 2 hours and eventually concluded at RMB 260 million yuan, an extra RMB 100 million yuan raised above the starting price.

Similar auction spectacles are becoming more common on JD Auction. The platform has also facilitated the auction of China’s first civil airline LJ Air at RMB 800 million yuan, and the auction of Huihe Highway in Henan province at RMB 380 million yuan.

JD Auction has now established direct connections with near 2,000 courts at different levels in China as well as 35 customs for legal auction facilitation.

The courts and customs‘ favor towards JD’s online auction platform is mainly attributed to their rising needs for more diversified channels to handle legal cases involving assets, as COVID-19 has affected the traditional offline channels this year, especially for big-ticket items such as commercial buildings and stock rights. At the same time, JD Auction created an effective and fair auction environment for all the parties involved, with upgraded services such as legal consultations. All these helped to attract more bidders to take part in online activities, making legal assets execution easier for the courts.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Kelly Dawson

During this year’s Singles Day promotion period, JD is partnering with electric scooter brands including Niu and Merida to support integration with 10,000 offline stores, as part of JD’s expansion of omnichannel efforts. Now, shoppers will be able to conveniently access a variety of options for purchasing an electric scooter, both online and offline.

For customers shopping for a scooter, the previous divide between online and offline channels has often been limiting. Shopping purely online means a wider range of products, and the convenience and ease of one-click purchase—but many consumers are reluctant to take the plunge without giving the scooter a test drive. Additionally, delivery of a scooter can drive up the total cost, thanks to higher delivery fees based on weight. On the other hand, visiting a store in person offers no guarantees that their desired model will be available on site.

With JD’s new omnichannel approach, a customer can choose to see a product in person at one of 10,000 offline partner brand stores—and then order it online later if they need to give the purchase further consideration. Or if they’re already certain of the scooter they want to purchase, they can order it online first, and then be directed to an offline store in their area to pick it up at their convenience.

The omnichannel approach has become increasingly popular across industries. Already applied with success by JD Supermarket, omnichannel will enable JD Sports to break the barriers of channels and categories, to leverage all kinds of online and offline scenarios and reach customers repeatedly, to improve the effect of marketing campaigns. The program will also expand beyond first-tier cities to reach customers in small and medium-sized cities, with the same affordable prices and services.

(kellydawson@jd.com)

 

by Hui Zhang

JD released a data report on overall consumption trends related to this year’s new products and consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) products, and outlined how JD.com helps brands drive sales by co-developing products in a bid to meet consumers’ demands.

Released by JD’s Big Data Research Institute on Monday, the report described how consumption of new products has become a major force assisting China’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Driving this trend are people younger than 40 years old with strong spending power, who are increasingly interested in products that can represent their personalities and preferences.

Big Data Behind New Products

A leading international research company found that while there were thousands of new products launched in the U.S. market in 2014, only seven of them were able to achieve sales of more than $100 million in that year— and it would take another year for about 70% of them to achieve significant sales growth. However, a majority of the new products launched in 2020 in China have been quickly and widely accepted by consumers within only a few months, with the help of e-commerce platforms.

A variety of big data provided by e-commerce platforms helps brands better understand their target consumers, and thus co-develop products to contribute to sales growth.

JD’s data show that the number of new product launches in one month in 2020 exceeded the entire year of 2018, and the number of new product launches in the first three quarters of 2020 is already close to 200% of the number launched in 2019.

Young Consumers Contributing New Product Consumption

According to the report, people who are younger than 40 years old accounted for 85% of new product purchases, with millennials and Gen Z (born after 1995) having the most significant growth. Unlike their parents, the new generation of consumers pay more attention to products’ appearance, designs, background stories, and the overall culture. Computers, mobile phones and other electronic appliances are favored by young people.

New products have become an important way to attract consumers and promote consumption growth. The C2M cooperation model connects the consumer side and the supply side, further accelerating economic recovery.

C2M Cooperation

Nielsen’s report on consumption trends in the home appliances business showed that JD’s supply chain capabilities have helped to improve communication efficiency between brands and consumers by integrating big data and AI to co-develop C2M products with brands.

For example, JD and Xiaomi jointly launched a new C2M mobile phone exclusively on JD: The Redmi K30 5G Racing version. In the first two minutes following the phone’s release on May 14th, sales had already surpassed RMB 10 million yuan, with a unit price of RMB 1999.00 yuan. Over 10,000 phones were sold in 11 minutes, and over 20,000 phones were sold that day.

In addition to Xiaomi, JD also works with many other well-known companies such as LG, Mars, and Mead Johnson to co-develop C2M consumer-driven products.

In cooperation with Lenovo, both sides set up a B2M platform leveraging JD’s big data, nationwide logistics and supply chain to enable enterprise clients on JD to submit individual needs, based on which Lenovo can design and manufacture customized products accordingly.

“What we talked about the most with foreign supply chain partners is just the price, while the cooperation between JD and Lenovo always focuses on consumers’ demands, which help us co-develop the products that meet consumers’ needs,” said Weichang Li, general manager of Lenovo’s PC Consumption department.

“The data analysis provided by JD has brought great help to Lenovo’s product design and helps us target the consumers more accurately and provide the right products for them,” Li added.

 

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

by Rachel Liu

JD Business and Fulinmen, China’s leading brand for rice and cooking oil, formed a partnership for B2M on October 21^st.

B2M means Business to Manufacturer, and is a similar model as C2M but is related to providing customized products through JD’s big data and customer insights for enterprises purchases. In the partnership, the two sides will jointly develop customized products and services based on JD’s big data to meet enterprise clients’ demands for employee gifts.

Rice and cooking oil are popular products for employee gifts in Chinese companies. Since Fulinmen’s debut on JD Business in 2016, it has become a top-selling brand during festivals when companies need to send employee gifts. Sales of Fulinmen on JD Business increased 133% during the Dragon Boat Festival (May 5^th on Lunar calendar, which is June 25^th this year) and nearly 100% during the Mid-Autumn Festival(August 15^th on Lunar calendar, which is October 1^st this year.).

JD’s B2M customization platform provides direct connection between Fulinmen and enterprise customers. Customers can submit their demands for products regarding aspects such as package design on the platform, and these requirements will be sent to Fulinmen’s factory for production. The two sides will also work together on the building of sales channels and a service network. In the future, JD can also work with Fulinmen’s networks and dealers all over China to explore more business opportunities.

“We have observed that the products designed for individual customers are not always suitable for enterprise customers, and customized products for enterprises is a market with huge potential. We hope to work with Fulinmen to explore this market with more customized products,” said Yu Chen, general manager of key accounts, JD Business.

 

(liuchang61@jd.com)