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by Vivian Yang

With the phenomenal success of POP MART and similar brands in China’s art toy or “chao wan” market, JD Super, the FMCG department under JD.com, reported 82 percent YoY sales growth in the collectible toy category in 2022.

Collectible toys by POP MART

China’s increasing customer base of so-called ‘kidults’ has driven the industry boom, with data by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showing that the market grew at a compound annual growth rate of more than 34 percent in the past seven years from 2015 to 2021. JD Super worked closely with leading players such as POP MART, Rolife, 52TOYS, BANDAI, and more, to bring the craze online with rich merchandise diversity and novel shopping experiences.

For example, to create an immersive experience for fans of Tencent’s Honor of Kings (HoK), the world’s largest mobile game, JD Super and HoK jointly launched a Super IP Day in 2022. During the promotional day on HoK’s JD flagship store, all of the IP’s collectible toys were made available in this single launch; 1,000 limited characters’ skin cards that bridge the physical and virtual worlds were sold in a blink of an eye. The campaign aroused wide attention beyond HoK fans, drawing 260 million clicks and 850 million viewership across the internet.

JD Super also took decisive actions to set up dedicated staff to identify emerging IP brands, recruit new sellers, and provide store assessment and training programs to help merchants effectively operate their online stores.

For 2023, JD Super will continue to enhance the variety of merchandise, expand the categories of art toys, and support brand partners to strengthen their market competitiveness, said Juan Ding, the general manager overseeing the toy category at JD.com.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Tong Shen

Luxury products, watches, beauty products, and gold and pearl jewelry remain popular Valentine’s Day gift choices among JD.com’s customers, demonstrating remarkable sales growth during the promotion period, according to a report released on February 14 by the J Shop, JD’s upgraded fashion and lifestyle omni-channel business.

LV, Tiffany and Bulgari became the most popular luxury brands among consumers, as shown by J Shop’s sales data. From Feb 8 to 13, the transaction volume of nearly 200 luxury and watch brands increased by more than 100 percent year-on-year on JD Luxury, and that of top luxury brands increased by more than 5 times year-on-year. Sales of Roger Viver and CELINE increased by more than 10 times year-on-year, and became the top luxury brands with the fastest growth rate during Valentine’s Day.

Moreover, Tiffany & Co. officially joined JD.com, which marked the brand’s first official third-party online flagship store in China, adding a new channel for Chinese consumers to access more choices and experiences for luxury shopping.

Meanwhile, beauty and skincare gift boxes saw a strong increase in sales. Lipsticks, facial essence, gift sets, perfumes and lotions ranked as the top 5 in the beauty and skincare category of J Shop.

Sales of gold jewelry, value-for-money pearl jewelry, as well as more personalized jewelry surged as well. Gold items such as gold necklaces, bracelets and more grew by more than 100 percent from Feb 8 to 14. Pearl brands overall increased by 213 percent in sales year-on-year, among which minimalist models were most preferred.

(press@jd.com)

by Vivian Yang

Yihaodian Membership Store, China’s first B2C membership-only e-commerce platform under JD.com, released its annual most popular items ranking on February 15, based on the site’s 2022 sales and members’ ratings. The Australian M3 beef tendon of Yihaodian’s private label “One ‘s Member” topped the list of the most repurchased products, with more than 40 percent of members’ repeat repurchases. The item has made over 410 percent year-on-year sales growth.

In order to bring One’s Member customers a higher quality and value-for-money beef product, professional buyers conducted worldwide sourcing to finally pick a two-century-old Australian ranch to develop the 270-day, grain-fed, M3 level Angus beef tendon, according to Wang Pengfeng, head of the beef products for One’s Member.

During market research, the team found that Chinese consumers have rising demand for high-quality beef products such as M3, M5, M9, and other high-grade beef, with their preference turning from seasoned to raw cut, and grass-fed to grain-fed meat. Considering that the Chinese cooking style involves a lot of stewing, shabu-shabu, and marinating, Yihaodain developed moderately soft beef tendons that cater to Chinese people’s tastes.

Besides the quality control from the origin, Yihaodian leverages JD’s logistics network to stock fresh products in 16 warehouses across the country. These warehouses are equipped with cold-chain delivery capacity, ensuring the beef products can be freshly delivered to consumers’ doorsteps.

Meanwhile, Yihaodian always pays close attention to its members’ feedback. If a product’s satisfaction rate drops below 98 percent, the product manager will take immediate action for improvement or even de-list the item.

The model of the popular Australian beef tendon has been replicated in many other One’s Member products by Yihaodian these days, to incubate more hit products for its members. To date, Yihaodian has more than 400 kinds of One’s Member products. These products are sourced with its target customers in mind – mainly China’s middle-class shoppers – for a healthy and quality life. Additionally, the brand’s competitive prices are compared across main retailers on the market, in an effort to present prime product selections and make shopping easy and affordable.

Data shows that from 2016 to 2021, China’s beef consumption reached an average annual compound growth rate of 7.5 percent, and by 2022 the consumption volume totaled 10.245 million tons, making it the world’s second-largest country in beef consumption.

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

by Mary Ma

During this year’s Valentine’s Day, which came shortly after Chinese New Year, sales of traditional romantic gifts like flowers, chocolates and cakes spiked on JD.com’s on-demand retail business JD Shop Now, which delivers to consumers’ doorsteps within one hour.

As an essential part of JD’s eco-system, JD Shop Now closely links various physical retail stores, playing an important role in the product transaction network to improve the overall efficiency of goods picking and delivery.

From February 11 to 12, sales of flowers increased more than 3 times compared with that from February 4 to 5, with sales on February 14 accounting for about 60 percent of the whole festival period from Feb 11 to 14, according to JD Shop Now.

The number of searches for gifts to wives/girlfriends and husbands/boyfriends was both around sevenfold higher than on normal days. Data from JD Shop Now shows that beauty sets, perfume, and jewelry are listed as the top 3 gifts for women, and sales of makeup sets, perfume and silver ornaments were up by 10, 2 and 7 times respectively. Game machines, electric razors and skin-care sets are the most popular gifts for men.

Spending for pets was a clear growth trend, according to data. JD Shop Now saw sales surge in outdoor potable pet kits, pet medical products and beauty supplies.

Consumers’ shopping preferences vary in different cities. Consumers living in Shanghai shopped for a lot of chocolate products from JD Shop Now, followed by Dalian, Shijiazhuang, Shenzhen and Wuhan. Meanwhile, those in Beijing took the lead in the consumption of flowers, Guangzhou is top in beauty consumption, and consumers in Qingdao purchased mainly in outdoor sports equipment.

(mayiqian3@jd.com)