Other supplies and 200,000 RMB worth of masks in an hour

JD’s Cold Chain Enables Rapid Sales Growth of Fresh Food

Posted on Mar 6, 2020Aug 17, 2022 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao

JD’s cold chain logistics orders from January 21 to February 28 increased 30% amid COVID-19. The company’s cold chain strength has made a significant contribution to the growth of JD Fresh’s business during the epidemic period. In just 40 days, from January 20 to February 28, JD sold a total of 130,000 tons of fresh food.

One key factor is the use of JD’s warehousing services, as many of JD’s fresh produce merchants have chosen to put their popular products in JD’s warehouses. The number of fresh products from merchants stocked in JD’s warehouses has increased nearly 300% compared with the same period last year, with sales increasing over 900% YoY for merchants who use JD’s integrated warehousing and logistics services.

“Our steaks sold out in just five days, rather than the 30 days we’d planned for. The demand has far exceeded our expectations.” Said Yanghong Xiao, General Manager of the Zhenniuguan beef store on JD. Xiao added, “Stocking products in JD’s warehouses hugely improved our sales. Sales for products in JD’s warehouse were over 150% higher than sales for products that weren’t.”

Meixiangshike, another beef store on JD also found that 60% of customers will inquire if the products will be delivered by JD Logistics, and 75% customers will choose to buy if the answer is yes.

JD provides a range of different cold chain logistics-related subsidies for merchants who use JD’s warehouse service. The company has also established a special transportation channel for unsalable produce. JD’s cold chain network now covers 31 provinces and cities in China, and a total of 20,000 routes. JD is able to monitor the entire logistics process and uses special containers to guarantee product quality.

(ling.cao@jd.com)

JD Data Predicts Trends of Short Video

Posted on Mar 6, 2020Oct 21, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

JD.com released its “2019 JD.com Short Product Video Report” by JD Retail and JD Big Data Research Institute, the market research arm of JD.com, on March 5^th. The report analyzes the full year performance of short product videos, and forecasts five trends for the future development of short videos on e-commerce platforms.

Multiple retail scenarios: Short videos are covering more touchpoints with consumers in the retail process – sales, marketing, etc. and is boosting conversion rates
Full consumption lifecycle: Short videos have relevance in the entire lifecycle of a sale, from pre-sale to after-sales.
Higher conversion rates: Use of short videos in content marketing will further attract consumers’ attention, promote interaction, and lead to high-quality conversion
Maximizing copyright value of visual content will become a new track in the development and evolution of the industry.
Technology will accelerate short video: New technologies such as 5G and AI will accelerate the innovation of the short video service model

Below are some highlights from the report. (Read the original Chinese report here.)

Data shows that during big shopping festivals, the daily playback of short videos on JD can reach 2 billion times. The total number of videos posted by consumers during JD’s June 18 anniversary sales also increased by 60.38% compared with the same period in 2018.

Users in the 16-25 and over 56 age groups have become key groups for new viewer growth. The report also found that male consumers prefer to watch product introduction videos while female consumers prefer to share videos of items they’ve actually purchased.

Viewers of short product videos are mainly from developed regions such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. The fastest growing viewer groups are from lower tier cities such as Baoding and Langfang in Hebei province, and Weifang in Shandong province.

Right now, short videos on JD are developing across multiple devices and have new applications in the shopping process. Video and AR instructions are becoming increasingly popular and improving the customer experience.

JD continues to enrich its visual content services, including video content marketing, merchant video production, and video quality audit. It will continue to expand its applications to help brands and merchants improve conversion.

In recent years, with the increasing awareness of copyright, e-commerce platforms pay more and more attention to the copyright protection of visual content. JD expects there will be a positive impact in promoting the development of original content for the e-commerce industry.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

External Services Accounted for 40% of Revenue for JD Logistics

Posted on Mar 6, 2020Nov 23, 2022 by Ling Cao

by Ling Cao and Tracy Yang

By the end of 2019, JD Logistics’ revenue from external services accounted for more than 40% of its total revenue, reflecting the success of its open, technology-driven strategy. External services are any logistics and supply chain services outside of JD’s first-party business, including services provided to parties beyond the e-commerce industry. JD’s full-year 2019 earnings released this week revealed this encouraging achievement.

JD Logistics has driven the steady growth of JD.com as a whole, with JD’s FY2019 net service revenues from logistics services and other businesses up significantly from 16.8% and 27.0% in 2017 and 2018 to 35.5% in 2019. In addition, JD’s fulfillment expenses as a percentage of net revenues decreased to 6.4% in 2019, down 0.5% from the same period in 2018, mainly due to economies of scale from enhanced logistics capacity utilization and staff productivity.

Three advantages pointed out by Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics during earnings conference call are the driving force behind this. “First, JD Logistics strives to provide the best experience in the industry. Second, it puts products in locations nearest to its customers by leveraging JD’s integrated fulfillment capabilities and e-commerce experience. Third, JD Logistics uses technology to drive efficiency and cost reduction.”

JD Logistics continues to focus on lower tier market penetration, improving service efficiency and quality. In 2019, JD Logistics launched a program to further increase delivery efficiency in lower tier markets. As of the end of 2019, 24-hour delivery covers 88% of China’s districts and counties.

Wang said, “Tens of thousands of employees are working to make sure medical supplies and daily necessities will reach areas in need, including Hubei province.” He added, “JD Logistics always puts employees’ health first. We’ve ensured all kinds of protective supplies reach frontline employees from the beginning of the epidemic period.”

JD Logistics is also supporting enterprises resuming operations by offering frontline positions and providing free software to small and micro enterprises.

“Customers trust the service we are able to provide during the epidemic period, and we will continue to improve the experience,” said Wang. Many merchants used or started to use JD’s fulfillment services during the epidemic period, and have reaped substantial benefits as a result.

(ling.cao@jd.com; tracy.yang@jd.com)

Photo Gallery: This Week at JD (March 2-6)

Posted on Mar 6, 2020May 24, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

On March 5^th, the world’s oldest fine leather goods house, Delvaux, launched its first official online flagship store in China in partnership with JD.com.

JD Health together with Sinopharm Group Hubei will make 15 million masks exclusively available to customers in Hubei province to help address the mask shortage situation since the outbreak of COVID-19. The first batch of 15 million masks went on sale on March 3.

On March 2nd, JD E-Space in Chongqing officially resumed operations. The store has seen steady customer flow and high conversion rates so far. With the COVID-19 outbreak, the store temporarily suspended operations in late January until March 2nd.

JD.com topped online sales of home appliances in 2019, according to a report on China’s Home Appliances Market released by the China Electronic and Information Industry Development Research Institute. In the report, JD accounted for 22.39% of the market share, while SUNING and Tmall ranked second and third, respectively.

Bo Ye is a JD Logistics driver and his wife Yanping Gao is the head ICU nurse who is volunteering in Wuhan. Since the end of January, Bo and Yanping have been 1,000 kilometers apart from each other. Yet, both of them are working on the frontlines to aid the fight against COVID-19. While Yanping is in the epicenter of Wuhan, Bo is working in logistics at Nanning, capital of Guangxi, to ensure delivery of daily necessities and medical materials.

JD’s courier Jun Xu was issued the very first pass to enter apartment compounds of Shanghai Hudong Xincun. Jun is one of at least 14 JD couriers to be issued the pass for Shanghai Hudong Xincun compounds, which covers 58 residential apartment buildings. In general, couriers are not permitted to enter residential compounds during the COVID-19 quarantine, so this marks an exception.

JD’s Psychological Consultation to Bring Peace of Mind

Posted on Mar 5, 2020Oct 26, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Hui Zhang

JD Health, together with the Chinese Psychiatrist Association, set up a psychological consultation platform within the JD app on March 4^th, to provide free services to people across China, empowering people from the comfort of their homes.

The platform brings together China’s top psychiatrists, and psychological counselors from hospitals or related institutions to provide psychological assistance and counseling services to people during the COVID-19 epidemic. Patients simply need to type in ‘psychological assistance’ in JD’s app to access the platform. The services will be offered free for six months.

The platform targets everyone from frontline medical staff, to patients with mental disorders and corporate employees, and will provide customized services in accordance with their needs.

The platform will provide frontline medical staff with online psychological assistance and counseling services to help them alleviate anxiety brought by long hours working in a high-stress environment.
For patients with mental disorders who require regular services will have access to round-the-clock online counseling, follow-up prescriptions, home medicine delivery and other services to maintain their mental health.
The platform will also work with corporate employees to offer live-streams given by psychological counselors, on-site psychological counseling and free consultation to help them get back to work.
The general public will also have access to live-streams and online psychological consultations.

As early as January 26th, JD Health launched a free 24/7 online consultation platform within JD’s app for people who suffer from COVID-19 related symptoms. The platform expanded its services to cover all diseases on Feb. 6. So far the online consultation platform has offered over 3.3 million free consultations with the number of daily consultations reaching 100,000. Among all psychological consultations, more than 10% come from frontline medical staff.

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

JD Cloud & AI Becomes One of the Big 4 Following Retail, Logistics and Digits

Posted on Mar 5, 2020Sep 27, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

by Ella Kidron and Yuchuan Wang

JD.com announced that JD Cloud & AI would be the fourth core business to provide technology services, joining the ranks of major businesses, JD Retail, JD Logistics and JD Digits, on March 5^th. The move also solidifies the importance of technology in the future growth of JD’s business.

JD Cloud & AI, consolidates JD’s strength in advanced technologies to provide a wholesale technology solution, internally for different segments of JD.com and externally for partners. Dr. Bowen Zhou, who also chairs the JD Technology Committee – a central decision-making center for technology related projects and talent management throughout the company, as well as an engine to increase JD’s influence in the broader technology community, is President of JD Cloud & AI. Zhou originally joined JD to lead the company’s AI division, and has since developed numerous solutions of JD.com, as well as commercial solutions for partners.

Dr. Bowen Zhou, President of JD Cloud & AI, Chair of JD Technology Committee

The elevated position of JD Cloud & AI also solidifies the establishment of JD’s overall technology strategy, which integrates several powerful technologies under one roof, and is referred to as ABCDE.

“Our research and development is broken down into ABCDE (AI, Big Data, Cloud, Devices, or IoT, and Exploration)” Zhou explains. “Looking more closely, if we are to imagine ABCDE as representing different parts of the human body, AI represents the brain, IoT represents the nerve endings, Cloud Computing represents the torso, muscles and blood vessels, and Big Data represents the oxygen that runs up and down the body. Finally, E is about maintaining a degree of curiosity, exploring new practices and pushing the edge of the aforementioned ABCD technologies.”

JD Cloud & AI logo

The logo for JD Cloud & AI is representative of its mission. The “JD red” represents trust, JD’s founding value, “blue” represents technology, emphasizing JD’s commitment to technology development and innovation, and the infinity symbol represents a connected world and the constant development of advanced technologies

Through JD’s 16 years of development, the company has acquired extensive technological capabilities and infrastructure from retail to logistics to digital technology. JD’s R&D team now has over 18,000 personnel, among which over 80% hold masters or above degrees. In 2019, total investment by listed and unlisted affiliates of JD exceeded RMB 17.9 billion (USD 2.6 billion). Technology represents not just a new growth area for JD, but is mapping its future development, and the impact it will have on society as a whole.

“The next decade will be defined by the intelligence economy. It starts with trust and is differentiated by perspective. We will develop trustworthy technology and open it up to external partners,” Zhou further adds.

In 2019, the scale of JD’s cloud, AI and IoT business increased over 500%. It now has one of the largest Docker clusters and GPU clusters in China. According to IDC China’s Public Cloud Service Market report in 2019, JD is China’s top 10 public cloud IaaS provider, with a year-on-year growth 512% in terms of market share, the fastest in the industry. JD is also the operator of China’s largest smart home IoT platform that can connect 150 million devices serving 25 million families. JD’s NeuHub open AI platform, which offers AI APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) covering natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision, and machine learning, links the demand and supply of various industries and was named as the core carrier for the National Open Innovation Platform for Next Generation AI in Smart Supply Chain.

(ella@jd.com; yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

Lei Xu: Merchants Better Performed by Using JD’s Services

Posted on Mar 5, 2020Sep 5, 2022 by Hui Zhang

by Rachel Liu

Lei Xu, CEO of JD Retail, flagged that the company has observed much better performance from merchants who used JD’s warehouse and logistics services than those who don’t during COVID-19. This was shared as he answered questions from analysts during JD’s Q4 and full year 2019 earnings call earlier this week.

“We believe that more and more customers, merchants and industries will pay attention to how the Internet and e-commerce provides high-quality products and services and brings more value to society,” said JD’s Xu. The epidemic will encourage more merchants to depend upon JD’s fulfillment service. On February 8^th, JD announced a commitment to provide RMB 100 million in subsidies to merchants who use its fulfillment service.

In February 2020, sales of Lenovo’s Zhongxin Authorized Store on JD increased 238% year-on-year through employing JD’s fulfillment service. Chao Zhang, General Manager of the store said, “During the epidemic, many store owners were most worried about logistics because many delivery companies stopped service. But thanks to JD’s strong fulfillment capability, store sales were unaffected and are even growing.”

Starting from 2016, JD began to open its warehouse and logistics service to third party merchants, which means they can store products in JD’s warehouses and use JD’s last mile delivery service.

Since last year, JD has also been given more support to merchants who use its fulfillment service, especially the ones who joined in 2020. With access to JD’s supply chain infrastructure, these merchants were able to achieve rapid growth during the epidemic.

(liuchang61@jd.com)

JD to Provide RMB 1.5 Billion in Resources to Merchants and Brands

Posted on Mar 5, 2020Nov 15, 2022 by Yuchuan Wang

by Yuchuan Wang

On March 4^th, JD.com announced the launch of the Spring Raindrop Plan to allocate RMB 1.5 billion worth of marketing resources to help merchants and brands that are heavily impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic, and to bring more quality products to nationwide consumers.

The plan will carry out key promotion events until the end of the epidemic and allocate marketing resources such as flash sales, live streaming, coupons, PLUS membership and content marketing to support its merchants. The company’s smart supply chain business JD-Y will also provide data analysis capabilities covering areas such as promotion strategy, pricing, and inventory management, to lower operations costs and benefit consumers. Beginning with the International Women’s Day sales campaign which is currently in progress and the March 15^thWorld Consumer Rights Day sales campaign, JD is launching dedicated sales entries for the Spring Raindrop Plan.

Affected by the epidemic, brick-and-mortar stores are facing significant challenges. JD will open its omnichannel services to these stores. Based on Location-Based-Services (LBS), JD’s online sales events will enable offline stores to interact with and deliver to its surrounding consumers. JD will also introduce offline merchants who provide offline services on its online sales pages, using online channels to activate offline consumption. JD’s live streaming business JD Live will also help offline stores resume operations. Recently, JD Live has collaborated with JD’s automobile business and enabled customers to “test drive” cars online.

The Spring Raindrop Plan will also enable brands and merchants enjoy JD Logistics’ supportive policies for partners using JD’s warehousing services.

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)