Mar 26, 2020|

Vox: Important Role of JD’s Supply Chain in COVID-19 Fight

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by Ella Kidron

Vox recently called attention to the importance of supply chain in ensuring people’s needs during the COVID-19 fight in China. In emphasizing the critical role that logistics infrastructure has played in the fight, the media underscored JD.com’s role in supplying goods across the country, even in the epidemic epicenter of Wuhan.

The article, “Home delivery has helped China through its coronavirus crisis. The US needs to catch up,” illustrates how e-commerce was able to ensure supply in China of daily necessities and groceries even at the height of the virus. In the entire month of February, sales of fresh food on JD increased 260% YOY. For the same period, sales of milk and dairy products, instant food and cereal and the rice, flour and cooking oil category increased 86.5%, 124.4% and 110.5% YOY respectively.

One of the primary drivers of JD’s response to COVID-19 is its strong supply chain and logistics infrastructure. The article wrote, “China’s massive e-commerce infrastructure is built for fast fulfillment: While before the coronavirus crisis, Amazon was investing billions to carve its delivery promise for Prime members down from two days to one (a countdown that doesn’t start until the package has left the warehouse), Chinese rival JD.com boasts that 90 percent of its orders are delivered within 24 hours.”

JD’s smart supply chain network, enabled it to be extremely agile in responding to unexpected and constantly changing demand. The article continued, “Because of investments in its in-house distribution network, it was also able to pick up some of Alibaba’s slack.”

Michael Zakkour, a global digital commerce consultant and the author of New Retail: Born in China Going Global commented, “China is a good four or five years ahead of where the West is in terms of logistics and digital commerce and retail.”

Vox is an American news and opinion site. As of August 2019, readership is estimated to be 33.4 million visitors.

 

(ella@jd.com)

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