JD.com Kicks off 618 Grand Promotion Advocating “Responsible Supply Chain”

by Vivian Yang

JD.com will kick off its 618 Grand Promotion 2022 on May 23^rd under the theme of "Responsible Supply Chain", the company said today at an online press conference.

"Our understanding of supply chain has been evolving and pivoting on responsibilities that will not only create value for business, but also for industries and society," said Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Retail at the press conference.

Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Retail at JD618 press conference 2022

During a time of uncertainties with COVID resurgences and supply chain disruptions in China since this year, JD.com has come forward to fully leverage its self-operated supply chain to deliver everyday goods and services to people in urgent need, and support its merchants' operations by all means to stabilize the market at fair price. Its unique and resilient supply chain capability has been increasingly visible and trusted by its customers, merchants and the Chinese public.

The annual mid-year shopping festival will officially start at 8 p.m. on May 23rd, and last until June 20th, offering an array of innovative service upgrades and green consumption promotions for people to have even better shopping experiences.

The "2+4" definition of a responsible supply chain

A responsible supply chain, by JD's definition, is a combination of two capabilities, namely the infrastructure represented by its nationwide warehouse networks and other modernized logistics facilities, and the ability to efficiently integrate and synergize all the resources. These capabilities should always support four use cases for the benefit of society: navigating major social events, promoting a greener environment, boosting consumption and driving industrial progress.

From daily service to emergency relief, JD's responsible supply chain is ready to adapt at any needed time. Take the recent COVID lockdown in Shanghai for example. In about a month's time, JD has supplied more than 80,000 tons of essential goods to the city against all odds. In doing so, JD summoned over 4,000 frontline couriers and sorters around the country to Shanghai and rushed to build over 1,600 contactless community supply stations to carry out local services.

To date, JD is operating nearly 1,400 warehouses and 43 "Asian No.1" intelligent logistics parks across China, a highly collaborative system that ensures about 90 percent of its online orders to be delivered the same or next day, including to rural China, reaching 93 percent of counties and 84 percent of townships nationwide.

JD's nationwide logistics network covering 14,000 warehouses and more

Customer service and omni-channel upgrade

With 185 basic services and over a hundred shopping guarantees in place, this year's 618 Grand Promotion will create an encircling protection service for customers whenever and wherever they shop with JD. It is estimated that in the past two years, JD has invested more than RMB 40 billion yuan in improving customer service. Popular services include price protection, cross-category trade-in service, replace-rather-than-repair service, and free vet consultations, among others.

Omni-channel continues to gain momentum, providing customers with more shopping choices and convenience. During the shopping festival, consumers in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Changsha, among other cities, can fetch coupons on JD and shop offline in millions of brick-and-mortar stores. JD's on-demand retail service, known as "Shop Now", has been connected with more than 150,000 offline retailers including Walmart stores, Apple authorized resellers, SEPHORA and more, offering a wide variety of products to be delivered to customers' doorsteps within an hour and even minutes.

The J Shop, launched on May 9^th, is JD's latest innovation of omni-channel retail in its marketplace fashion and lifestyle categories. The shop appears in JD's App as a chic online department store offering apparel, cosmetics, sports, luxury, and other fashion products ranging from the world's top brands, trending designs, and limited editions to C2M (Consumer to Manufacturer) models. The program's offline selected collection stores are coming soon in several big cities ahead of June 18^th, and will integrate consumption insights from online with premium shopping experiences and services in the real world.

The J Shop debut in JD App

Greener shopping and inclusive growth

During the press conference, JD also announced the launch of the "Green Impact Initiative," by which nearly one million sorts of eco-friendly products will be screened out and labelled green on its platform, guiding JD's over 580 million active users to shop greener. These products range from energy-saving home appliances, sustainable fashion goods, zero waste goods, and products that support refills, less packaging or low-carbon travel such as electric cars and more. Shoppers for these products will be rewarded JD's green credits that can be used to apply discounts to other green-labelled products.

A poster on JD's Green Impact Initiative

The initiative scales new heights for JD's current sustainability efforts including its green supply chain program known as the "Green Stream Initiative" which implements low-carbon practices spanning through the whole merchandises circulation process on the supply side from warehousing, transportation, packaging to recycling, while the Green Impact Initiative will further enable the company to unleash its potential to drive responsible consumption on the demand side.

JD's Green Impact Initiative is co-launched with brand partners at the JD618 press conference

Furthermore, high-quality agricultural products will have more prominent exposure at this year's campaign in a bid to support farmers and agricultural development. It is estimated that over 200 industrial belts will participate in this year's 618 Grand Promotion, directly and indirectly creating tens of millions of job opportunities, which is of special significance as the economy faces headwinds due to the epidemic impact.

One slogan of this year's campaign is "Supporting people from cities and villages to have a vibrant life with our responsible supply chain," which reflects JD's aspiration to leverage the 618 Grand Promotion to bring better prospects for its customers, merchants, brands, SMEs, offline stores, farmers and more.

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