618 Evolutionism: Wanchuan Into The Sea

"Jingdong's dream is to be a dreamer who dares to make impossible possible, a person who firmly believes in long-term doctrine and commercial value, and a crowd walker who abides by the bottom line of business and takes social responsibility."

On June 18, at the age of 18 and the 18th 618th day of Jingdong group, Liu qiangdong, chairman and chief executive officer of Jingdong group, reiterated Jingdong's dream in a letter to shareholders.

In the past 18 years, Jingdong has changed from a pure e-commerce enterprise to a "technology and service enterprise based on supply chain". Today, Jingdong holds millions of SKU's self operated goods and its warehousing and logistics network throughout urban and rural areas, and continues to provide better services for consumers and businesses.

Behind this, where is Jingdong's long-term doctrine and commercial value reflected? From the annual 618 promotion, we can get a glimpse. In recent years, Jingdong has been committed to building a large platform in the supply chain, aiming to form a "one inventory" through all links, processes and channels. Through opening up a series of supply chain capabilities from demand, scenario, order, commodity circulation, etc., Jingdong supply chain center has played an important role in 618 this year.

It should be noted that Jingdong's supply chain capability is not achieved overnight, but has evolved after 18 years of precipitation. Correspondingly, the connotation of Jingdong 618 is also changing.

"Now Jingdong 618 is not only a carnival of consumers, but also a consumption attribute. Instead, it has evolved into a dual attribute of consumption and production. It has become a stage linking the consumer end and the industrial end and promoting the deep integration of digital and real economy." Yao Jingyuan, former chief economist and spokesman of the National Bureau of statistics and a special researcher in the Counselor's office of the State Council, pointed out that "Jingdong and other Internet enterprises, physical retailers and brand businesses should consider how to use 618 stage to continuously optimize the cost, efficiency and experience from the consumer side to the supply side."

Evolution and change of 618

On June 18, 1998, Liu qiangdong set up an offline physical store in Zhongguancun, Beijing, which is the predecessor of Jingdong. In January 2004, Jingdong multimedia network was officially opened, marking that Jingdong has opened up an "experimental field" for e-commerce entrepreneurship.

It was also from this year that Jingdong, which had just tested water e-commerce, began to try to promote sales for the first time“ At that time, the play method was very simple. It was to select several hot-selling products from the inventory, bury them in all the commodities at a very low discount price, and then release them at midnight. There were a group of hardcore users in Jingdong. If they could find them, they would enjoy the surprise. " Jingdong's internal staff recalled to the reporter.

Before 2009, this kind of promotion activities of Jingdong were mainly the attribute of store celebration, which was used to give back to old customers. However, since 2009, the promotion has been fixed in the form of red June; Around 2010, there began to be a large number of 3C brands and Jingdong to jointly promote sales; Since around 2011, more and more kinds of products have been involved in Jingdong 618 promotion, including food, Ribai and other categories.

In 2013, Jingdong 618 began to attract the attention of the whole retail industry, and various home appliance business channels joined in one after another, and 618 has also become a arena for the retail industry to compete for service capabilities. Up to now, 618 has become an S-class Shopping Festival comparable to "double 11" and a consumption festival in the middle of the year. Its connotation is no longer used to promote sales and give back to users. Instead, it has become a training force for the retail industry in terms of technology, supply chain, team cooperation, process management, etc.

The growth of all this is inseparable from the background of China's economy. In these 18 years of changes, Chinese netizens and consumption habits have also undergone great changes. In 2004, e-commerce in China is still in its infancy stage. By 2020, the national e-commerce transaction volume will reach 37.21 trillion yuan, and the domestic mobile Internet Mau will exceed 1.15 billion yuan.

At the same time, however, the growth of mobile Internet users has reached a bottleneck. This means that it is more and more difficult for the giants or businesses to obtain customers. Moreover, due to the baptism of many years of promotion such as 618 and double 11, consumers' sensitivity to marketing activities is weakened, and their rational consumption consciousness is enhanced. It is difficult to fit the current era theme with the promotion of hoarding and promotion as the central idea.

"In the 618 of the past few years, the brand will inevitably encounter some pain points." Shi Xiajun, senior director of Unilever's key customers, told reporters that in recent years, the growth rate of sales promotion activities focusing on explosive products and corresponding consumption scenarios with the mind of hoarding goods have become more and more saturated in recent years“ For brands, maintaining high growth is actually a bottleneck and needs innovation. "

In addition, consumers' attention is increasingly fragmented, whether it's short video live e-commerce platforms such as tremolo and Kuaishou, or offline retail formats. Compared with the big promotion Carnival once stationed in the centralized scene, today's user traffic shows a diversion trend.

"Users don't necessarily focus on the main station for consumption, but choose Shuo Yin, Kuai Shou and even offline stores for off-site scene consumption of the main station. These scattered traffic can find new incremental space for brand merchants through the platform oriented solution of JD supply chain." Shi Xiajun said.

Supply chain center behind "one inventory"

In the current complex consumption situation, CEO Xu Lei of Jingdong retail group has put forward a more ambitious goal, that is, "selling goods all over the world" and "selling goods all over the world".

In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to build the capacity of the large middle platform in the supply chain“ Whether it is in the face of online centralized flow field competition, or the cooperation with Shuo Yin and Kuai Shou, or the off-line self operated stores, franchise managed stores and enabled supply stores of Jingdong retail, it is impossible to "sell all over the world" and "sell goods all over the world" without the ability of the middle stage of the supply chain. " Xu Lei thinks.

The core of the so-called supply chain center is to get through a series of supply chain capabilities from demand, scenario, order, and commodity circulation, including the ability to connect and connect scenarios, the ability to efficiently match demand and supply chain, the ability to manage orders and supply chain scheduling, as well as the ability to manage goods and logistics, Jingdong also needs to have the ability of product selection, pricing, procurement and logistics allocation, inventory management, etc.

The establishment of the supply chain center is intended to make the whole link, the whole process and all channels form "one inventory", so as to realize the internal efficient operation and external value creation.

Qi Ting, general manager of Jingdong retail group's large and super Omni channel business group's centralized purchasing commodity center, points out that for brand merchants, the efficiency of one inventory in the supply chain is more efficient, and at the same time, the data at each end can be completely returned, so that the brand can use a data Kanban to see the data performance of each end. As a result, users in different fields can eventually return to the brand side. In addition, this can also help the brand achieve global marketing through the connection of different front-end.

From the perspective of brand owners, the result of 618 this year is obvious. According to Shi Xiajun, as of June 15, Unilever's target achievement, user increment and new products have all performed well on Jingdong platform.

The specific approach is the in-depth cooperation of the supply chain“ This year, we are thinking about doing Omni channel extension in the whole scene of 618, that is, Omni channel application scenarios, including hour delivery, whole city shopping and other omni-channel modes. We can realize Omni channel goods distribution and scene construction through Jingdong main station, Jingdong home and natural selection project Shi Xiajun said.

At the same time, Unilever has extended its reach to more decentralized fields, including introducing traffic to Jingdong in the form of streaming media advertising on twitter, and doing corresponding goods and activities in the tremolo store opened in Jingdong.

In addition, Unilever also relies on this year's 618 platform for new product creation“ We will consider how to look for new incubation opportunities through trend categories, blue ocean categories and new brands, "Shi Xiajun said frankly. The effect after the trial was very good." we will now feel that, in addition to the promotion, Jingdong has become a good platform for brand operators to operate new products. "

From retail to retail

In this year's 618 promotion, supply chain platform has played an important role in Jingdong platform. However, this is not the end of Jingdong's supply chain exploration.

In Xu Lei's opinion, China has grown into the world's largest growing market at present, with broad prospects for the consumer industry and the general trend of consumption upgrading. Correspondingly, the significance of Jingdong 618 is not only on the consumer side, but also on the industrial side.

Now, relying on the technology and services of the digital intelligent social supply chain, Jingdong 618 is boosting an industry upgrading that is expected by all“ When Jingdong 618 has become an important node to deeply link the consumer end and the industrial end. Jingdong retail should take more responsibility and create more value. " Xu Lei pointed out.

Jingdong's development to the industrial side is not without trace. As early as 2017, JD gradually moved from integration to integration and opening up, decoupling its technology and service capabilities based on supply chain into small business units, trying to empower the industry.

For many small and medium-sized businesses, JD's move is more able to match their needs. Such businesses can not only broadcast live on platforms such as express, but also choose JD's supply chain and logistics services, or use the original supply chain system to increase sales on Jingdong platform.

In particular, a large number of small and medium-sized businesses and even farmers in the domestic industrial belt, although they lack the ability of brand, marketing, supply chain and logistics, Jingdong can improve the digital ability of businesses by providing customized services, so as to help achieve sales.

"Different from the winner take all logic in the development of consumer Internet, under the ecology of industrial Internet, the cooperation and cooperation of supply chain enterprises in the industrial system will become a normal." Zhang Jun, Dean of the school of economics of Fudan University and a famous economist, commented that "Jingdong originates from retail, surpasses retail, transfers to industrial Internet platform, constructs commercial infrastructure and core competitive advantages around the digital and intelligent social supply chain, and applies them to industrial scenarios. The focus of value is shifting from" transaction cost reduction "to" industrial value creation. "

Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, also noted that some little-known small businesses have attracted attention with the help of Jingdong 618, forming every "capillary" in the domestic and international dual cycle development pattern. In his opinion, the reason why Jingdong group has been able to achieve the transformation of "from retail to surpassing retail" lies in the fact that it uses the power of technology to reduce industry costs and improve social efficiency with its partners.

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