JD.Com Grossed RMB 160 Billion in Its Mid-Year Sale

Jiefei L. theBeijinger

China’s e-commerce platform JD.com reached RMB 159.2 billion in sales during its annual 618 Shopping Festival, which occurred between Jun 1 and Jun 18.

The company said transactions were up 37 percent compared with the same period last year, and more than 90 percent of the orders from JD’s self-operated stores achieved same-day or next-day delivery, thanks to automated devices.

This was also the first time that JD included brick-and-mortar stores in its promotional campaigns. JD Daojia is the company’s exploration of online-to-offline business (O2O), where customers can order products at nearby stores online, and JD will have them delivered within an hour. The platform reported huge sales growth. The total sales of JD Daojia increased five times on Jun 18 compared with the same period last year, with Walmart’s sales on the platform quadrupling and those of Yonghui Supermarkets increasing by a factor of five, according to JD.

The company said the combination of the products at physical stores and data capacity of online platforms helped the business achieve its numbers over the festival. JD Daojia noted that it optimized staff deployment and managed store capacity by estimating in advance the volume of orders that would be placed during the promotional campaign based on the data stores had accumulated on the platform.

First launched in 2010, JD’s 618 Shopping Festival was to celebrate the company’s anniversary, during which time the platform has one of the most significant sales of the year. Similar to Alibaba’s Singles Day sale, which was launched initially on Nov 1, 2011, it has become one of China’s biggest e-commerce shopping sprees. In 2017, Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales reached RMB 16.8 billion.