JD.com Presents Smart Supply Chain and AI-Driven Retail Innovations at the 15th China ECR Conference

At the 15th China ECR Conference in Hangzhou, JD.com was invited to participate and received the 2016 Enterprise Award; Vice President and Mall R&D leader Ma Song was honored with the 2016 Person of the Year award and delivered a keynote titled “Smart Supply Chain Opens a New Era of Retail.”

Ma emphasized that the next twelve years will be technology‑driven, with every scenario and user experience relying on technology. JD.com will use technological innovation to transform every link of the e‑commerce process, from sales forecasting, replenishment, and pricing to supply‑chain collaboration, leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to provide smart retail and supply‑chain capabilities.

Peng Jianzhen, Deputy Secretary‑General of the China Chain Store Association, praised JD.com, noting that corruption is a difficult problem for retailers and that JD aims to achieve over 80% automatic pricing, product selection, and replenishment, fundamentally eliminating corruption and greatly improving efficiency.

Smart Supply Chain Solution Solves Five Problems

JD.com relies on data mining, artificial intelligence, process reengineering, and four technological drivers to build a smart supply‑chain solution covering five layers—product, price, plan, inventory, and collaboration—enhancing its own efficiency while helping the retail industry achieve zero inventory and continuous improvement through technology.

The solution addresses five key areas: good product (what to sell), good price (how much to sell), good plan (forecasting and market‑matched retail plans), good inventory (where to place goods, guided by planning), and smart collaboration (creating valuable data flow and a supplier collaboration platform). These aspects are tightly interlinked, and coordinated execution is crucial.

JD’s joint forecasting and replenishment project with Nestlé, titled “JD‑Nestlé Joint Forecasting and Replenishment,” won the 2016 China ECR Platinum Award. By sharing data and integrating supply with actual consumer demand, the project improved order fulfillment from 60% to 87% and product availability from 73% to 95% during major sales events, generating more than 30 million RMB of additional online sales for Nestlé each year.

Artificial Intelligence Makes Shopping More Comfortable

Artificial intelligence is a major future trend, and JD.com positions itself as a key promoter and industry leader. JD applies AI across big‑data marketing, smart marketing, smart logistics, customer service, and smart appliances. AI‑driven personalization tailors product recommendations, promotions, and brand information to each consumer, shortening shopping paths and improving purchase relevance; smart marketing offers personalized services; smart home devices such as AI speakers and refrigerators enhance daily life; and AI‑enabled logistics optimizes the entire warehousing and delivery process, boosting overall distribution efficiency.

JD’s AI chatbot JIMI, built on extensive user, product, and service data, leverages machine learning, deep neural networks, knowledge‑graph construction, and natural language processing to achieve a knowledge base of over 50 million entries, a satisfaction rate exceeding 80%, and performance in some categories that surpasses human agents.

Looking ahead, JD.com will continue to leverage technology to drive the second half of retail, innovate across more scenarios, provide superior shopping experiences, and lead the industry forward.