JD Health 'Medicine Urgent Delivery' Project: LBS‑Based Store Recommendation and Full‑Channel Transaction Architecture

Facing urgent medication needs such as late‑night abdominal pain or sudden fever in children, JD Health launched the Medicine Urgent Delivery service in May, using LBS positioning to recommend the nearest pharmacies and enabling rapid rider delivery, with over 70% of orders arriving within half an hour and coverage in more than 100 cities.

The project integrates resources from over 40 systems and business units, achieving breakthroughs in LBS search recommendation, store shipping, promotions, and billing, thereby establishing a full‑channel capability on the main JD site.

Based on LBS, the search and recommendation platform, supported by data from the Unlimited Retail Business Unit, technology and data middle‑platform, and JD Logistics, enables the JD app to recommend nearby pharmacies when users search for medicines or diseases, thus driving platform traffic.

The JD Health product R&D team leveraged JD Retail’s middle‑platform transaction capabilities to build a full‑channel pharmacy transaction flow, adapting store pages, carts, checkout, and order pages with pharmacy‑specific logic such as delivery range and time validation, and integrating online consultation for a seamless “medicine + doctor” experience.

The project also applied JD Retail’s componentized capabilities, including store pricing, promotions, coupons, reviews, and freight settlement, saving significant development resources.

Logistics support from JD Logistics provides stable same‑city delivery capacity, while GIS services automatically generate store delivery ranges, and the Promise team offers delivery‑time prediction and monitoring.

JD’s “Unlimited Retail” strategy aims to break boundaries among people, goods, and places; Medicine Urgent Delivery exemplifies this by extending LBS‑based store recommendation to other businesses such as fresh flowers.

The backend also built a merchant‑focused operation platform covering store onboarding, product publishing, promotion creation, order handling, and after‑sales, with API integration for key merchants and collaboration with JD Cloud and ISV partners.

Real‑time merchant metrics monitor stocking and picking capabilities, while multi‑dimensional dashboards enable accurate feedback and timely response.

To reach users across channels, the team developed a custom store recommendation system comprising recall, personalized ranking, and offline model training; the recall layer combines user context and store data, while the ranking layer reorders candidates by distance and timeliness, with AB testing to mitigate risk.

The model matches medication requests to appropriate drugs and delivers personalized recommendations across JD Health mini‑programs, store mini‑programs, and other user touchpoints.

Within five months, the service expanded to over 100 cities, solving urgent medication needs and positioning JD Health as a trusted health manager, while establishing a comprehensive “Internet + Healthcare” ecosystem covering the full drug supply chain.

The success relied on cross‑team collaboration, reflecting JD’s spirit of cooperation and perseverance, and laying a foundation for future full‑channel initiatives.

For inquiries, contact Zhu Binghua ([email protected]).