JD.com chief: Retailer and brand collaboration will create new sources of value

JD.com vice president and general manager of JD Retail Solutions Chenkai Ling said at Retail Week’s Tech. festival today that traditional walls in retail were collapsing. New technology and data were creating new business models by integrating formerly disparate elements.

Ling envisaged a future of “boundaryless retail” in which social commerce, content commerce and AI come together, resulting in new forms of collaboration between retailers and partners such as brands.

He said: “The retail value of product is decreasing. Going forward, the retail value will come from more – product, content, social, data. When the transaction is over the value has only just begun.

“The relationship between brand owners and retailers has changed. In future, the value will come from data and service. There are more opportunities for the retailer and brand owner to cooperate.”

He highlighted examples from JD.com’s work in China with nappies brand Huggies.

Huggies had formerly relied upon limited customer surveys and worked with JD.com to undertake new product research and development using big data.

The collaboration led to changes to the product based upon analysis of orders and customer reviews, and turbo-charged performance – the new product accounted for 62% of Huggies’ sales on JD.com.

Ling expected the pace of such collaborations to increase and said: “In future, retailers will uncouple their value chains and open it up to others.”