In an ancient land with a number of traditional holidays on its calendar, China now has a new and modern day of observance. It’s May 10 and it is called “Chinese Brands Day.” It may be the world’s first “Cyber Holiday.”
On this date, one of China’s biggest retailers and e-commerce giant, JD.Com, choses to release a major report chocked full of statistics and trends. It provides a broad picture of what’s happening online in terms of consumption, what domestic brands are popular, what people are doing online and looking at — and much more.
The massive report is offered by the JD Big Data Research Institute, an arm of JD.Com. This year’s report focuses on what happened in 2020. Some initial highlights from the data report show that 572 specific brands selling on the JD.Com platform account for a transaction volume that surpassed 100 million RMB.
Furthermore, 490 of those are products made in China as opposed to imported product sales. Another group of 230 brands brought in 300 million RMB and 79 were domestic products. Finally, of 151 brands that bested the 500 million RMB mark, 125 originated in China.
Some key takeaways from these JD Big Data numbers are:
* Chinese consumers are opting to choose products made in their own country. This suggests that a common perception of some foreign brands as being superior is being displaced by a better view of local-origin products.
* Driving the acceptance of Chinese brands are higher-earning consumers who tend to be well educated.
* Female shoppers under the age of 25 appear to pay closer attention to domestic products than their male counterparts.
Overall, the growth of domestic brand sales outstripped foreign brands by 20% when compared year-to-year between 2019 and 2020. If you focus on the first quarter stats of 2020 alone, that gap increased to 30%.
One of the most successful categories for JD.Com has been fresh food sales. Dometic growth of fresh food sales increased by 156% overall. Meat, pork and mutton turned in a robust 655% increase in sales volume in 2020 over 2019. The sale of vegetables increased by 183%. The sale of eggs and poultry enjoyed a 166% rise.
According to a report issued by the JD Science Lab, recommender systems are playing an ever-increasing and significant role in the activity within e-commerce portals. Because JD is able to collect such massive amounts of data, a highly focused and unique recommendation model continues to advance. It may already be the most advanced system of its kind in the e-commerce sector. The model has been used extensively in the JD shopping mall and with the JD app to help literally billions of users make the best buying decisions for themselves.
An interesting takeaway from this extensive study of data is that e-commerce is reshaping the consumer habits of the general population. As the process of selling products continues to shift from brick-n-mortar location to online platforms, people are becoming more attuned and accepting of obtaining the basic goods they need using the digital realm.
It’s important to note that traditional methods of shopping have focused on data derived from macro-interaction between users and products. Online shopping allows for the analysis of microdata. This, in turn, suggests all-new possibilities and methodologies for providing consumers with the daily good of their lives in novel ways.
Chinese e-commerce is thriving like never before. The JD Big Data gleaned from all this activity promises to change the consumer landscape for years to come.
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