The company runs the 618 Grand Promotion yearly from June 1 to 20. It is China’s second largest online shopping festival involving various e-commerce firms, including Alibaba and Pinduoduo. The biggest online shopping event in the country is Singles Day in November.
This year’s 618 is closely watched as the spread of the Omnicron variant of COVID-19 has led to renewed lockdowns in major Chinese cities Shanghai and Beijing.
Responding to queries from NutraIngredients-Asia, the company said that the amount of orders collected and delivered in Shanghai this year had exceeded the peak level before the outbreak of Omicron.
Zooming into the nutrition sector, it said that across the country, bone health, nutrition products for infants, food for special medical purposes, vitamins and mineral products, and edible bird’s nests had reported outstanding sales performance.
For instance, the transaction volume of DHA for infant was up 300 per cent, which was also the case for probiotics, lutein, meal replacement, and smoothie products.
The top three bestselling products under the nutrition category were all from local Chinese firms, including Numans’ DHA capsules, BYHEALTH’s protein powder, and Harbin Pharmaceutical Group’s calcium, iron and zinc oral liquid.
Overall, BYHEALTH, Swisse and Tong Ren Tang were the bestselling nutrition brands.
When it comes to specialised nutrition, it was Nestle Health Science, Nutricia and Abbott that have topped the chart.
On the other hand, the transaction volume of functional beverage and health tea products on JD Health had increased 12-fold and 6-fold yoy respectively.
Over 1,500 nutrition and nourishment brands doubled their yoy transaction volume on JD Health during this year’s 618 shopping festival, and the number of products that achieved sales of over RMB$10m (US$1.4m) increased by 200 percent yoy, according to the company’s end-of-campaign report.
Demand for health screening services also increased. The early screening service for critical illnesses was among the most popular health services ordered on JD Health, with its transaction volume up by 50 times yoy.
However, the growth rate of total transaction volume during this year's 618 event was slower as compared to the years before.
As of Jun 18, JD.com reported a total transaction volume of RMB$379.3bn, 10.3 per cent higher than last year.
In contrast, the growth in total transaction volume was 27.7 between 2020 and last year, and 33.6 per cent between 2019 and 2020.
China digital retail data service provider Syntun estimated that online e-commerce platforms including Alibaba's Tmall marketplace, JD.com and Pinduoduo together achieved RMB$582.6bn (US$86.75bn) in this year's 618, nearly flat compared with last year's RMB$578.5bn.
European imports
Nutrition products from Europe have been trying to grow their presence in China, examples include those from Denmark, France, and Hungary.
“JD.com has made Danish products accessible for Chinese consumers, such as Danish probiotics and health products from Camette, and Denps milk powder; and many Danish food products in the Denmark National Pavilion are amongst the top performers on JD.com,” Danish ambassador to China, H.E. Thomas Østrup Møller said.
He was part of the EU delegation to China team that JD had invited ahead of the 618 event. Other delegates who attended were from France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovenia.
Supply chain
Amid the outbreak of Omicron, JD said it would continue to open its supply chain infrastructure, technologies, expertise and capabilities to push forward the development of the whole industry, he added.
“JD.com is ready to embrace the era of supply chain value,” said Lijun Xin, CEO of JD Retail, at a media briefing session on June 18.
