JD has been aggressively entering offline stores keeping pace with its biggest rival Alibaba. Its newest deal is with FamilyMart, Japan’s second largest convenience store chain after 7-Eleven.
JD’s new cooperation deal means that users will be able to order goods through JD’s O2O service Jing Dong Dao Jia (京东到家 or “Door-to-Door JD”). Goods will be delivered from FamilyMart’s 212 core locations in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu within 30 minutes, while the service will be available 24 hours.
Both JD and Alibaba see brick–and-mortar stores as the new frontier as online commerce is reaching its peak. At the beginning of this year, JD launched 7Fresh, its first offline fresh-food supermarket, in Beijing. Before that, JD invested in Yonghui supermarkets and reached a strategic partnership with Walmart through Jing Dong Daojia. JD has also invested in fresh food delivery app Fruit Day and created a business unit dedicated to fresh food JD Fresh.
Read more: JD vs Alibaba: The war for China’s fresh food
Before its deal with Family Mart, China’s largest e-commerce company established cooperation with two other Japanese convenience store chains 7-Eleven and Lawson, as well as other international brands. The company now covers covering nearly 1000 convenience stores.
According to JD, the results have been great. During January this year, all convenience stores working with JD recorded a three times higher sales volume (or GMV, to be more precise) than at the same time last year. 7-Eleven’s stores, which joined Jing Dong Dao Jia in 2016, recorded a 400% increase in sales year-on-year, according to data from January.
JD said that it plans to expand its cooperation with FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, and other well-known convenience store brands. During 2018, the company expects to make deals with more than 500 FamilyMart stores and more than 3000 stores owned by 7-Eleven and Lawson.