China’s JD.com adds more bricks-and-mortar stores to supply chain to speed up deliveries

Online shopping giant JD.com is targeting delivery times of as little as 30 minutes across China by using various offline retail outlets, including Walmart, to directly get products to customers.

Beijing-based JD.com’s latest initiative forms part of efforts to improve the overall efficiency of its supply chain, according to Carol Fung, president of the company’s fast-moving consumer goods business.

Instead of having every product pass through traditional warehouses, distribution centres and delivery stations before reaching the customer, the new programme has offline channels directly make deliveries of orders processed on JD.com’s online platform.

The programme uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to determine the proximity of offline retail outlets as well as JD.com’s warehouses and distribution centres to a customer. If an offline store with the goods on order is closer, the AI system will ask that shop to make a direct delivery.

SCMP