On July 27, JD.com and Dada, in collaboration with the China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA), released the industry's first white paper on the instant retail open platform model. This white paper elaborates on the development, models, capabilities, and cases of instant retail, providing direction and guidance for the industry. The core content of this white paper can be summarized in the following four points: 1. Clear definition of instant retail with distinct demand characteristics 2. Significant growth in instant retail, with trillion-yuan capacity visible in recent years 3. Platform model advantages prominent, led by JD Daojia 4. Platform model empowers multiple parties with clear case practices As instant retail becomes a definitive mainstream retail format, as an observer of the FMCG industry, we must pay attention. It is no exaggeration to say that FMCG categories currently occupy an absolutely dominant position in the instant retail format, such as snacks, fresh food, beverages, grain and oil condiments, personal care, and household cleaning products. Therefore, this article discusses how FMCG manufacturers should position instant retail in a comprehensive, systematic, and three-dimensional manner against the backdrop of its growing scale. As a leading platform that has collaborated with over 200 brands and continues to lead and practice new models of brand cooperation, what new development ideas does JD Daojia have? What important revelations does its instant retail industry white paper bring to manufacturers? 01 Position It Correctly: From Headquarters to Regions Back in 2019, an industry insider joked that when mainstream O2O platforms came to discuss business with us, he didn't even know what O2O was. But in just three or four years, O2O instant retail has brought tangible and sustained business growth to the FMCG industry. Initially, FMCG manufacturers saw the explosive growth of O2O (during the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020) but only defined it as a sales channel for compensating and supplementing sales. Some brands, seeing other first-tier brands following suit and not wanting to lag behind, and also seeing some sales increments, arranged for a customer manager to communicate with the platform. At that time, the customer manager was not even full-time for O2O; it was just a side task. From the second half of 2020 to early 2021, manufacturers began to gradually recognize and acknowledge the value of O2O. It is not only a sales battlefield; the young mainstream consumer group behind it is also a communication battlefield that brands cannot ignore. With sales growth and marketing value, companies gradually established full-time O2O teams to handle coordination, allocated corresponding budgets, and set sales KPI targets. Now, FMCG brands have elevated the importance of O2O to a strategic level, establishing dedicated departments, continuously increasing investment budgets, and coordinating organizational alignment with marketing departments and regional sales centers. Although FMCG manufacturers already have strategic awareness of O2O instant retail, this is not enough. There is still a gap between strategic attention and strategy implementation. A couple of days ago, at the CCFA special forum, Yang Wenqi, General Manager of JD Daojia's FMCG division, mentioned in his sharing: "Instant retail business has reached a stage where it requires deep local engagement and co-creation through a comprehensive set of digital capabilities. We call on all parties to strengthen omni-channel organizational collaboration to maximize efficiency and effectiveness." Indeed, O2O instant retail is not a simple independent channel. For FMCG manufacturers, although O2O business is online, the products, stores, supply chain, and even marketing execution behind the business are all offline, in each regional store. This is a business that requires nationwide coordination. Take JD Now and JD Daojia as examples: they have now entered over 150,000 physical retail stores, covering more than 1,700 counties, cities, and districts. This coverage requires FMCG manufacturers to fully coordinate their local sales units. From headquarters departments allocating manpower, resources, and expenses, to regional sales units assigning dedicated personnel for coordination, based on the O2O strategy, corresponding promotion schedules, strategies, and execution standards must be designed. Only in this way can O2O marketing and resources truly land in regions and stores. In the past, it was headquarters-to-headquarters; now, in the deep operation stage, it is necessary to go deep into regions. This is the planning that FMCG manufacturers should have for definitive instant retail. Yang Wenqi said: "JD Daojia has a system of city stations in more than 30 provinces and regions, which can cooperate with brands' city station systems for execution, or with brands' regional systems, marketing teams, KA teams, and distributor systems to achieve comprehensive cooperation and supply, and to achieve clearer regional collaboration with retailers. For example, sales of Yili's normal-temperature products from 8 supermarket merchants such as Jiajiayue, Bubugao, and Zhongbai on the JD Daojia platform increased by more than 10 times in June compared to April. This is the result of collaborating with different retailers at the regional level, working together with Yili's regional departments and city systems." 02 Develop Accurate Strategies and Build Omni-Channel Digital Capabilities With strategic attention from headquarters to regions, the next step is how to formulate strategies better and more accurately. This requires considering both the matching and coordination of the offline supply chain in the real context and the characteristics and demands of online shopping behavior and needs. It is particularly important to identify which key strategies are methodologies that the industry has reached a consensus on, and which capability building is the 'low-hanging fruit' that platforms can provide, allowing for rapid self-improvement. 1. Product Differentiation Strategy In the past, FMCG manufacturers treated O2O merely as a channel, with a simple and crude product strategy: directly listing products that sold well offline, with basically no product selection strategy. Now, under the definitive trend of instant retail, FMCG manufacturers need to conduct in-depth insights: Product selection based on instant retail shopper profiles, differentiated product selection based on online-offline conflicts, specific product selection based on marketing festivals and calendar scenarios, and even platform-customized product selection. In January this year, JD Daojia launched the 'Instant Retail Think Tank' salon event, focusing on the topic of 'Omni-Channel Supply Optimization.' The biggest outcome of the meeting was that O2O instant retail will serve as a testing ground for FMCG manufacturers' new products to enter the full-chain digitalization of offline channels, providing a new path for FMCG manufacturers to meet new consumer demands. 2. Marketing Integration Strategy In the marketing process, the biggest pain point for brand owners is duplicate investment online and offline. How to improve advertising efficiency? In addition to communication and coordination between headquarters departments, unified formulation must also be made with regional sales units. From the perspective of cost investment alone, organizational coordination from headquarters to regions is extremely important. How to reduce waste and improve efficiency? At the meeting, Yang Wenqi also mentioned that promotion digitalization integrates the brand's previously scattered marketing resources from offline retailers and online, with the resources of the platform and retailers, achieving omni-channel online-offline linkage and improving marketing efficiency. "In May this year, JD Now and JD Daojia linked over 50 brands with Yonghui Superstores to create the 'Super Brand Week.' Unilever, as the lead brand, saw sales increase by 119% year-on-year during the event." 3. Supply and Distribution Strategy With clear product selection and marketing investment, the next step is supply and distribution, making products go from nothing to something, and from something to excellent in instant retail channels. Currently, JD Daojia is also promoting the 'Perfect Store' project. Based on digital systems and data analysis capabilities, the platform leads retailers and brands to optimize online supply such as brand on-shelf rate, inventory, and product label information, creating 'Perfect Stores' with omni-channel supply coordination. Yang Wenqi mentioned that during the March 8th promotion this year, Kotex, based on the 'Perfect Store' project, achieved a 27% increase in the on-sale rate of high-end new products within 2 weeks, and sales increased by 114% month-on-month during the event. Chen Yi, Managing Director of Kimberly-Clark China, gave high praise: "Instant retail has become a channel that Kimberly-Clark attaches great importance to. With deepened cooperation with JD Daojia and JD Now, including omni-channel supply optimization, marketing and promotion enhancement, regional coordination, and the 'brand + platform + retailer' three-way resonance in omni-channel co-creation, we hope to achieve further optimization and improvement through collaborative innovation, driving the rapid development of categories such as hygiene and care in the instant retail market." How can FMCG manufacturers truly implement supply and distribution strategies? In the past, brand owners' assessment and tracking of O2O focused more on sales growth and scale. But when instant retail is elevated to a strategic level, KPI tracking is needed behind strategy execution, such as assessments of on-shelf rate, penetration rate, sell-through rate, and average order value. Sales growth is the result; process building is the cause. When FMCG manufacturers truly incorporate O2O process building into departmental, regional, and frontline business indicators, they can truly achieve deep O2O operations. Summary: Clearly, with the release of the industry's first white paper, the instant retail format led by JD Daojia has seen its windfall arrive, direction set, and guidance clear. For FMCG manufacturers, O2O instant retail is entering a deep operation period, and collaboration with instant retail platforms is entering the next stage. The logic of deep operation is not just about independent departments, teams, and resources, but also about penetrating every regional market and frontline salesperson. Position it strategically, formulate precise strategies, and coordinate the entire organization from headquarters to regions, making it a testing ground for FMCG manufacturers to build omni-channel digital strategies and achieve sustained business growth! PS: Click 'Read Original' to view the full report: 'Instant Retail Open Platform Model Research White Paper.'