On January 20, JD Convenience Stores entered the unmanned shelf market and began expanding the business nationwide. It is understood that the unmanned shelf project is led by JD New Channel. Relying on JD's products and supply chain, JD New Channel integrates small and medium stores into brand owners' sales terminal system, providing brand owners with one-stop solutions such as warehousing and distribution support, ground services, store marketing, and data sharing. In terms of cost, the cost of JD Convenience Store unmanned shelves is about 500 yuan per unit. There are two options: purchasing shelves or self-making shelves, but self-made shelves must strictly follow JD's standards. In terms of products, they are also directly supplied by JD, and rely on JD's Zhanggui Bao for supply services. In addition, JD teams provide product display and operation support, and smart management can be achieved through mobile systems. Besides JD Convenience Stores, it is also reported that JD Daojia deployed unmanned shelves in September 2017. A JD Daojia spokesperson said, "We are very interested in this field and have made some attempts." When announcing its 2018 strategy, JD New Channel stated that by the end of 2018, it will cover 1 million small and medium stores, including 50,000 JD Convenience Stores. In the future, JD Convenience Stores will serve as the offline entity of JD's "boundless retail," including manned stores, unmanned stores, store-in-store, and other forms. In 2018, it will develop an operation partner model to accelerate store expansion. Similarly, JD's unmanned supermarket, managed by another department, is also accelerating its expansion, with 4 offline entities launched in just a few months. JD X Department, responsible for JD's unmanned supermarket, was established in May 2016, with businesses including autonomous driving (unmanned vehicles), drones, unmanned warehouses, and unmanned supermarkets, hence also jokingly called the "four unmanned projects." The Tianjin Zhongxin Eco-city Animation Park store, opened on January 18, is JD's fourth unmanned supermarket. As a project newly established by JD X Department in early 2017, the first unmanned supermarket was piloted for 3 months in October 2017 at JD's headquarters building. At the beginning of 2018, JD opened its second and third unmanned supermarkets in Yantai and Dalian respectively. "Before the Spring Festival, not only will more unmanned supermarkets open in domestic cities, but the first overseas unmanned supermarket will also open soon," said Song Peng, general manager of JD X Department's unmanned supermarket project. JD's unmanned supermarket uses "face-scan payment." At the entrance, there is a gate where customers need to scan a QR code generated under the "Unmanned Supermarket" function in the JD App, and have their face photographed by a camera in front before entering. The exit is a separate booth where customers take their products, and the camera compares the photo with the entrance photo, automatically identifies the products and prices, and deducts payment from WeChat. Judging from the pace of unmanned supermarket openings in January, technical issues should not hinder rapid scaling. Xiao Jun stated that in 2018, JD's unmanned supermarkets will exceed 500, and expand to more forms such as unmanned pharmacies and unmanned refrigerators. Unlike the technology-led JD X Department, the unmanned shelves launched under JD Convenience Stores are more of a business model test. The two key points of unmanned shelves—supply chain and offline operations—are not big problems for JD New Channel. Especially in operations, JD Convenience Store unmanned shelves mainly output brand and services, while the market entities will be handed over to franchisees and capable city operators. This broadens business methods for partners with special resources, provides more outlets for JD New Channel's B2B products, and also enhances JD Convenience Store's brand influence. JD Convenience Stores' entry into unmanned shelves seems to be JD New Channel's "first shot" in 2018. We will continue to pay attention to what major moves come next. Source: FMCG Elite Club -END-