Daily Management Review

Unilever’s Agreement To Use JD.com’s Transportation Network


08/14/2018


The JD.com and Unilever deal addresses “big challenge” of “replenishment and warehouses”.



JD.com, an e-commerce firm of China has finalised a deal with the company of Unilever, whereby the former will transport various products such as “Lipton’s tea and Lux soap” in several warehouses situated all over China. This is a step in the direction of wanting to expand its sales in the remote areas of the country.
 
The deal is the most recent step taken by an e-commerce firm to claim its territory within the “logistics” sector. In order to achieve the same, the company is using its “expertise and supply chains” used in its “own retail business” as a leverage to facilitate “those services to others”. In a statement, JD.com revealed that Unilever will be using its network for good shifting.
 
However, no financial information was furnished by either of the companies. The said step was executed at a time when we see Western brands attempting to spread their sale reach beyond the cities of China in both the medium of “online and offline”. According to the statement of the Unilever North Asia’s Executive Vice President, Rohit Jawa:
“JD will now help us bring our most popular products to the most hard-to-reach communities in China, securely and quickly”.
 
JD.com runs 100% of its own logistics as a measure to be different from “bigger rival Alibaba”. It operates in more than five hundred warehouses, while its fleets of vehicles promises to deliver more than 90% of orders almost on a daily basis. Brittain Ladd, the Supply Chain Consultant, Brittain Ladd added:
“JD.com knows that they need to increase the density of shipments within their network and they know it is a way to create a strategic and competitive advantage”.
“Once a brand is available in China and customers are buying their products, the big challenge is replenishment and warehouses.”
 
 
References:
reuters.com