Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has opened its second 7Fresh supermarket, at the China Resources Dreamport shopping centre in northern Beijing.
This follows the launch late last year of the initial 4000sqm outlet near JD.com’s headquarters in Beijing.
JD.com fresh division president Wang Xiaosong, who is also CEO of 7Fresh, says the supermarket brand is in a “life or death mad rush to cover the entire Beijing market”. Its goal is to open more than 1000 outlets across China during the next three to five years.
Its concept focuses on fresh goods including produce, meat, seafood, bakery goods, ready-to-eat packaged food and cooked-to-order foods. The supermarket also aims to integrate JD’s technical expertise to improve its offering and customer experience, drawing on data analytics to help formulate inventory based on customer behaviour and manage its supply chain.
It also integrates O2O retail into its core business, offering consumers within a several kilometre radius the ability to order groceries online for delivery to their doorsteps within 30 minutes.
The second 7Fresh outlet covers 2600sqm and is similar in layout to the original supermarket, but makes concessions because it is smaller, such as not offering a dining area.
7Fresh is serving as a laboratory for JD.com to further its goal of seamlessly integrating online and offline retail, and redefining retail in China.
JD Fresh was launched in 2016, initially as an online component of the JD.com e-commerce platform.