Li & Fung Limited, a supply chain solutions partner for consumer brands and retailers, announced that as part of a strategic investment JD.com made last year, it will provide end-to-end digital supply chain management services for JD.com’s private-brand initiatives.
Together, they are creating a multi-category collection that includes homeware under the brands “Made by JD” and “Best Home,” and developing a pet product brand called “Jingmeng” (Cute Pet) to capture China’s burgeoning pet care market.
Building on JD.com’s investment and strategic digital supply chain partnership with Li & Fung that focuses on private brands, the joint venture’s newest initiative will leverage the emerging C2M (consumer-to-manufacturer) business model that the company said is rapidly gaining momentum in Mainland China.
C2M enables manufacturers to dramatically shorten the time from design to consumer from the industry average of 40 weeks to as little as two weeks, delivering high-quality, trend-responsive, products to the consumer, Li & Fung noted. Products are tested in multiple SKUs of small quantities through e-commerce channels, providing more accurate data analysis of end-consumer preferences so that iterations can be made quickly and inventory can be adjusted in real-time.
“JD.com can leverage Li & Fung’s 3D product design expertise and supply chain know-how to create and produce these new private label brands,” said Wilson Zhu, head of C2M initiatives at Li & Fung. “By continuing to leverage the respective strengths of both companies we will deliver precisely what consumers are looking for–within their budget and at a much faster speed–through better forecasting, smarter production and maximum supply chain efficiency.”
“Li & Fung’s industry-leading 3D product design capabilities and wide-ranging product category expertise will greatly enhance our ability to create private-label brands that online consumers welcome and trust,” Wang Xiaosong, senior vice president of JD.com and head of JD.com’s private brands division, said. “The brand development process will also be informed by insights from our big data analysis.”