Analysis on Jingdong’s Offbeat Marketing Strategies

Jingdong, a famous E-mall for online shopping in China, has grown rapidly since its establishment. It has been regarded as a miracle in Chinese e-tailing field for a long time and now can equal some big enterprises such as Suning, Dangdang and Taobao. The reason why Jingdong achieves such a great achievement in a short period of time mainly relies on its offbeat marketing strategies in the era of Internet. This article is summarizing Jingdong‟s recent offbeat marketing actions. I hope this article could provide valuable reference for electronic business companies in choosing suitable marketing strategies. Keywords-Jingdong,Marketing Strategies; Innovation In constant innovation, Gome can dominate the national market in a short period of 22 years. But now the fast developing mall named Jingdong,constantly impacts Gome and Suning(the biggest two tailers who supply household appliances) by overthrowing the traditional business modes and adopting new skills of e-tailing. In 2011, the trade of e-shopping market of China has reached 773.56 billion RMB and it‟s predicted that the amount will up to 1184 billion RMB in 2012.The market share of Jingdong(with 44.46 million consumers, only next to Taobao, a famous website for online shopping ) accounted for 36.8 percent of the total share of Chinese independent B2C websites in 2011.Its fast advancement is amazing, but what special strategies have they adopted to achieve such a big success in just 7 years? The mall‟s over 200% growing speed has shocked the whole world with sales from 4 billion RMB in 2009 to 10 billion RMB in 2010, and the sales reached 21 billion RMB in 2011. Jingdong never lacks ambitions, and Liu Qiangdong, the CEO, declares that in the year of 2012 they will get to the target of 50 billion RMB (net sales). If the e-tailing field is a horse race game in the past decade, it has entered the fiercely competitive knock-out phase in 2011.”The earth just needs one store”is Jingdong‟s inner slogan and they are working hard on becoming a comprehensive e-tailing website with competitiveness. The facts tell us, to subvert the power of the incumbent often comes from destructive innovations, which is precisely the neglect on the new technologies, new models and new competitors of the incumbent in an absolutely dominant position. Depending on new ideas, which nowadays have been a key for enterprises to stand out, Jingdong catches up with other fellows beyond all their expectations. 1. Jingdong Mall Is Breaking into Book Market by Competing with Dangdang On December 8th, just after Dangdang was listed, Liu Qiangdong declared that the books in his mall would be 20% off than any other‟s. The promotion directly enraged Dangdang, who decided to shoulder with all presses to drive Jingdong out of the game. And the price war broke out since then. This time, Liu still kept his strong attitude, saying that if Dangdang did not give up, Jingdong would keep the price low. The competition in e-business has begun earlier than our expectations. Jingdong was in a heavy battle with Dangdang when Dandang was just listed, and it did an excellent marketing by giving no more than some discounts of books. Review the mall‟s history, from the time when their books were online to the time when the enterprise was listed , Jingdong has really done a good job with the help of their series of marketing strategies. Zhang Fan, a researcher of intellectual property from China University of Political Science and Law, says that from the view of marketing, this price battle is undoubtedly successful to Jingdong for the fact that as a new e-saler of books, Jingdong doesn‟t appeal for too much attention at first.Because of the costly but effective price battle, such vast number of consumers has noticed the new business of Jingdong that it becomes the place they buy books online. Jingdong has caught more eyes in the battle than Dangdang. The price war against Dangdang is just their announcement that they also sell books, and the discounts will be regarded as the cost of promotion. Before that, Jingdong‟s another slogan,“All things are cheap here”,tells people to go on www.360buy.com to purchase. 2. Tomato Scandal, a Love Story Happens in Jingdong. On the night of July 15th 2012, the CEO, Liu Qiangdong and his female staff posted a photo of small tomatoes on their microblogs almost at the same time, which caused Netizens to discuss their relationship for the picture was observed as the same one. Though deleting the picture in a hurry, still did they give rise to the gossip about a love story. Even such fellowsalers as Taobao and Dangdang also joined in the discussion. Next morning, Liu lamented on his microblogging,“Gossip,gossip,there are gossips everywhere on the micro-blog!” Later on ,he showed his absolute innocence. In my opinion, however, Liu‟s blog was not just for entertainment, and the popular Tomato Scandal was not just about the CEO and the female superintendent either. There‟s no doubt that it‟s Liu‟s guerrilla-like sensationalization in business. In the morning of July 17th, Liu Qiangdong sent a new micro-message, “I often drink tomato beverage, it‟s good for beautification and losing weight. But why has the Food International Conference on Computer, Networks and Communication Engineering (ICCNCE 2013) © 2013. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 697 Department not yet to put the tomato seeds on the shelf?” and hyperlink a website where the tomato beverage was sold in Jingdong at the same time. Not too long after that, their official micro-blog announced to ceremoniously introduce a new channel about fresh food and it was tomato that was primarily recommended. Liu reshared the blog and said “Good job, Jingdong! People who sees this message but doesn‟t reshare it will have no tomatoes to eat!” An insider disclosed that this incident could not be excluded from the possibility of making use of event marketing. Jingdong‟s tomato has become popular on the Internet and lots of sellers seize the chance to promote the sales of tomato. Stores in Taobao take advantage of the event to introduce the seeds which is same as that of Tomato Scandal. And Dangdang, the old opponent, is the most active in pushing special promotions in the name of the event like “balcony love story” and “the secret of balcony tomato” in order to sell their books, shoes and electronics. 3. Cooperating with the Media, Jingdong Shows up in