Retail in Asia

In Markets

JD.com introduces Indonesia to AI-powered store

The booming online shopping market of Southeast Asia is attracting many of the industry’s key players.

JD.com is no exception as it just opened JD.ID X-Mart in Jakarta, Indonesia and with it joins its already present competitor, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

SEE ALSO: JD follows Alibaba’s offline steps

The 270-square metre state-of-the-art retail space is the largest store
to leverage JD’s unmanned store technology to date and the first unmanned convenience store to be opened overseas. Indeed, since launching its first AI-powered store in Beijing last October, JD has opened over 20 X-Mart in China.


Source: China Money Network

The system remains the same and aims at maximizing customer experience along with accessibility and efficiency as clients can shop and leave the store without having to wait in line or pay in person as their credit card is automatically being charged for what they have chosen.

An astute blend of radio-frequency identification, artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology power the X-Mart retail store and help in tracking the retail activity.

Access to the store is granted through the swap of a QR code allowing for the matching of the client’s identity with his face. As customers shop, their movements and actions are tracked by cameras spread throughout the store. They generate activity heat maps enabling managers to oversee traffic flow, product selection and customer preferences to then accordingly adapt in-store strategy by optimizing product displays or inventory for instance. Radio-frequency identification tracks and record which products were selected by the client and brought outside of the store to purchase through an electromagnetic field which automatically recognizes the tags attached to the items.

The store’s product offering ranges from the usual food items to fashion & apparel as well as FMCG and beauty products. The company said that customers can now “try on a pair of jeans in the fitting room and walk out of the store wearing them without having to visit a single checkout counter”.

After introducing its online shopping platform to the Indonesian market back in March 2016, JD.com now serves more than 20 million consumers nationwide. The tech behemoth’s operations are supported by nine warehouses spread across seven island allowing the company to cover 483 cities and 6,500 countries. With the plan to build more warehouses, JD is expecting 85% of orders to be delivered the same or next day.

SEE ALSO: Cheers launches first unmanned, cashless store in Singapore

Jingdong will not be put to a rest as it strives to stay on top through constant innovations and creative thinking. It has, in this spirit, launched a new robotics challenged to “find talented roboticists who can help advance the development of global e-commerce and logistic technologies”. From drones to unmanned delivery vehicles and fully automated warehouses, JD.com is without a doubt striving to increase efficiency and disrupting the industry’s standards.