How Dada Nexus (DADA) And CR Vanguard Are Planning To Enhance Retail Offerings

By Dan Anderson • Jul 26, 2020
  • Chinese on-demand delivery and retail platform company Dada Nexus Ltd (NASDAQ: DADA) and China Resources Vanguard have expanded on their strategic partnership. These are the details.

Chinese on-demand delivery and retail platform company Dada Nexus Ltd (NASDAQ: DADA) and China Resources Vanguard — which is China’s largest supermarket chain enterprise group — announced recently that they have expanded on their strategic partnership with a focus on omni-channel fulfillment, product management, user operation and marketing. And in order to commemorate this milestone Philip Kuai (Founder, Chairman and CEO of Dada Group) and Hui Xu (General Manager of CR Vanguard) signed a new partnership agreement at a ceremony at Dada’s Shanghai headquarters.

Through its vision to “Bring People Everything On Demand,” Dada Group runs two complementary business platforms: Dada Now and JDDJ. And Dada’s marketplace model provides retailers with technology-enabled solutions to improve efficiency and consumers with a broad product selection and convenience. Last month, Dada Group started trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “DADA.”

And CR Vanguard is a retail chain enterprise group that is part of CR Group. It owns several renowned brands like CR Vanguard, Suguo, Ole’, blt, V+, Tesco express, and V>nGO, etc. There are nearly 60 supermarkets included on the list have partnered with Dada’s local on-demand retail platform JDDJ.

The two companies initially established a comprehensive partnership in 2018 and they have achieved significant momentum with over 1,600 CR Vanguard stores having been integrated into JDDJ. Ever since the partnership began, CR Vanguard’s sales have grown rapidly with a sevenfold increase in 2019 compared to 2018. And the company recently set a record for single-day sales on July 18th, 2020 on JDDJ.

Dada and CR Vanguard will continue to work together to strengthen the companies’ omni-channel retail and fulfillment solutions, delivery services, products and technology while enhancing the overall user experience. Some of the initiatives include:

1.) Fulfillment — JDDJ provides CR Vanguard with integrated fulfillment solutions such as full warehouse, half warehouse, and store warehouse to promote performance efficiency and reduce picking costs. And Dada Now, Dada Group’s local on-demand delivery platform, provides omni-channel delivery services to CR Vanguard’s stores, including on-demand and intra-city delivery services.

2.) Products — JDDJ’s smart product assortment and inventory management system will improve the efficiency of product operations and expand the reach of CR Vanguard’s platform.

3.) User Base — CR Vanguard launched its first membership program on a third-party platform on JDDJ in April. And the number of members has increased by 14.6 times in the past two months.

4.) Marketing — JDDJ and CR Vanguard will work in tandem to create an annual Omni-channel Shopping Festival. CR Vanguard will support the event with more products, brands, and online to offline promotional resources.

JDDJ covers over 700 cities and counties across China. And it has over 89,000 stores on its platform and more than 27.6 million active users.

Last year, JDDJ was the largest local on-demand retail platform in the supermarket segment by GMV according to iResearch. And JDDJ’s rapid growth has continued in 2020, including during the COVID-19 pandemic as customers are increasingly shopping for daily necessities like groceries, fresh produce, healthcare, and household products online.

KEY QUOTES:

“This expanded partnership is a testament to all the successes we have achieved together over the past two years as well as our confidence in the many opportunities for collaboration ahead. We recognize the impact improving efficiencies, reducing costs, and expanding user base can have for our partners and we are excited to continue to advance how CR Vanguard serves its customers. Together, we will build on the impressive momentum in the business as we find innovative solutions to better meet consumers’ on-demand needs and drive value for all of our stakeholders.”

— Philip Kuai

“Dada Group has been an invaluable partner in the development and expansion of CR Vanguard’s online retail presence and digital capabilities. As we continue to develop our online to offline offerings, we look forward to leveraging the many insights we’ve gained through our partnership over the last two years for the benefit of Chinese consumers.”

— Hui Xu