China's Li & Fung further expands JD.com's private brand offerings

Building on JD.com’s investment and strategic digital supply chain partnership with Li & Fung, focusing on private brands, the joint venture’s newest initiative will leverage the emerging C2M (consumer-to-manufacturer) business model that 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. 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, newly-appointed head of C2M initiatives at Li & Fung, in a media statement. “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. The brand development process will also be informed by insights from our big data analysis,” Wang Xiaosong, senior vice president of JD.com and head of JD.com’s private brands division, said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)