Restarting the "Meetup" After 18 Years, Not Aiming to Create Another Homogeneous OTA Platform

In 2007, when JD.com was still in its early development stages, Richard Liu (Liu Qiangdong) organized the first "JD.com User Meetup" to directly address user needs. Eighteen years later, the e-commerce landscape has changed, and JD.com's business scope has expanded. Restarting user interaction in the form of a "Wine Tasting Event" has become one of the ways for its liquor and travel business to connect with the market.

At the Wine Tasting Event, Richard Liu cooked Suqian's famous dish "Huang Gou Zhu Tou Rou" (Yellow Dog Pork Head Meat) on site. He expressed his welcome for consumers to order takeout and book hotels on the JD.com platform. According to JD.com, this event featured cross-sector collaboration between "hotels + liquor," leveraging JD's supply chain advantages and integrating with hotel supply chains to create new scenarios and generate new growth.

JD.com stated that JD Travel (the liquor and travel business) does not aim to create another homogeneous OTA (Online Travel Agency) platform. Instead, it seeks to provide differentiated value for users and ultimately help partners earn more revenue.

At the event, several entrepreneurs, including Wang Li, Deputy Party Secretary of Kweichow Moutai Group, and Song Shuyu, Chairman of the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, along with numerous JD.com users, were seated at multiple round tables for dining and wine tasting.

Richard Liu stated at the JD Wine Tasting Event that all enterprises should compete when necessary, relying on business models, value creation, and reputation to win consumers. Entrepreneurs should not become enemies. Normal business competition should not turn into personal grudges. He revealed, "JD.com will launch a new hotel development plan, and there will also be new business model innovations for takeout."

Liu called on-site for all catering practitioners, hotel operators, and all brands to thrive, increase salaries for their employees, continuously raise staff wages, improve their livelihoods, and thus have higher consumption power.

Liu had previously stated: "All businesses of JD Group revolve solely around the 'supply chain.' JD never touches anything unrelated to the supply chain. Now, almost 100% of all businesses are centered around the supply chain."

On September 9th, JD.com and Jinjiang Hotels formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two parties will comprehensively deepen cooperation across three major areas: liquor and travel services, supply chain synergy, and innovative catering consumption scenarios. Jinjiang Hotels has thus become the first hotel group to enter into a comprehensive strategic partnership with JD.com.

Reporters from Beijing News Shell Finance learned from various sources that according to the cooperation agreement, all hotels under Jinjiang Hotels will gradually be入驻 (enter/settle on) the JD.com platform. The two parties will achieve direct connectivity through a Central Reservation System (CRS), integrating operational aspects such as room availability, prices, and orders to enable real-time information exchange.

Meanwhile, in terms of innovating catering consumption scenarios, JD.com's quality catering joint production platform, 7Fresh Kitchen (Qixian Xiaochu), will also enter branded hotels under Jinjiang Hotels (China Region) to explore a new business model of "AI + Food + Accommodation." Regarding supply chain synergy, which JD.com emphasizes, the two parties will jointly build a B2B (Business-to-Business) empowerment platform to enhance service capabilities and business coverage in the independent hotel market.

At the JD Wine Tasting Event, Richard Liu also disclosed for the first time the recent development of 7Fresh Kitchen: its first store in Dongcheng received overwhelming orders ("爆单" - exploded with orders) within two months of launch, selling at least 1,500 orders per day.