Baby food company Mead Johnson ties up Chinese e-commerce deal

Mead Johnson, the US infant nutrition company owned by consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser, has linked up with Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com.

The Chinese company said the plan is to create a market strategy to bring a wider range of infant formulas to emerging urban areas.

JD.com said it is a response to the shift in consumption habits of Chinese consumers for maternal and baby products to focus on product quality and suggested the collaboration will make it easier for maternal and baby store owners in China's growing smaller cities to supply their consumers with infant formula from Mead Johnson Nutrition's brands.

To facilitate this, JD.com has developed a mobile internet programme through which store owners can place orders for Mead Johnson products. Maternal and baby goods will be delivered within 48 hours directly from JD's warehouses via the company's in-house nationwide logistics network.

It said the 'vertical integration' will significantly shorten the delivery lead time and help store owners better manage their inventory.

Enda Ryan, CEO of Mead Johnson's operations in Greater China, said: "With the help of JD's innovative smart supply chain and in-house logistics resources, a greater number of consumers in China's emerging urban areas will have more reliable access to our high-quality products.


Baby Food Products - On-line Directory

Organize eCommerce Stock and Track Sales

eCommerce focused on the sales, stock receiving, and counting processes that drive good small business inventory management. But this discussion is incomplete without looking at ways to keep all of that stock organized and readily accessible.

Whether you have a retail store with a small stockroom in the back or an expansive warehouse for your ecommerce business, organization is key to smart inventory management. Even if you operate in a tiny space, it’s good to have organized overstock space so you can take advantage of discounts and deals on quantity purchases.

Tracking sales is a must for any eCommerce business operation and it involves more than just tallying up the totals at the end of the day. A good small business inventory management system also records every order in detail, including each item sold. With a manual system, you’ll record orders by hand or track them within a spreadsheet, then manually adjust the inventory quantities for each item sold.

A small operation can handle this manually as long as inventory reductions are tracked regularly, say at the close of each business day. But as you grow, a POS system will dramatically streamline your operation by automating your inventory reduction with every sale. That means every time you make a sale, each item sold is automatically removed from your inventory records. Plus, each recorded sale lists each item sold. It’s all very tidy.

Inventory management touches many parts of your eCommerce business. When you forgo management, you can’t forecast sales. You can’t efficiently get items to customers when they need them.

It prevents overselling. When inventory isn’t tracked, it can lead to you incorrectly listing available inventory on your site or marketplace. Nothing is worse than telling a customer you can’t ship an item they bought because you actually don’t have it

Whatever your inventory storage method, your stored inventory needs to be well-organized, clearly labeled, and accessible for pulling and inventory counts. This can be done using the boxes goods come in, stacking bins, or even hanging separators for hung apparel. Periodic cycle counts of overstock also help keep track of extra inventory and ensure it’s not lost or misplaced over time.

B2B or B2C Ecommerce - Opportunity and Decisions

For B2C businesses, ecommerce represents an opportunity to gather information that informs decisions on product features, pricing and promotion. The opportunity to gather data is also available to B2B businesses, but in a relationship-centric world, the first objective is to increase value to customers.

In a B2C businesses, once an ecommerce solution is in operation, self-service ordering on line allows customers over an endless geography to place orders with little marginal cost to the B2C provider.

In a B2B setting, similar benefits can be achieved by making a simple portion of the overall offering available as a “starter” or “entry level offer” for prospective customers. Current customers may value an option of buying simple product extensions or contract renewals online. The efficiency of these simple on line transactions is a benefit to both the B2B business and to its customers.

In B2C businesses, customers have access to information about products, their personal information on file, their order history, and other related information. That’s a great start, but many B2B businesses have the opportunity to deliver more value by providing more information such as maintenance and service records, contract and correspondence history, information about customer installations, product roadmaps, and lead time.

On business to business portal many manufacturers, wholesale suppliers, exporters, traders etc. are registered to do online business trade. The business leads are converted into real deals. Those who are experienced professionals, able to provide spontaneous solution and are able to understand the business requirement can highly succeed in Business to Business marketplaces.

In some cases, such as installation maintenance locations, customers may get value from maintaining the information themselves. B2B businesses can use these information resources to efficiently differentiate and personalize their customers experience.