In JD's warehousing and logistics system for small and medium-sized items, FDC (Front Distribution Center) plays an important role in accelerating inventory turnover and providing customers with a better shopping experience. The forward warehouse FDC, that is, inventory sinking, can advance the goods that customers need on a daily basis to a place closer to the customers. So, how does FDC accurately and stably prepare the goods that customers need on a daily basis? Next, let's reveal the answer.

Historical data-the premise of FDC preparation With the help of continuously accumulated historical data, after cleaning and processing these data, we can get the sales situation of goods in different regions, and preliminarily select which best-selling goods need to be prepared in the front-end FDC.

Sales forecast-the basis of FDC preparation

FDC preparation is for possible future sales, and the goods preliminarily selected based on historical data enter the FDC replenishment whitelist, and then correct and optimize them through business logic to obtain the predicted sales of the goods in the future, thereby ensuring that the goods prepared in FDC can be sold quickly.

Influencing factors - supplement of FDC stocking

Promotions, holidays, national policies, etc. will have an impact on FDC stocking, resulting in inaccurate stocking. Only by adjusting various influencing factors in a timely manner according to the actual situation can the accuracy and stability of FDC stocking be better guaranteed.

Inventory parameters - guarantee of stable FDC stocking

The above three points are to ensure the accuracy of FDC stocking goods, but since the commodity supply service level is not 100%, it takes a certain amount of time for the stocking to arrive at the warehouse, so it is also necessary to set the FDC warehouse commodity inventory level to ensure accurate stocking while also ensuring stable stocking, so that customers can order goods at any time, thus providing customers with a better shopping experience.

Based on historical data, predicting the future sales volume of goods and reasonably setting inventory parameters based on relevant influencing factors are the basis for FDC to accurately and stably stock, and are also the reason why the average daily order volume of FDC warehouses increased from 120,000 to 300,000 in 2015, and the national share increased from 13% to 16%.

In 2016, the number of FDC warehouses will increase to 25 locations, with an average daily order volume of more than 500,000. The accuracy and stability of FDC inventory will better assist JD.com's channel expansion and continuously optimize customers' shopping experience.