Jakarta welcomes JD’s first unmanned store outside of China

JD‘s first unmanned store outside of China opens in Jakarta. / Photo credit: JD

Chinese online retailer JD just opened an unmanned store in Indonesia, the first of its kind in the Southeast Asian country, according to the company, and another sign of the Alibaba archrival’s regional push.

The 270-square meter store, which sits inside a major shopping mall in Jakarta, is the first cashier-less shop JD has launched outside its homeland where it operates 20 such facilities. It is also the largest one the company has introduced to date.

The Jakarta branch lets customers pick up items and check out by themselves. Radio frequency identification – technology that tracks tags attached to objects – and face recognition at the exit will match the goods with the buyer, who can then pay with a credit card. The store will install “other cashless payment alternatives” in the future, Teddy Arifianto, head of corporate communications and public affairs for JD Indonesia, told Tech in Asia.

In-store cameras also help monitor customer movement, and JD can use this traffic data to optimize inventory and make product recommendations

JD’s ecommerce site launched in Indonesia in 2016 and has served 20 million customers nationwide, the firm says. It’s planning to add more warehouses to its network of nine, which will enable it to deliver 85 percent of its orders on the same or next day.

Southeast Asia is becoming an investment hotbed for Chinese tech behemoths. JD led an investment in Thailand’s online fashion brand Pomelo and has reportedly backed Indonesia’s ride-hailer Go-Jek. Alibaba has made similar moves, including a buyout of the regional ecommerce giant Lazada.

Several Chinese startups have rushed to open unmanned shops. The industry’s poster child has been Bingobox, which counted 200 stores across 29 cities in the country as of January.

Update (August 3: 9:30am): Added comment from JD Indonesia

Correction (August 2: 7:30pm): An earlier version of the article stated that customers pay with their phones. Customers currently pay with credit cards at the store. The post has been updated to reflect that