Chinese online retailer JD.com plans market entry to Germany



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Richard Liu founded JD.com in 1998.

Online retailers in Germany need to prepare for a big competitor in the future. Richard Liu, founder and CEO of the Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com, announced that his company was planning to enter the German market. "I'm not just selling products from Germany to China," he told Handelsblatt. "I also want to sell products in Europe." It was just a question of details. He announced that by the end of the year should be the strategy developed to exploit the market.

JD.com was the best-selling online retailer in China in 2017. With sales of $ 55.7 billion, the company also left behind its rival Alibaba (39.9 billion). For years, both e-commerce providers have competed to become the market leader in the most populous country in the world.

The American retailer Amazon, with sales nearly three times higher, still outpaced both of its competitors. But for the group of Jeff Bezos, the expansion of JD.com could be clearly felt. Especially since the Chinese dealer is also supported by another US company: about a month ago, Google has invested 550 million US dollars in JD.com. Currently, the Beijing-based company employs about 157,000 people.



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In China, JD.com also provides fresh food and operates high-tech supermarkets, just like Amazon Go in Seattle. The question of whether similar projects are also planned in Germany is not known. Liu, however, announced that other measures are planned next to the sale in Germany. He talked about a partnership with Allianz in the insurance business. In addition, JD.com already builds logistics centers in Europe. Liu expressed his optimism to work with DHL there too. He was sure that JD.com's hubs are simply better than German logistics companies.

The boss of JD.com said that he was thinking of acquisitions to accelerate the market entry: "I can not say that such plans are not on the table". With the purchase of a platform like Otto or Zalando, the Chinese supplier would have a large market share in one fell swoop. "If we see good luck, we will use it," Liu said. "We are open."

Image: Getty Images / Andrew Burton / Staff

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