China’s e-commerce retailer JD.com has launched a new channel on the company’s JD Worldwide cross-border platform for selling U.S. goods to the country’s growing middle class.
“U.S. Mall” will offer American products in a wide range of categories including maternity and baby, red-wine, food, personal care, cosmetics, apparel, home decoration, electronics and home appliances.
Authentic American brands will be sold on the platform ranging from Converse, Samsonite, Ocean Spray to Nautica Kids and Jeep appeal, and even a line of clothes designed with singer Taylor Swift, according to the company.
The site has partnered up with DHL to handle international delivery for the new U.S. Mall. Richard Liu, CEO of JD, said they do not have plans to construct an in-house international logistics system, but would rather focus on building a strong domestic delivery system that solves the “last-mile” problem for Chinese customers.
The total value of U.S. exports from the U.S. into China totaled $123 billion USD last year, according to DHL.
The launch of U.S. Mall followed the release of similar country-specific channels for French, South Korean, Australian and Japanese products earlier this year.
China’s rising middle class and large consumer base have fostered a lucrative cross-bother e-commerce market as the country’s growing middle class increasingly craves foreign and high quality products.
JD.com’s arch rival Alibaba has tapped the market through a dedicated sub-site called Tmall Global which was launched last year. In a most recent move, the e-commerce giant partnered with a slew of 11 countries to build their curated shopping sites on the platform, bringing the total number of countries to more than 20. According to data released by the company, Tmall Global saw a ten-fold sales increase between February and November 2014.
The burgeoning cross-border e-commerce market also gave rise to Chinese vertical retailers like Metao and Ymatou. All companies related to the sector are poised to take a bite of the cake: SF Express, a leading Chinese express logistics company, rolled out a cross-border e-commerce site SF Haitao, while Chinese internet company NetEase opened a similar service Kaola at the beginning of this year.
Image Credit: JD.com