Shopify and JD.com have struck a strategic partnership, making it easier for US merchants to sell to consumers in China on one of China’s biggest marketplaces.
With a population of 1.4 billion, China is home to the world’s largest ecommerce market, estimated to be worth $3.3 trillion by 2025, more than five times larger than the domestic US commerce market. Despite the enormous potential, China has often remained inaccessible to independent businesses and start up entrepreneurs from the west. Regulatory and logistical barriers, as well as complexities related to pricing, duties, and translations, can be daunting to deal with for all but the largest of brands.
Shopify and JD.com partnership
The partnership between Shopify and JD.com aims to unlock the world’s largest ecommerce market for US merchants by giving them access to one of China’s leading ecommerce marketplaces. By letting merchants easily list their products on JD’s cross-border ecommerce platform JD Worldwide, this new sales channel opens access to JD’s 550 million active customers in China who are shopping for authentic, high-quality products from brands all over the world.
Compared to the 12 months typically required for foreign brands to begin selling in China, JD’s streamlined channel, JD Marketplace, will allow Shopify merchants in the US to get started in as quickly as three to four weeks. To support merchants in their effort to begin selling into China, the channel will provide:
- Expedited onboarding to help merchants sell quickly
- Logistics that handle end-to-end fulfillment from JD’s US warehouses directly to consumers in China, leveraging JD.com’s China-US cargo flights, 1,300+ warehouses and 200,000+ delivery personnel in China
- Smart price conversion to local currency based on foreign exchange rates, typical category pricing, as well as VAT and Consumption Tax
- Intelligent translation of product names and descriptions
The JD Marketplace sales channel is part of a larger strategic partnership between Shopify and JD.com that aims to help solve cross-border commerce challenges across product sourcing, selling, and logistics for merchants in the US and China. The sales channel is now available to Shopify’s US merchants.
