Chinese eCommerce giant JD.com has formed a strategic partnership with Wal-Mart China.
The agreement covers a range of business initiatives, both online and offline. For Wal-Mart, the alliance expands its eCommerce activities and gives its stores and Sam’s Clubs potential traffic from JD.com’s online customer base and same-day delivery network.
JD.com will leverage Yihaodian‘s strong brand and business in eastern and southern China and in key product categories such as high-quality grocery and household goods. JD.com customers will also gain access to new and imported items from Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.
JD.com will now control the brand, website and app for eCommerce platform Yihaodian, while Wal-Mart will retain the subsidiary’s direct sales business. JD.com CEO Richard Liu says he looks forward to “further developing” the brand.
Sam’s Club China will also have a flagship store on JD.com. It will offer same- and next-day delivery through JD.com’s nationwide warehousing and delivery network, which covers a population of 600 million consumers.
“Sam’s Club’s unique, high-end product selection meets the demand from China’s increasingly affluent consumers for high-quality, imported products,” says Liu.
Wal-Mart president/CEO Doug McMillon says the two companies share similar values. “We also look forward to offering customers a tremendous number of quality imported products not previously widely available in China.”
Wal-Mart’s China stores will be listed as a preferred retailer on JD.com’s O2O JV Dada, China’s largest crowd-sourced delivery platform, allowing customers to order fresh food and other items from Walmart stores for two-hour home delivery.
Walmart will continue to run its own physical stores.
Walmart Stores has 11,527 stores under 63 banners in 28 countries, and eCommerce business in 11 countries.