JD.com Shuts Down B2C Platform JOYBUY’s English and Russian Sites, To Carry Out Transformation and Upgrades of B2B

Jiemian News, a Chinese media outlet, reported on Thursday that JOYBUY, a cross-border e-commerce export platform owned by leading domestic firm JD.com, announced on Wednesday that it will terminate its cooperation with merchants. In response, JD.com said that JOYBUY would be upgraded to a cross-border business-to-business (B2B) transaction and services platform.

Sources related to JD International stressed that the upgraded platform will continue to serve cross-border e-commerce users and help domestic and foreign cross-border small- and medium-sized sellers and buyers with JD.com‘s digital supply chain capability.

In the same notice, the platform said that it will stop operations of its English site www.joybuy.com and Russian site www.jd.ru on December 9, 2021, and will terminate its cooperation with merchants on the websites in accordance with the agreements previously signed by them.

The platform specifically pointed out that this termination of cooperation only involves its online trading business and does not affect the sales of merchants on the third-party platform.

For unfinished orders existing on the platform, the company requires merchants to communicate with customers to cancel orders or deliver goods within three days of the release of the notice. Its system will cancel all unresponsive orders on November 27. The platform calls on merchants to provide after-sales service according to its rules for orders that have been fulfilled but are still in the after-sales service stage. If necessary, the platform will contact the merchants to coordinate and solve their order problems.

In addition to the English and Russian sites, the platform also offers a Spanish station at www.joybuy.es. In the local e-commerce field, JD International has established joint ventures in Indonesia at www.jd.id and Thailand at www.jd.co.th.

The platform’s business was launched in 2015, and both its English station and Russian station were established in the same year. In 2018, Liu Qiangdong, Chairman of the Board and CEO of JD.com, mentioned in an internal letter that the business in Thailand and Indonesia would be fully rolled out, and its regional offices in New York, Australia and Milan would also be unveiled. At the 2018 Davos Forum in Switzerland, the company also revealed that it would take Los Angeles as its base in the second half of 2018 and adopt the model of a self-built logistics center to enter the U.S. market.

In September this year, JD CENTRAL, jointly built by JD.com and Central Group, a Thai retail enterprise, disclosed that its gross merchandise volume (GMV) increased by 170% year-on-year in 2020. At present, there are eight warehouses established in Thailand, including small- and medium-sized ones, large ones and cloud warehouses, which can achieve delivery of more than 95% of orders in Bangkok on the same day ordered and 85% of orders in the whole country every other day.

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In September 2020, Yan Xiaobing, the former head of JD Retail’s 3C home appliance retail business group, succeeded Zheng Xiaoming as the head of JD.com‘s International Business Department. The original head of the firm’s traditionally strong product category is now in charge of international business, which is regarded by the outside world as a signal that JD.com starts to focus on its overseas operations. The sound development of its Southeast Asian business also means that the company has not slowed down its expansion of international markets.

It can be seen that the company’s pace of internationalization will not slow down – but from its strategic adjustment of shutting down the English and Russian stations of its cross-border B2C platform, the company’s target markets may be emphasized in the future.